NDS Unveils Initiatives to Reduce Carbon Emissions, Demonstrating its Commitment to the Environment

LONDON, UK – IBC Stand 1.171 – NDS, the leading provider of technology solutions for digital pay-TV, today announced a host of initiatives aimed at reducing its carbon footprint and helping digital TV subscribers reduce their energy consumption. The cornerstone of the NDS environmental strategy is its research and development efforts to reduce the power consumption of set-top boxes (STBs) and digital video recorders (DVRs). The initiatives illustrate NDS’ full support of the global energy program of News Corporation, NDS’ parent company. News Corporation has launched a range of measures to reduce its impact on climate change and to engage audiences, employees and business partners on the issue.

The first initiative is an innovative Auto Standby solution which NDS has developed to automatically switch inactive devices into standby mode overnight. The standby consumption of an STB has been estimated to be 10 Watts. If this figure is multiplied by the 500 million digital set-top devices which are projected to be deployed over the next five years, it is clear that reducing standby consumption will yield massive benefits, potentially saving the equivalent carbon emissions of five ‘super’ power stations.

“Currently, an HD DVR can use as much power as a domestic refrigerator and we want to address this,” said James Field, NDS Director of Technology and New Initiatives at NDS, and the company’s ‘Carbon Czar’. “With this new Auto Standby feature, we can help our customers’ customers – namely, consumers of digital TV – to reduce their carbon footprint, with the additional benefit of lowering their electricity bills. We look forward to supporting both the environment and our consumers in this way – one set-top box at a time.”

The new feature monitors whether viewers are using their DVR or HD STB between, for example, the night-time hours of 23.00 and 04.00. If the unit has not been used for a period of two hours after 23.00, an ‘Auto Standby’ warning displays on screen for a few moments. If there is no further use, the box will go into Standby mode automatically and the hard disk will stop spinning.

The Auto Standby solution is just the first step in the NDS environmental strategy. The NDS R&D team is working with STB manufacturers and platform operators around the world to develop innovative solutions to continue to reduce STB power consumption.

NDS is leading the way in the industry; the company is the only middleware vendor participating in the EU group developing a Code of Conduct for digital TV services with the aim of optimizing the energy efficiency of user devices.

Focus on Emissions

Within its own organisation, NDS is engaging with key stakeholders across its business with a target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 10 percent over the next five years, and to become carbon neutral by 2010. Its environmental management program focuses on cost-effective, practical solutions for avoiding and reducing emissions across the business.

NDS is currently working to reduce energy use and where possible, to procure electricity from renewable sources. To that end, the company has spearheaded numerous energy- and carbon-saving initiatives including: investing £1 million in video conferencing equipment across its 25 offices worldwide to reduce the need for travel, conducting IT energy audits to optimize use of technology, using energy-efficient light bulbs in its facilities, and providing staff with practical advice on how to save energy

At IBC 2007 in Amsterdam (September 7-11), NDS is sponsoring trams to encourage public transportation, is using recycled paper for its marketing documents and is recycling much of its exhibition stand.