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Samsung remotely disables TVs looted from South African warehouse

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Re: Samsung remotely disables TVs looted from South African warehouse

#311

Post by nsxwolf »

arduinomancer wrote: post #287

This thread feels very...Hacker News Bubble? Why is everyone so confused that smart TVs are popular? Being able to just turn on your TV and open Netflix without messing around with inputs/other devices is a huge benefit for non-technological people. And it probably costs <$50 for the manufacturer to include whatever chip is running linux in the TV, its a no-brainer.

The software in the newer LG OLEDs is so good I haven't bothered hooking up any of my boxes to my new TVs. I'm sure in a few years the UI will start to feel sluggish and it will be time to plug something in, but for now its a great experience, far better than any smart TV I've used before.

Re: Samsung remotely disables TVs looted from South African warehouse

#312

Post by alerighi »

Smart TVs are shit. Especially the modern ones. They got worse rather than better!

They are slow and laggy, even doing the most basic things like turning on or changing channel. It was faster the CRT that I used 20 years ago, and it had to warm up before displaying an image! But at least the audio started immediately...

They are also not usable. The UI is crappy and you don't find the most common settings, for example I had to search on the internet where to find the option to disable automatic turn off after 4 hours on an LG TV, the remotes are full of useless buttons (I don't want a huge Netflix button on a remote that if I press by mistake I will lose 10 seconds of the program I'm watching!).

Now I'm using a Sony TV, that I purchased 2 years ago only because it was the TV with less smart crap in it, it works pretty well, it does what a TV should do, let me watch TV channels, program guide, teletext (yes, I still use it), and nothing else (well in theory it has Netflix and other apps in it... but I never connected it to the internet and they don't get in the way). For all the other things, a simple media center PC does them better.

Re: Samsung remotely disables TVs looted from South African warehouse

#313

Post by nate_meurer »

karaterobot wrote: post #265
nate_meurer wrote: post #173

I'd love to hear folks' recommendations for non-smart TV's. I haven't paid attention to this topic in a while and I haven't kept up with the technology.

I bought the Sceptre 65" (model U658CV-UMC) based on a recommendation in another HN thread last year. There's not a lot to say about it, since all it does is show a signal on a big TV screen, but that's also its biggest benefit. It's an $800 4K 65" TV that doesn't spy on you, so big thumbs up from me. I'm not sure if it's got the best panel in the world or not. It's definitely good enough for me. One thing I accept a…

Thanks. I'm the same. I'm sensitive to audio quality, but I'm pretty oblivious to the quality of TV screens. I'll happily watch a movie on a laptop as long as I can hook it up to a decent sound system.

Re: Samsung remotely disables TVs looted from South African warehouse

#314

Post by hughrr »

scns wrote: post #156
plussed_reader wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gigabyte does not do business in good faith. I am extremely leery of anything related to them now; they are not a safe brand. https://www.windowscentral.com/gigabyte-allows-returns-or-ex...

Hm, don't want to side with with Gigabyte here, but drawing a conclusion from a test of a PSU enduring 120% load for an extended period of time failing would not make me dismiss all their products.

They're fucking shit. I've had to replace once twice here and it's less than 50% of the stated load.

There's a Be Quiet unit in there now like the rest of the PCs in my place.

Re: Samsung remotely disables TVs looted from South African warehouse

#315

Post by iso1210 »

fulafel wrote: post #242
walrus01 wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I bought a high-end Samsung smart TV in 2017 and simply never gave it the wifi password and never connected it to ethernet. I use it as a dumb screen connected to two consoles and a living room PC for movies. Thankfully we're not yet at the point where my xbox one or PS4 will give it a DHCP lease, NAT and default route/gateway outbound and 100Mbps ethernet over the HDMI cable .

It's just a missing feature in your console, Ethernet over hdmi (hec) is a thing and who knows what you need to prevent this (hdmi firewall?)

