Waste electricity? Really it is not much, I would say about 25 watts for SVP, multiply that by 24 hours and 30 days which means 18000 watts hours or 18 KWH, times that to average electricity cost at 10 cents is what? $1.80 a month.
25 watts on VP is pretty much over-estimated the power consumption. Since you said it requires two power adapters, that is how I come up with realistic estimate of how much power is used. Its not that much really. Your TV is worse on power consumption than VP itself
Do SmartVP have emergency button if your remote control is broke and you need to call tech support? NtouchVP has emergency button, if your remote control is broken, don't you know you can press button with "SVRS" on the left side of main unit to answer the call or call tech support for remote control replacement?
Have you had NTVP? If so, comparing to the video quality with SVP, better, same or worse?
I now have P3 which uses H.364 while my VP-200 still using H.363 and I still note that VP-200 have better video quality than P3! I can see why, don't forget who made these SVP? Its TelyHD designed for SkyPe which is really focus on hearing audience and Hearing people don't sign much but uses more voice. Because hearing people don't sign which makes it easier for TelyHD video and audio to look and sound more superior than Sorenson's Video/sound. That is why they were able to do VCO better. So Purple only add on flasher system on top of it, thats why there is two power adapters. Sorenson's mind really pretty focus on Deaf's needs when it comes to video so they wrote codec where there is intensive hand movements and had made it more clearer for Deafies.
I still don't have SVP, and can not determine at 100% which one is better.