So a DVD is this disc, right, and you have it, you have it in your hands and then you have it in your DVD player. Streaming video uses your TV or your computer, it uses your internet connection, it uses any number of other computers between you and Netflix or whoever you’re streaming from. And then that company has a lot of computers too. All on now, all working now, all needing support staff and a lot of electricity. Yet streaming is more ecological than shiny discs.
Americans can save enough power to run 200,000 households a year by streaming videos with efficient devices instead of driving to the store to buy or rent DVDs.
Researchers studied five different ways of viewing movies and, using a systematic method called life cycle analysis, estimated the energy used and carbon dioxide emissions produced for each. They determined that video streaming can be more energy efficient and emit less carbon dioxide than the use of DVDs, depending on the DVD viewing method.
That’s the academic world’s version of a come-on title: it’s saying that watching films is wasting energy resources, regardless of which method you use. But beyond the guilt trip, there is analysis and you’ve already guessed why streaming wins:
“End-user devices are responsible for the majority of energy use with both video streaming and DVD viewing,” says Eric Masanet, associate professor of mechanical engineering and of chemical and biological engineering at Northwestern University.
“Much of the energy savings estimated in shifting to video streaming comes from shifting end-user devices to more energy-efficient alternatives—in other words, away from old DVD players,” he says.