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In Defense of Dumb TVs

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Re: In Defense of Dumb TVs

#281

Post by karolist »

listic wrote: post #260
karolist wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is but much of that is overblown because of really old plasma screens - early 2000s and such. Some manufacturers dealt with it better than others. If you're buying an old plasma without burn-in after ~10 years of use with minimal attention you'll be OK. I make sure not to leave paused frame for longer than 30m periods and enable screensavers where possible. You sometimes can see contours of an image after turning…

Thanks for the tips! I see someone selling '11gen 200Hz' plasma, where does that stand?

I personally can vouch for old Panasonics, anything else is probably not worth the hassle. Just make sure it's FHD screen, has HDMI ports and it's a Panasonic - you can't go wrong. 11gen probably refers to G11, which you want to target at the oldest, the TV I've wrote about is a G11 panel.

www.avforums.com/threads/g11-panasonic-plasma-release.754974/

Re: In Defense of Dumb TVs

#282

Post by atoav »

blkhp19 wrote: post #205
atoav wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The best option that I know of today (in terms of resulting usabilty and long term reliability) is using a dumb computer monitor and roll the rest yourself with a Raspi. While this option is certainly not available to all, it is the only thing that will really fit your needs. I completely gave up on finding anything decent in that market.

The best for who? This is a ridiculous take, nobody wants to roll their own TV UX except HN users looking for a weekend project. What usability / long-term reliability perk does your own software running on a RPI have over an Apple TV plugged into a dumb TV / monitor?

The best for me obviously. I was the one who made the comment and declaring an object "the best" of any category is always a subjective statement.

My own solution has the pros:

- I control precisely what I need and what not, both in terms of features and in terms of usability

- I control when it gets changed/updated

- I control which data flows in and out of the system

- Your device is not a brick when the manufacturer decides to end the support or shuts down the wrong server

The obvious downside is that it means work and requires a certain set of skills. Whether it is worth it or not depends on how important that thing is for you and how much all the TVs suck at doing what you want in the way you want it done.

Re: In Defense of Dumb TVs

#283

Post by iFreilicht »

o-__-o wrote: post #48
julianlam wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This may be tinfoil-hat adjacent, but I have heard that the allure of advertising data is so high that TV manufacturers will program their software to connect to any open WiFi network in order to deliver their collected data. By the way, your post is basically the article, except they mention Sceptre TVs, who specialize in making dumb tv panels.

So I advertised sceptre TVs here last year about this time. I’ve had one for a year now and I do not recommend it. The color recreation is garbage, lots of glare, poor upscaling, and basically it’s everything you would expect out of a $200 55” tv (or $380 75”, they are stupid cheap) . Also my TV has a line of dead pixels and sceptre seems to have forgotten about my RMA. While I won’t replace it with an LG Cx series o…

It’s worth noting that they sell very high-peice dumb TVs for over 2000$ as well now, so I’d expect those to have pretty amazing panels built in.

Re: In Defense of Dumb TVs

#284

Post by iFreilicht »

reedjosh wrote: post #162
gpspake wrote: post #103

Huge "dumb tv" proponent here I've had an nvidia shield for years and it checks all the boxes for me. It runs android and from what I know, it's one of the most well supported android devices period in terms of consistent updates. Here's why I love it: - I have access to the play store for apps, not some proprietary tv manufacturer subset of poorly developed apps. That means I can install the retroarch/plex/etc andro…

> - I have access to the play store for apps, not some proprietary tv manufacturer subset of poorly developed apps. That means I can install the retroarch/plex/etc android apps directly from play. > - It has built in google assistant which I use every day to play music and yt videos (as well as controlling other stuff in my all-google house. You're not getting it. The whole point is to avoid constant tracking. If you…

The point is to get to choose the experience you want, and if you want the simplicity of having an Android box connected to your dumb Tv, that’s a-ok. If you want to go kore custom and just have a raspi with plex on it, that’s great, too.

The problem with smart TVs is that they force tracking and ads upon you, with little to no options of opting out.

Re: In Defense of Dumb TVs

#285

Post by [deleted] »

systemvoltage wrote: post #142
WalterBright wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A remote designed by someone who thought about it for ten seconds (why do modern TVs have dozens of buttons no one ever uses?). I'd prefer the remote as an app on my phone. My desk is covered with remotes. Remotes are so 1980s :-/

Physical remote > any app. By far. Die apps, die. I want dedicated remotes for lights, stereo, curtains, garage door, and TV. Apps won’t be around – forget 20 years, 5 years if you’re lucky. A company can disappear along with its stupid fucking app. About the only advantage an app has is a keyboard.

