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The falling price of a TV set

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Re: The falling price of a TV set

#151

Post by altacc »

saiya-jin wrote: post #147
Markoff wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you can use TV just as display, that's my primary use of TV, it's just hooked to HDMI cable from laptop, rarely playing some Netflix/Youtube videos to children you can use whatever is your prefered Android or STB box without ads, just hook it to HDMI and you are done, TV will next time automatically start with selected HDMI output and you will see nothing preinstalled by manufacturer

I do exactly the same thing (apart from desktop vs laptop). Just don't connect TV to the internet, feed it from trusty HDMI input and it will be great value with 0 annoyances. But if folks are too lazy to launch videos themselves with few clicks then 'you will be served'

On many smart TVs the content you're watching will still be monitored, as automatic content recognition is based on analysing the images being displayed, regardless of source. Blocking that requires isolation from the internet, by simply not setting up the wifi, or using a network level blocker like pi-hole if you still want to use smart features.

Re: The falling price of a TV set

#153

Post by icebraining »

DanBC wrote: post #137
baddox wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that very well may be true, but it definitely doesn’t match my own intuition based on what I’ve seen. I have seen extensive educational videos for free online about math, art (digital, painting, etc.), music (theory, composition, orchestration, specific instruments, production, etc.), writing, electronics, 3D printing, plumbing, construction and home repair, woodworking, language learning, aviation, filmmakin…

The difficulty is sorting out the terrible videos from the good videos. There's plenty of content created by people who don't really know what they're doing, or who only have a rudimentary understanding. I guess that's true of all education, but it feels like a bigger problem with free online content.

Yes, having choice creates more problems with choosing :) previously you might just have been stuck with the terrible ones.

Re: The falling price of a TV set

#154

Post by FranOntanaya »

seltzered_ wrote: post #72

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 "Twi…

I doubt it captures the change from TV being central in peoples' lifes to being a sideshow to internet. The value of owning a TV in the old times was much higher than now.

Re: The falling price of a TV set

#155

Post by ChuckNorris89 »

WalterBright wrote: post #136

> Automakers, for example, can now expect to see bigger profits from the loans they make on selling cars than from selling the actual cars. I took a community college class in accounting taught by a guy who used to sell cars. He told me the money a dealership made was not from selling the cars, it was from selling the financing. This was in the 1970's. BTW, I recommend taking a basic accounting class. It will pay off…

This. A dealer's margins on the cars are razor thin these days. They make the money on financing and servicing.

Even if you buy the car in cash, the purchase is one time payment, but after that they have you as a recurring customer for the long run with service costs which is where the money comes in.

No wonder modern cars are designed to be as difficult to service as possible by the owner. In my older Fiat I could change the air and cabin filter without any tools in 2 minutes. On my latest one they're both bolted with custom screws. WHY?! On my older one the user manual would be full of instructions on how to perform small maintenance tasks yourself. On the new one all it says is contact your authorized dealer. It's as if the cars of the past were designed by engineers and cars of today are designed by MBAs to be disposable black boxes like laptops or phones where only the genius bar employees have repair access.

The whole auto industry today is a large scale scam where we trade the environment and our health for corporate profits and is being marketed to us as a desirable lifestyle we should all aspire to which I wish not take part of but I can't due to shitty public transport in my city and employers placing their offices in buttfuck middle of nowhere to save on rent.

Unfortunately, the auto industry comprised of manufacturers and dealers have too much power in some European countries, and, as they keep touting how our dependency on car ownership is creating more jobs, their influence on the future of urban planning ain't going nowhere.

