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Ask HN: Are there any 4K “dumb” televisions?

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Re: Ask HN: Are there any 4K “dumb” televisions?

#501

Post by kitsunesoba »

throwaway81523 wrote: post #482
kitsunesoba wrote: post #452

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Local playback is fine, but greatly restricts your options for media boxes. The top end Apple TV 4K for example only has 64GB of storage, and the Nvidia Shield TV caps out at a paltry 16GB. The Apple TV would fit a few shows if you were willing to rotate them out, but wouldn’t be able to provide a “library” experience. The Shield supports external storage, but who wants an external HD or NAS taking up space on their…

> with a client on your streaming box like Plex, Kodi, Infuse, etc connecting to your server. Never heard of Infuse but don't Plex and Kodi both contact the vendor's server? That is enough to make me not want to go anywhere near them. I do know there are home media center distros for the RPI and PC and they are supposedly nice. I'd be ok with using one in principle, but I haven't cared that much about media UI to bot…

Plex definitely connects to third party servers, primarily for verifying subscription status (some features are tied to a subscription) and to make connecting to your Plex box from outside of your local network easier (no IP addresses or something like dyndns).

Kodi I’m not sure about. It was originally XBMC (XBox Media Center) and is open source so even if there’s so phone home element, it can be built without that. Another open source option is Jellyfin, which is a fork of Emby from before that project was closed off.

Re: Ask HN: Are there any 4K “dumb” televisions?

#502

Post by beyondzero »

femto113 wrote: post #294
haunter wrote: post #32

4K monitors. You need a soundbar though or some kind of audio setup + remote. Also no built-in tuner or such but I assume you get a set top box from your service provider or use a streaming device (Apple TV, Fire stick etc.) 4K OLED https://pcpartpicker.com/products/monitor/#r=384002160&P=7 4K IPS https://pcpartpicker.com/products/monitor/#r=384002160&P=2 4K VA https://pcpartpicker.com/products/monitor/#r=384002160&P…

Another approach is to look not for things advertised as "monitors" but instead look for "digital signage"[1]. Nowadays most of these contain some networking features but they'll be oriented at local control (i.e. by you via something on your LAN), not some third-party control center accessed via the internet. Anecdotally this is the approach I took ~20 years ago when buying a (then slightly exotic) plasma flatscreen…

Challenges are features like HDR and having four HDMI inputs.

Planar makes incredible and also expensive displays for the commercial market. They offer a "luxury living" solution but the smallest is 100".

https://www.planar.com/markets/luxury-living/

Re: Ask HN: Are there any 4K “dumb” televisions?

#504

Post by alkonaut »

This question comes up again and again and the sad answer is still:

Buy the best TV for the money (which will be smart), then don’t connect it to the internet. It will be better and so much cheaper than trying to get a dumb TV that you could get a new one if - against all odds - its dormant smart features become an issue. And you’ll likely have money to spare.

Sure, if you are paranoid you can’t be sure it doesn’t connect to open Wi-Fi or even contains it’s own radio hardware - but let’s face it, so could a “dumb” screen. If you are extremely cautious you can likely disable radio hardware via hidden service menus or worst case physically.

Computer screens or commercial screens sadly don’t offer the processing you want for broadcast TV (Which these days is a lot a about upscaling and smoothing poor video). If you watch high quality streaming you’ll want the latest HDR standards.

So your best bet for a dumb tv is a smart one without internet and just ignore that it connects to the neighbors phone via BT, shows an ad (that it shipped with), or pesters you about letting it connect to the internet.

Re: Ask HN: Are there any 4K “dumb” televisions?

#505

Post by throwaway81523 »

kitsunesoba wrote: post #501
throwaway81523 wrote: post #482

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> with a client on your streaming box like Plex, Kodi, Infuse, etc connecting to your server. Never heard of Infuse but don't Plex and Kodi both contact the vendor's server? That is enough to make me not want to go anywhere near them. I do know there are home media center distros for the RPI and PC and they are supposedly nice. I'd be ok with using one in principle, but I haven't cared that much about media UI to bot…

Plex definitely connects to third party servers, primarily for verifying subscription status (some features are tied to a subscription) and to make connecting to your Plex box from outside of your local network easier (no IP addresses or something like dyndns). Kodi I’m not sure about. It was originally XBMC (XBox Media Center) and is open source so even if there’s so phone home element, it can be built without that.…

Why does plex have subscriptions at all? I understand (at least theoretically) that not all software is free, but charging for it the normal way (you pay money and buy a copy that you then use without it phoning home) works perfectly well too. Anyway I had had the impression that Plex also sends at least the metadata of your video library to its home server.