Convert HDMI to SDI and back, but you'll need a HDMI-to-SDI converter that ignores HDCP (i.e. either pages of forms explaining how you've got a legitimate reason for doing it and an expensive converter, or a cheap Chinese one)

Re: Samsung remotely disables TVs looted from South African warehouse

#316

Post by criddell »

r00fus wrote: post #299
criddell wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For now, that works. It's easy to imagine a time when the TV includes it's own 5G modem or that Samsung would make a deal with Amazon or Comcast for access to their wifi mesh networks so the TV can get online without user intervention.

Amazon sidewalk [1] has entered the chat. The article focuses on "neighbors" but I'm pretty sure the main use case is to enable smart TVs and other IOT to phone home despite being disallowed. [1] https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/05/amazon-devices-will-...

Thanks for posting that. I was trying to remember what it was called and couldn't.

Re: Samsung remotely disables TVs looted from South African warehouse

#317

Post by bluGill »

alerighi wrote: post #275
bluGill wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The ecological impact of this shouldn't be ignored. Pretty low so long as they only use it for theft. Thieves will soon learn not to steal TVs as there is no value in it. As such it is only a small number of bricked TVs that are landfilled early - nothing compared to all the TVs already landfilled. Now if this is used for something other than theft cases it can get bad, but in this case at least it is a good thing…

What proof? A receipt from a shop barely lasts the 2 years warranty product if you don't photocopy it, because it's printed on thermal paper. And a lot of people doesn't either keep it. Also is this service going to be maintained forever? The reality is that new TVs and in general new electronics are effectively disposable products, not meant to last in the time. While I have at my house an old CRT with valves in it,…

> And nobody, I mean no user, complained that there wasn't a way to remotely block their TV in case someone steal it.

Only because they didn't know they could. Where TV theft is a problem people will be happy for this where it isn't people will rightly be more worried about the things you point out.

> We should start form the past,

Modern electronics is a lot more reliable than the old stuff. Sure you can't repair it anymore, but you also don't need to, it just works.

Re: Samsung remotely disables TVs looted from South African warehouse

#318

Post by kybernetikos »

When I was young, you could steal a TV, or a VHS or CD or DVD collection, or a phone or (a little later) a GPS or media unit in a car or books.

Now almost everything can be remotely disabled, and nobody really owns anything anyway, they just pay for subscriptions to things.

I wonder what it does to society if crime becomes effectively impossible. A lot of writers have suggested that some level of deviance is essential for a healthy society.

Re: Samsung remotely disables TVs looted from South African warehouse

#319

Post by hughrr »

criddell wrote: post #115
ollien wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recently bought a TCL TV specifically because I trust Roku to maintain their software more than someone like Samsung. The ads drive me insane, even if they're relatively unobtrusive. At least in that case the TV was much cheaper (~$500 for a 55" TV)

Roku watches what you are watching and shares that data with their trusted partners. Same as Android TV (whatever it's called now) and Amazon Fire. AFAIK, the only mainstream streaming device that doesn't do this is Apple TV.

I got screwed by Sony for a smart TV that was abandoned within a year. Then none of the streaming sticks worked on it due to HDCP compability issues.

In the end I bought a broken Samsung 32" 1080p mostly dumb TV on ebay for £0.99, fixed it (power supply capacitor problem) and steal all my content and ship it on USB sticks to the TV which will quite happily play h264 / mp3 encoded stuff.

Fuck the whole industry.

Re: Samsung remotely disables TVs looted from South African warehouse

#320

Post by vizzier »

alerighi wrote: post #312

Smart TVs are shit. Especially the modern ones. They got worse rather than better! They are slow and laggy, even doing the most basic things like turning on or changing channel. It was faster the CRT that I used 20 years ago, and it had to warm up before displaying an image! But at least the audio started immediately... They are also not usable. The UI is crappy and you don't find the most common settings, for exampl…

Gigabyte's latest OLED monitor looks appealing. LG OLED without the smart features. Recently featured in a LTT video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBE9DL7MlG0
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