Re: The falling price of a TV set

#156

Post by [deleted] »

tbyehl wrote: post #96
seltzered_ wrote: post #72

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 "Twi…

What sucks is that the cycle of falling prices and models being replaced is so fast that they become not worth repairing -- or impossible to repair -- within a few years. I trashed an otherwise perfectly good 4-5 y/o 49" television last year because something on the IR receiver board failed. What leads I could find for a replacement board (a) had them listed around 50% of what a comparable replacement television cost…

[deleted]

Re: The falling price of a TV set

#157

Post by benhurmarcel »

ww520 wrote: post #119
Keverw wrote: post #20

> Automakers, for example, can now expect to see bigger profits from the loans they make on selling cars than from selling the actual cars I've heard of that. Then I heard dealers will give you a hard time if you want to buy a car right out, some will even run your credit without your permission. I don't have the money to go buy a new car right now, but it's pretty sad that saving up and paying for things is so disco…

Dealerships incentivize people to take up loans by giving bigger rebates on financing. You can take advantage of that. After all the price negotiation is done when I buy a car, I would ask the salesperson for the rebates on financing. Usually they have $0 for the all-cash deal, $X for 0% rate loan, $Y for 2%, $Z for 5% loan, where X Then on the first loan payment, pay off the whole thing. Just be sure there's no prep…

> Just be sure there's no prepayment penalty.

There usually is one, but it's still worth doing that.

Re: The falling price of a TV set

#158

Post by jmkni »

ProfessorLayton wrote: post #14

I just purchased a 55" 4K LG TV from Costco for under $400 out the door. The TV's sole purpose is to display an Apple TV's output, and will not be connected to the internet. Interestingly, it has AirPlay and Homekit built-in, but that's largely irrelevant due to the Apple TV. This TV is replacing a 46" ~10yo Samsung purchased for over 1.1k that has very basic "Smart" capabilities like playing MKV files from a USB dri…

I know that Ethernet over HDMI is a thing, I wonder, if the device you are plugging into your smart TV is connected to the internet, could the TV piggyback of that for an internet connection?

Maybe not right now, but when smart TV manufacturers realize people just aren't connecting them to the internet, might they push Sony/Apple etc to implement such a thing.

Re: The falling price of a TV set

#159

Post by wallace_f »

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #155
WalterBright wrote: post #136

> Automakers, for example, can now expect to see bigger profits from the loans they make on selling cars than from selling the actual cars. I took a community college class in accounting taught by a guy who used to sell cars. He told me the money a dealership made was not from selling the cars, it was from selling the financing. This was in the 1970's. BTW, I recommend taking a basic accounting class. It will pay off…

This. A dealer's margins on the cars are razor thin these days. They make the money on financing and servicing. Even if you buy the car in cash, the purchase is one time payment, but after that they have you as a recurring customer for the long run with service costs which is where the money comes in. No wonder modern cars are designed to be as difficult to service as possible by the owner. In my older Fiat I could c…

>The whole auto industry today is a large scale scam where we trade the environment and our health for corporate profits

In theory, it should be easy to solve transport within a metro area with low-carbon solutions such as walking, bicycling and public transport.

I'm continually amazed by how good public transport and walkability are in some cities outside America. Bicycles also have amazing potential and a few successes in the world as mass transit.

It seems the issue is not with engineering a solution, but with the politics of what gets implemented through our politicians and bureaucrats.

Re: The falling price of a TV set

#160

Post by BelleOfTheBall »

eikenberry wrote: post #27
BelleOfTheBall wrote: post #23

Pretty cool article and highlights the problem of Smart TVs well. I don't think I'll ever get a smart TV but I'm privileged in this because my husband is fine with watching movies on a PC monitor and we don't plan to have kids so it's not like we'll have someone in the house clamoring for Disney+ on a separate big screen. Most households cave eventually because, admittedly, it's sweet to get a huge screen with excell…

You can get a smart TV and just not connect it to the internet. Even lobotomized like this, they still work fine as normal TVs. You can also get a smart device (Roku, Amazon Fire, etc.) and hook that up to any TV to stream things (including Disney+). You can also just hook that computer up and it would work as well (a TV is just a big monitor with sound). So there is no need to ever "cave", even if you want streaming…

Well, I don't see much reason to get a smart TV if I won't be using it as a smart TV. Both people in the household are fine watching on a medium-sized screen, why spend $300-400 just to watch on a bigger one with no other benefits? Maybe once they become just ridiculously cheap, yeah.
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