Audio Video News

If you live in an eco-conscious city, you may have heard something about "earth hour" over the weekend. In various locales, public awareness campaigns were conducted for the March 29 at 8 p.m. holiday from electricity. National landmarks went dark, as did a few candlelit restaurants, and so did Google, which flipped its white homepage to black for the occasion.  The idea is to raise awareness about the effects electricity consmpution has on climate change.

If you were at home at 8 p.m. on Saturday night (hey, that's movie night at many homes) and knew about earth hour, did you make a concerted effort to scale back your electricity use and turn off your home theater?

We all know our HDTV sets, receivers and speakers chug a lot of juice - the electricity bill is evidence of that. What are some tips, tricks, or gadgets you use to keep your home-theater related power-guzzling to a minimum? Some people swear by power conditioners and battery backup devices, others think home automation can save watts. A few people would rather forgo all lighting than give up any previous minutes in front of the stereo system. -Rachel Rosmarin

Earth Hour