Instead of a TV you can buy a 4K monitor and some audio speakers. Simple but effective.
Cool. Can you hook me up with a hyperlink to a 75-inch computer monitor?
In Defense of Dumb TVs
351–360 of 391 posts
Re: In Defense of Dumb TVs
#352Or you can just treat your smart TV like a dumb TV. If you ignore the smart part, they generally work just fine as a monitor and speakers and HDMI input switch with ARC and CEC. Choose your TV for the picture quality and whatever other features you want. The cost penalty for buying smarts you don't use is usually very small. You don't need to connect your TV to the Internet. If you need to install a firmware update, connect it to the network then disconnect it, but you may never even need a firmware update if you aren't using the smartness.
Re: In Defense of Dumb TVs
#353Earlier quoted context omitted.
> - 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.
The problem with Google is that they force tracking and ads upon you, with little to no options of opting out.
You don’t know what background processes are running on an Nvidia Shield, do you?
Re: In Defense of Dumb TVs
#354Earlier quoted context omitted.
This, it’s like the designers tested it only outdoors. Who would’ve thought it’s necessary to be able to grab the remote when it’s dark and know what orientation it is in.
I bought some silicon sleeves that fix this issue (the bottom half of the remote face with no buttons is covered by silicon). It also resolve the issue that the remote is very slippery in your hands as well as the issue of being unable to tell which remote goes where if you have multiple Apple TV’s (you can get different color silicon for each TV).
This is a great suggestion, but it is also surprising that it is necessary.
Re: In Defense of Dumb TVs
#355Earlier quoted context omitted.
To be fair, TVs are a decades old market that have paid off great for many companies and they didn’t have ads until recently.
TVs used to much more expensive, and they only became cheap when TV manufacturers realized there’s a ton of money to be made by selling your personal information. A manufacturer that doesn’t do this would not be competitively priced I’m afraid. “Why TVs Have Become So Inexpensive“ => https://youtu.be/NWwawTnT7LM
I don’t agree with this video. I bought a 55” plasma for $800 over 10 years ago. And I bought a Sony Triniton for $1000 around 2000. The price of TVs seems to be fixed around this price point and we seem to get more features, bigger screens, etc and the price stays about the same.
The highest end TVs I see also have ads. So I don’t think this factors into the price at all. It’s just bonus profits on top of existing profits.
If ad data subsidized prices significantly, I wouldn’t expect it in $4,000 TVs. Am I supposed to believe that the TV would be $4,050 without ads? It seems strange that high end TVs would care about these small amounts.
I think this is just a cover story by marketers to garner sympathy.
Re: In Defense of Dumb TVs
#356Earlier quoted context omitted.
fair enough. I guess I don't have such high expectations regarding the multimedial experience. it seems a 30 to 40 inch display would be more than large enough for my home cinema activities (at the moment I'm actually using a 26 inch monitor). and soundwise I'm anyway wearing bluetooth ANC headphones. all connected my notebook.
Yeah, I'm really into watching movies at home (though not quite enough to have a lot of separate expensive gear) so there are a few tick boxes that it's nice to have wrapped up in one purchase :-) If I wasn't really into movies though, then yes, I would just want the simplest thing.. HDR, OLED, etc. are all an expensive waste if you're not watching content aimed for them.
I am biiiig movie watcher, as well! I guess it's a lot about what you get used to. Never had a big TV - maybe that's why I'm happy with my modest setup.
Re: In Defense of Dumb TVs
#357Earlier quoted context omitted.
The thing is, Apple could charge 2-3x, because the prices have gotten so cheap. People would absolutely pay $1000-1200 for a 55" Apple TV with nice software, and maybe a nice brushed aluminum frame that looks nice on the wall. (For comparison, the cheapest 55" I could quickly find from a major retail is around $300, with a "name brand" starting around $400).
Why would it be 2 or 3 times more? Apple phones are between 10 and 15 times the price of the cheapest Android alternatives (iPhone 12 $999 from Apple, Samsung Galaxy A01 $55 from Amazon). Apple could, and probably would, sell a $4000 television.
What? Just no, that's like how a Vespa moped an alternative to a Porsche car?
Re: In Defense of Dumb TVs
#358Earlier quoted context omitted.
Personally I find the problem with the apple remote to be the symmetric design (I would have though the puck mouse would have taught that lesson)
This, it’s like the designers tested it only outdoors. Who would’ve thought it’s necessary to be able to grab the remote when it’s dark and know what orientation it is in.
That's why I love the Nvidia Shield remote. It is triangle shaped, and it has accelerometer that lights up the buttons once you grab and move it.
Re: In Defense of Dumb TVs
#359Earlier quoted context omitted.
My HTC One M8 back in the day shipped with a universal remote app that used the built-in IR blaster and it was fantastic. HTC's subsequent discontinuation of that app (and its replacement with a third-party app that was basically useless) is what immediately drove me to never want to buy an HTC product again.
I had that phone too and I vaguely recall that wasn't HTC's decision to cripple the IR but rather the result of HTC infringing someone else's (because naturally someone would have a patent about something as obvious as using a smart phone as an IR remote....)
we measure innovation by the number of patents given, so gotta keep up the statistics
Re: In Defense of Dumb TVs
#360Earlier quoted context omitted.
The Chromecast does some gross shit. You see it in Pihole if you force it to route its dns through the Pihole. It has some black magic whereby it ignores local dns setting as far as I can tell. I blocked port 53 at firewall and sent it back to a Pihole. Good times.
> I blocked port 53 at firewall and sent it back to a Pihole Im betting my savings this is far from enough, its Google sw, they smart AF. Send that thing back to where you bought it better :)
Better melt it down just to be sure :)