I didn't realize Kodi was XBMC or that you could build it yourself. Thanks for that info.

Re: Ask HN: Are there any 4K “dumb” televisions?

#506

Post by brokenmachine »

I was getting sick of my TV nagging about a firmware update that I didn't want to do, so I used Access Restrictions on my router to block it from accessing anything outside my LAN.

That was a good solution for me because I can still use the inbuilt apps for playing local media from my NAS, but no possibility of firmware "upgrades", ads or firmware "upgrades" that include ads.

Re: Ask HN: Are there any 4K “dumb” televisions?

#507

Post by brokenmachine »

jonnycoder wrote: post #332
WillPostForFood wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vizio, as a public company, now has to share their ad revenue data: https://www.theverge.com/platform/amp/2021/11/10/22773073/vi...

Most of the ad money comes from WatchFree Plus app on the tv. "Vizio execs said 77 percent of that money comes directly from advertising, like the kind that runs on its WatchFree Plus package of streaming channels, a group that recently expanded with content targeting. The next biggest contributor is the money it makes selling Inscape data about what people are watching."

>The next biggest contributor is the money it makes selling Inscape data about what people are watching

sigh.

Re: Ask HN: Are there any 4K “dumb” televisions?

#508

Post by brokenmachine »

caymanjim wrote: post #99
jjoonathan wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does (consumer) monitor tech always seem to lag TV tech by a few years? It looks like the situation is still that in the 4k OLED space there are a few ~$4000+ monitors and dozens of ~$1000 TVs. Per the pcpartpicker link, maybe the Gigabyte FO48U will change that, but it's still out of stock. Besides, I feel like this has happened before with HDR and 4k and IPS. First it shows up in TVs, a year later it is cheap i…

TV display quality is dogshit compared to monitors. Even cheap low-end monitors tend to have better displays. They aren't the same panels at all.

I'm using a Sony 43" X720E. IPS. I'm quite happy with it, can't complain. It's as good as any monitor I've seen except OLED, and the size is wonderful. I would like to have 120Hz though.

I will eventually go to OLED but 48" is the smallest size OLED TV available, and that's a bit bigger than I'd want on my desk.

Hopefully a reasonably-priced 43" OLED will come out.

Re: Ask HN: Are there any 4K “dumb” televisions?

#509

Post by brokenmachine »

kitsunesoba wrote: post #501
throwaway81523 wrote: post #482

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> with a client on your streaming box like Plex, Kodi, Infuse, etc connecting to your server. Never heard of Infuse but don't Plex and Kodi both contact the vendor's server? That is enough to make me not want to go anywhere near them. I do know there are home media center distros for the RPI and PC and they are supposedly nice. I'd be ok with using one in principle, but I haven't cared that much about media UI to bot…

Plex definitely connects to third party servers, primarily for verifying subscription status (some features are tied to a subscription) and to make connecting to your Plex box from outside of your local network easier (no IP addresses or something like dyndns). Kodi I’m not sure about. It was originally XBMC (XBox Media Center) and is open source so even if there’s so phone home element, it can be built without that.…

Kodi doesn't phone home.

Re: Ask HN: Are there any 4K “dumb” televisions?

#510

Post by babypuncher »

danielheath wrote: post #417
behnamoh wrote: post #397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are some better alternatives?

Plex, if you have a spare machine to run it on. Free if the household share a username/password.

Plex isn't an alternative, its an app that plays content you host yourself, plus whatever sponsored crap Plex wants to shove into the UI. For people wanting to watch Netflix or Amazon Prime, this isn't a meaningful suggestion.

The Apple TV is a drop-in replacement for a Roku or Fire TV that lacks built-in advertising

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