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What is the best dumb TV?

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Re: What is the best dumb TV?

#571
post #207

I don't have a TV, only a few monitors (it's very liberating, actually). So instead I'll talk about my microwave. Yes, unironically! :D It has two dials. OMG how do I survive with only two dials? How do I program it? Well, the answer is, unsurprisingly, that I don't program it. Instead I crank it to watever wattage I need (usually the top one), and the time I think it'll take until the food I becomes hot. Aaaand that…

A couple years ago, I discovered the joy of microwaving at low to mid power. The results are far better for foods that have already been cooked, at the cost of mildly longer cook time. The only thing I nuke at full power is liquid.

[dead]

Re: What is the best dumb TV?

#572
We have a big dumb LG 60PB560V 60" plasma TV connected to a dedicated x86 Arch Linux box with an AMD GPU. It's just awesome experience. Kodi, TVHeadend, MumuDVB. If I were to buy a new TV again, I would definitely want an OLED one for the real black and high contrast, being able to light individual pixels. QLED has more effective backlight tech but it is still LED. Mini-LED is better but nothing beats OLED or plasma. If there were no dumb OLEDs then I would buy a smart one and just wouldn't connect it to the internet. And if it wouldn't work without the internet I would wait till some manufacturer realises there really are people who don't want to connect the TV to the internet.

Re: What is the best dumb TV?

#573

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Haha I'm jealous. My tv can only boot to an app and not an input, but the operating system it came with is SO SLOW, that I have to use some kind of casting device.

I know why it's slow, how this happens: "How much RAM should we put in the TV boss?" "Well, what is the requirement?" "Right now, 1.5 GB." "Then put in 1.5 GB exactly!" "But we might need more after the next update!" "You need 1.5 GB, not one megabyte more, that's the requirement, so that's what you're putting in. End of discussion." ... six months later... "The next upgrade to the TV OS will need 2 GB of memory boss…

That's probably right, but you need to replace 1.5 Gb with 128 Mb :)

Re: What is the best dumb TV?

#574

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Samsung TVs are an extreme example though. They’re the most obnoxious and the most disrespectful of your privacy by implementing all these dark patterns. Not to mention their QLED bullshit, it’s just LED but it’s meant to make you think it’s OLED and pay extra. I despise Samsung and their junk.

QLED coating is not bullshit, I had a PC monitor with it and it won against any other VA panel I compare it with. Now, the name is a but unfortunate, but the tech is there

I think the confusion comes from the impression that quantum dots can be individually controlled like pixels in OLED/plasma. But quantum dots are are actually a "dumb" film which converts blue backlight into a RGB components similarly to how phosphor works in LED light bulbs. Of course QD can improve color gamut and brightness but it is still just an improved LED panel. The name QLED tries to confuse people into thinking that it is somehow similar to OLED but they are completely different technology.

Re: What is the best dumb TV?

#575

Earlier quoted context omitted.

QLED refers to the quantum dot film and is part of the process by which the device generates rich colors. It's not OLED and any person who can't read the difference between Q and O probably shouldn't be pretending to choose a TV based on its technology.

I prefer QLED anyways, even the best OLEDs still have issues with burn in these days.

There are ways to reduce burn-in, some TVs even have this functionality built-in. But it is enough to simply don't display the same patterns on the same place for long periods (I mean days). As long as you are mostly watching movies and zooming to avoid black stripes or replacing black stripes with gray stripes, you are fine...

Re: What is the best dumb TV?

#576
post #455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want a smart TV so I can access Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney+ etc. right from the TV and don't need a separate device for it. Many people suggest buying a dumb tv and then an apple tv. The problem is, now I have two devices and instead of trusting [TV manufacturer] I have to trust Apple. I don't see a big gain in it and also don't consider Apple to be especially trustworthy. [TV manufacturer] should just sell me a…

>[TV manufacturer] should just sell me a smart tv without customer hostile "features". The price will be much higher then. Right now, you're sold the tv at a discount (at a loss, I'm pretty sure) because the manufacturer will make money off you down the road by stealing and selling your data to advertisers. It's kind of like with social media (though to a lesser degree) - don't make the mistake of thinking of yoursel…

I somehow doubt that argument. My 65" smart TV cost about $2000. My advertisement worth as a user is how much? Maybe about $30 per year like a Facebook user [1] (which I would think is to high for Samsungs model)? That's $150 to $300 over the lifespan of the device. I don't consider these extra 15% sooo much higher. It's within the range of regular retail discounts.

[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/234056/facebooks-average...

Re: What is the best dumb TV?

#577
post #491

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never got the meme about numpads on microwaves being needlessly complicated design. On about any decent microwave made in the last 10 year, pushing 1-6 gives a cook time of 1-6 minutes, respectively. Pushing start again after cooking has started will add 30 seconds. For longer cook times, press "time cook." Maybe this sounds a bit complicated, but it's efficient and all written down on the keypad . Mechanical ti…

It's a textbook example on design and UIs, spread by professionals and teachers. Do you just dismiss it as a meme because you don't get it? From your own post, it's more complicated already. With wheel/knob, you have an interface for time and another for power. A little twist means a short value, a long twist means a high value. If you know what you want to do, you already know how to use this microwaves. I think the…

> I think the equivalent for a car would be to have a buttons for 'fast', 'medium', 'slow', 'bumpy terrain', 'road','long trip', 'short trip'. How crazy would that be?

Plenty of upmarket cars have these types of settings, and are routinely praised for it.

Re: What is the best dumb TV?

#578
post #322
post #207

I don't have a TV, only a few monitors (it's very liberating, actually). So instead I'll talk about my microwave. Yes, unironically! :D It has two dials. OMG how do I survive with only two dials? How do I program it? Well, the answer is, unsurprisingly, that I don't program it. Instead I crank it to watever wattage I need (usually the top one), and the time I think it'll take until the food I becomes hot. Aaaand that…

My microwave has a wheel to turn the timer, a wheel to set the WATT, a stop button and a start button. If you press the start button it’ll automatically run for 30 seconds, if you press it again it’ll add another 30 seconds to the current run. It took me maybe 4 years of owning it before I learned of the start button feature. Not sure what the hell people are doing with microwaves that connect to the internet, but I…

End the torture: What's the make/model of the microwave?

Re: What is the best dumb TV?

#580

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Piholes just replace DNS results, so a device using hard coded DNS servers allows it to bypass that. This leads to people redirecting all port 53 traffic to the Pihole, which leads to devices/apps doing DNS over HTTPS, at which point it’s game over unless you can get your self-signed cert onto the device.

but surely these devices are set up to use DHCP and receive home users' DNS servers? giving them static IPs would not work. I suppose it depends on a) if these devices are somehow set up to receive just an IP address over DHCP and use their own hardcoded DNS servers and b) whether the home DHCP server / router would honour this and not enforce its own DNS servers along with the IP address

They’ll be using DHCP, but even when not doing anything nefarious you’re better off using known DNS servers when deploying appliances on random networks because consumer ISPs have a habit of ignoring TTLs and redirecting DNS results when you’re reaching bandwidth quotas and the like.
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