This paradigm both scare and impress me.
Samsung remotely disables TVs looted from South African warehouse
581–590 of 727 posts
Re: Samsung remotely disables TVs looted from South African warehouse
#582Earlier quoted context omitted.
It stretches credulity to suggest that the lack of non-smart TVs on the market causes the popularity of smart TVs. Would you also suggest that the lack of black and white TVs on the market causes the popularity of color TVs?
Smart TV’s are negative costs to the manufacturers as in they get paid more to install them than they actually cost. Manufacturers therefore have zero incentives to manufacture non smart TV’s.
There would be a damn good incentive to manufacture dumb TVs if governments added taxs/duties to their smart TVs if they did not also manufacturer dumb ones.
Re: Samsung remotely disables TVs looted from South African warehouse
#583This paradigm scare and impress me.
Re: Samsung remotely disables TVs looted from South African warehouse
#584This 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.
> And it probably costs I'm pretty sure manufacturers make money through analytics and ads on smart TVs. What consumers like is the at-or-below-cost price of the hardware.
Re: Samsung remotely disables TVs looted from South African warehouse
#585Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Why is everyone so confused that smart TVs are popular? Also the real reason that they're popular: there are no non-smart TVs available.
It stretches credulity to suggest that the lack of non-smart TVs on the market causes the popularity of smart TVs. Would you also suggest that the lack of black and white TVs on the market causes the popularity of color TVs?
Do we have a way to measure popularity that isn't what people are buying? If not, then no, there's no way to tease the two concepts apart.
Re: Samsung remotely disables TVs looted from South African warehouse
#586Earlier quoted context omitted.
The issue is that it's hard to find any not-too-smart TVs with up to date technology (4k, OLED, HDR etc). Unless you spend a fortune on a luxury brand like Bang and Olufsen.
Why isn't the alternative to keep your TV off the network?
A family member has a Samsung “smart” tv that isn’t connected to the internet. It was hideously expensive, one of their high end TVs. It takes about 5 minutes to get from standby to being able to watch something (TV or via HDMI) when it’s working well. It also bugs out constantly with random pop ups with nonsense errors that can’t be dismissed (have to restart), the EPG doesn’t work because setting the date and time doesn’t work (saves random info when you manually enter it; it is often reset to jan 1970 on boot), it frequently freezes on boot and I’ve had to reflash it afterwards several times, and frequently it just won’t allow you to use the TV function at all. All of this is only getting worse and worse.
Sample size = 1/anecdatally this is why I get frustrated at suggestions to simply not connect “smart” TVs to the internet. Internet or not, the software on these things is an absolute nightmare, even if you update them (via USB). It’s unfortunate that it’s either prohibitively expensive or mostly impossible to find non “smart” TVs.
I lucked out and found a 50” 4K TV that has exactly zero “smart” features from some shitty brand for like $600, and it looks fantastic to me, but I am not picky about TV tech like some people are. If it breaks I’ll probably spring for a commercial display or a really big monitor.
Re: Samsung remotely disables TVs looted from South African warehouse
#587Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's definitely real. A/V receivers are the typical devices to support HEC, so you can run one Ethernet cable to the receiver and use a smart TV with the HDMI audio return channel, with one HDMI cable.
Interesting! You're suggesting that the A/V would bridge the ethernet connection over the HDMI cable audio signal?
That's the intent, and it's still in the latest HDMI spec, so I think those threads about HEC being dead were premature. I haven't used it myself.
Re: Samsung remotely disables TVs looted from South African warehouse
#588Earlier quoted context omitted.
I challenge the premise. At least in the United States, the number of subscribers to commercial-free cable channels has decreased significantly in the last 10 years, during which time the number of subscribers to streaming services which show fewer or no ads has increased significantly.
I think it was more of example as using term ”popular” in different context, regardless of it is true or not. Arguing if it is not true, does not take this example away.
Of course it does, because “popular” in the original example was referring to their ubiquity and lack of over viable alternatives. An example of a once-dominant product that appears to be losing in the market to a fast-rising new alternative is not analogous.
Re: Samsung remotely disables TVs looted from South African warehouse
#589Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are, they are called monitors
Monitors generally don't have remote controls or speakers. The latter solved with soundbar but former is important use case.
I have a 4k 43 inch 144hz hdr “gaming” monitor (ROG Strix) and it has a remote. It’s becoming more common now.
Re: Samsung remotely disables TVs looted from South African warehouse
#590Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Why is everyone so confused that smart TVs are popular? Also the real reason that they're popular: there are no non-smart TVs available.
It stretches credulity to suggest that the lack of non-smart TVs on the market causes the popularity of smart TVs. Would you also suggest that the lack of black and white TVs on the market causes the popularity of color TVs?
What else are people going to buy then?