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The falling price of a TV set

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Re: The falling price of a TV set

#71

Post by zamadatix »

gruez wrote: post #62

>With less demand for actual TVs, there’s less reason for manufacturers to price them even more highly. I don't buy this reasoning. Tablets and phones supposedly replaced laptops and desktops (or so I've heard), yet the prices for those hasn't really budged in the past couple of decades. >But the most interesting and telling reason for why TVs are now so cheap is because TV manufacturers have found a new revenue stre…

Past couple of decades? Hardly, prices have gone through the floor in that time. That's not to say more expensive models can't be found just as with TVs but your typical home user computer is most certainly a bargain these days. Enterprise/workstation/gaming are still premium though.

Ad revenue includes preinstalled apps, they are getting upfront money and then income over time. On a product that $300 dollars to the consumer and additional $100 is a huge margin increase to just be blowing off like this.

Re: The falling price of a TV set

#72

Post by seltzered_ »

If you look at a chart of TV prices over 50-80 years, this has always been a trend [1]. Institutes using this as an argument for declining poverty are missing the point that while most goods have gone down in cost over the years, services (childcare) and things of value (education) have gone up substantially [2].

[1]: http://www.businessinsider.com/chart-of-the-day-the-incredib...

[2]: Elizabeth Warren's classic "Twin Income Trap" talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akVL7QY0S8A

Re: The falling price of a TV set

#73

Post by zamadatix »

pmiller2 wrote: post #50
eikenberry wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No worries with sound. There are plenty of audio enthusiasts that will have nothing to do with a system like this and there will always be plenty of options because of them.

I know this isn't your central point, but you should know that a speaker can be used as a microphone, and vice versa. Granted, a speaker won't be a very good microphone, but it is possible one could design an exploit that uses this capability to record audio and send the results off to who knows where.

Assuming the chipset support jack restasking (most don't).

Re: The falling price of a TV set

#75

Post by zamadatix »

ratiolat wrote: post #30

I have a 43" Panasonic plasma TV, which has THX certified display panel. Paid about 800USD for it back 2013 I believe. I'd like to replace it with a LCD one, but oh boy how much do the THX certified ones cost - https://www.thx.com/product-finder/

Considering all but 3 of the 4k certified panels are Panasonic I think you're looking at the cost of panels from Panasonic that pay for the particular certification rather than looking at the cost of high end panels overall.

Re: The falling price of a TV set

#76

Post by ChuckMcM »

uptown wrote: post #3

"The trade-offs for cheap TVs is that customers are themselves becoming the product for TV makers [...] For something to be as cheap as a great TV, people have to give something up — whether they know it or not." Just never give the TV its own direct connection to the internet. Use another device that you do trust, to feed the big screen its content.

If the trends from previous schemes follow, then soon someone will offer you a 'free' TV streamer which streams what ever you want for free while simultaneous streaming 3 or 4 other streams, using your behavior on your stream to mimic you on the other streams which capture revenue from advertising that is never actually viewed.

Re: The falling price of a TV set

#77

Post by jccooper »

mark-r wrote: post #44
musicale wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The price of dumb TVs has also fallen dramatically.

Can you even get a dumb TV anymore? I found it surprisingly difficult when I replaced mine 2 years ago. So far I've been OK with simply not plugging it into the Internet.

At Best Buy, their store brand (Insignia) is not "smart". Everything else seems to be.

Re: The falling price of a TV set

#78

Post by opan »

HenryKissinger wrote: post #21
jaytaylor wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just get a Chromecast or any other streaming player device and hook it up to the TV with only HDMI. Solved- TV don't need to be able to spy on you.

This is not always practical. Either you lay your HDMI cable across the living room, or you have to find a spot for your laptop near the television (not always possible), and then you have to get up and walk to the laptop to change anything.

Your last point about walking up to the laptop isn't exactly true.

I've gotten creative with HTPCs doing stuff over ssh. mpv (video player) can be controlled from the shell it's launched from. I just keep a tmux session going and then I can play YouTube videos or stuff off my file server. sshfs for file server access is nice and simple. I use various other computers or my phone to connect and run commands. This also makes it easy for other people to pull up stuff. It runs on a guest account, so I don't mind telling them the password. They can search for a video on their own machine and just paste it into the shell. Since all the normal controls work, you can easily adjust volume, take screenshots, etc.

mpv also works for viewing images, so it's similarly good for showing the room a picture, local or on the web.

The only pain point is when someone really wants to pull up a website in a browser. I've used a bluetooth keyboard adapter, a steam controller, the "xmouse" android app... Things work best when I can handle them via mpv or other terminal stuff, though.

Re: The falling price of a TV set

#80

Post by dehrmann »

saagarjha wrote: post #26
Avshalom wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And as long as they don't try to connect to any public wifi they see... https://www.xfinity.com/mobile/network/map?zip=87111

That link has your ZIP in it, if you weren’t aware.

I like to use 10001 for this. It's valid, populated, easy to remember, and not 90210.
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