[deleted]

Re: In Defense of Dumb TVs

#286

Post by [deleted] »

yftsui wrote: post #64

I upgraded my TV to a Sony X950 because I cannot find a decent dumb TV, got really annoyed with the super buggy Google Android TV thing. The cold start time is absurdly high, the basic feature of a TV - built in OTA TV player has a bug that the channel display stays on forever, the Airplay frequently play video with no sound. The only fix is find the 3 level deep restart menu item, because power on / off doesn’t matt…

[deleted]

Re: In Defense of Dumb TVs

#287

Post by Macha »

PeterisP wrote: post #236
colordrops wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure i sound like a luddite but why does anyone need a 65" screen.

Do people need a 15" computer monitor? If instead of a chair-desk-monitor you're sitting at a couch 5 times further from the screen, the equivalent screen size is 5 times larger, so 75" for the equivalent of what a 15" monitor gives you at your desk.

Meanwhile to sit somewhere where a 75" TV in my living room takes up a corresponding field of view to my 27" PC monitor I think I'd need to knock a few walls and sit in my neighbours

Re: In Defense of Dumb TVs

#288

Post by interpol_p »

anuragsoni wrote: post #76
pridkett wrote: post #15

I’m really pleased the author called out the Apple TV as a device that lets you avoid ads. We tried to go cheap on another of our TVs and get an Amazon Fire Stick and in addition to it being not as smooth (combo of UX and speed) at the Apple TV, it had a good amount of ads all over the place. There’s lots of griping about the cost of an Apple TV 4k, but I’ll pay that extra $100 to avoid ads and not be tracked so exte…

I like the apple tv interface, but I really disliked the remote that ships with it. The touchpad like interface feels really awkward, i would lift it up the wrong way pretty much every time. I remember reading about an apple certified 3rd party remote that was more like a traditional tv remote but that was only sold in the european market for some reason. If they ever decide to switch back to a proper remote i'll tak…

I initially preferred the old, aluminium Apple TV remote when I first got the new one. But now, especially with kids I really appreciate the new one.

- My four year old can search for shows by asking Siri instead of needing to type

- When we're all watching together you can slide your finger over the touch surface to make one of the icons wobble in 3D. It's great when you're asking which episode someone would like to watch, you can highlight and focus the UI for them

- No batteries and charges by lightning. I never had those R2032 batteries for the Aluminium remote whenever it ran out

Agreed on lifting it up the wrong way every time. I bought a few cheap silicon covers for mine in bright colours and it really helps

Re: In Defense of Dumb TVs

#289

Post by aembleton »

Arn_Thor wrote: post #58

While I let my smart TV connect to the internet for firmware update reasons (bug fixes), I’m running my entire home network through NextDNS, and before that a PiHole. Not seeing any ads in the UI, and I note some attempted logging traffic is blocked. Before I upgraded to LG last year I had a Samsung and it was trying to ping home constantly. It constituted 80% of outbound requests denied by the PiHole

Out of interest - Why do you use both a PiHole and NextDNS?

I removed my PiHole once I got NextDNS as it just seemed redundant.

Re: In Defense of Dumb TVs

#290

Post by throw0101a »

lostlogin wrote: post #178
throw0101a wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great except for the fact that smart TVs connected to the Internet have all sorts of privacy concerns: * https://techcrunch.com/2019/12/01/fbi-smart-tv-security/ Samsung actually released a TV app to tell you what it's doing: * https://fortune.com/2020/01/18/samsung-smart-tv-data-privacy... Which is nice, in a way, but it'd be better if they just didn't. I'd be much more trusting of Apple TV being connected to the In…

As a bad alternative. By the smart TVs, add a Pihole to the network. Block port 53 if it isn’t from the Pihole and add an as list like the one below. It seems to work well. https://github.com/Perflyst/PiHoleBlocklist/blob/master/Smar...

1. I'm not going to tell my parents to get a Pihole.

2. Wait until your smart TV starts using DNS-over-HTTPS (DoH) to by-pass it. (Paul Vixie will be proved right eventually IMHO.)

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