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It’s Still Stupidly, Difficult to Buy a ‘Dumb’ TV

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Re: It’s Still Stupidly, Difficult to Buy a ‘Dumb’ TV

#121

Post by littlecranky67 »

cookie_monsta wrote: post #18
jahnu wrote: post #7

Is there a reason I’m not aware of that not connecting a smart to to a network isn’t enough? Do they auto-connect to open Wi-Fi for example?

FTA: > I’m usually told something akin to: “well, just don’t connect the TV to the Internet!” But that route locks you out of firmware updates, and some TV makers remove functionality if you refuse to participate in their online ecosystem. Many smart TV GUIs also need to load before you’re even allowed to switch laggy HDMI inputs. (although this is exactly what I did with the Samsung smart TV I picked up on a bargain…

I think most of them could be updates through USB or by attaching a cable. you might need to dig a little through the interwebs to find a Howto for your model, but firmware updating over usb/cable is very common.

Re: It’s Still Stupidly, Difficult to Buy a ‘Dumb’ TV

#122

Post by littlecranky67 »

blenderdt wrote: post #52

There are a lot of stories that TVs still try to connect to open Wi-Fi networks while you didn't configure any. I wonder if those stories are really true. Because personally I never ever would configure internet on my TV. I just use HDMI as input. But this is also because I don't have cable TV. Imho dropping cable TV is one of the best ROIs you can make.

> I wonder if those stories are really true.

Me too, I strongly suspect it is just a rumour or urban legend. I can't find any reliable sources that could name a vendor or model number of TVs that do this. And it is not like it would be hard to prove/verify for tech-journalists, yet there has been no credible report of it.

I do, however, think that there are quite some TVs out there that will just refuse to work if you don't connect them/shut of the internet. But if you get one of those, just return it to the store.

Re: It’s Still Stupidly, Difficult to Buy a ‘Dumb’ TV

#123

Post by revanx_ »

I bought a 58 inch samsung tv in 2016 for around 250 euro. 1080p, barebone no smart features, two hdmi ports and two usb 2.0 ports. I wouldn't give it up even if someone payed me double today. It works as intended and that's all I care about. I use it daily. Yes, color vise it's a TN lcd panel so about as good as it can be expected but none of that matters because you simply get used to it.

I haven't checked but I think you could probably still find something bare-bone today it's just that people want the greatest shit and don't want to settle for less. Maybe try something that isn't OLED or 4K and you might be surprised...

Re: It’s Still Stupidly, Difficult to Buy a ‘Dumb’ TV

#124

Post by NikolaNovak »

zasdffaa wrote: post #65

A serious, non-trolling question to all. I've not had a TV for decades and for me that's a good thing. I've watched TVs in pubs (I'm in the uk) and round my mates' houses so it's not become some strange alien thing, and I'm still happy to be without it (that is, on balance; there are good things about broadcast TV and some bad, and the latter outweighs the former for me). In your opinion, is there actual overall valu…

I think we need to distinguish a television as a hardware device, and what here we would call "cable channels".

If you have a family, tv is not a necessity per se but a convenient norm. It allows more than one person to watch the Disney or Netflix show or movie, or even a DVD if your inclinations are toward vintage antiques ;-)

I agree that I have not watched a cable channel in more than a decade.

Re: It’s Still Stupidly, Difficult to Buy a ‘Dumb’ TV

#125

Post by betamaxthetape »

csa wrote: post #103

For a tech periodical, this seems to be a stretch for content. Thirty seconds poking around the interwebs led me to this Samsung 65” 4K “digital signage” for $1125: https://www.samsung.com/us/business/displays/4k-uhd/qb-serie... 43, 50, 55, 75, and 85 also available. I assume that these are as good as or better than most people have in their homes (esp. with Vizio), but probably not as good as what home theater enthu…

That TV is still smart by my standards. It runs Tizen, features something called "Samsung Workplace" (which "supports wireless cloud service access"), and has WiFi (whether or not this WiFi connection can be used by Samsung to update the OS is not specified, but I would think it is likely).

Re: It’s Still Stupidly, Difficult to Buy a ‘Dumb’ TV

#126

Post by andrepd »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #102
BiteCode_dev wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, they love also facebook, which monetize all their private life or sugary food, which alter your diet balance or cigarettes who can literally kill you. Not to mention all of them are addictive. The fact consumers love something doesn't make it a good thing.

It does explain why smart TVs would be easy to buy and dumb TVs difficult to buy. For example, I do not care if a TV is smart or dumb. All I care is how quickly it turns on because I am connecting it to an Apple TV anyway. Even as a person who would rather have a dumb TV than a smart TV, my actions continue to support smart TV manufacturers because I am not willing to spend the time and effort required to seek out du…

But if there are no dumb TVs for sale, how do you know if that's the consumer's desire or not?

The much simpler explanation is that TVs plastered with ads and surveillance are more profitable to companies.

Re: It’s Still Stupidly, Difficult to Buy a ‘Dumb’ TV

#127

Post by robgibbons »

ramraj07 wrote: post #77
mrjin wrote: post #41

Smart TVs were created for all kinds of agendas but none were actually for us the consumers. All those agendas require an OS which takes time to boot. Making it worse, some of those TVs' CPU are crap and thus every operation takes much longer than those dumb ones. Lots of vendors also start to ship new remotes that removed all the essential buttons, especially the video source button, and I have to press 5 or more ti…

If you’re happy with a computer monitor as a tv good for you. I’m spoiled by super large screen 4K Qdot displays. If I really have to choose not to get a smart tv, the simple solution is actually to get a really good projector.

Even projectors these days are becoming "smart". Though they tend to still be the exception currently, I suspect they will soon be tough to avoid.

Re: It’s Still Stupidly, Difficult to Buy a ‘Dumb’ TV

#128

Post by bXVsbGVy »

rbanffy wrote: post #3
supersync wrote: post #2

I’m dead serious I’d pay an $80 to $100 premium for a dumb TV I’d even consider replacing a couple Smart TVs are just terrible

The other day I was reading the HDMI spec. I realised, in almost full horror, it’s stupidly streaming pixels instead of image deltas. When every TV has memory enough for several full frame images, this is just crazy.

Encoding would add latency and it is not free. A single frame in 4k UHD 10-bits takes more than 10Mb (1/3 of the L3 cache on modern CPUS).

Re: It’s Still Stupidly, Difficult to Buy a ‘Dumb’ TV

#129

Post by everyone »

TACD wrote: post #107
mrjin wrote: post #41

Smart TVs were created for all kinds of agendas but none were actually for us the consumers. All those agendas require an OS which takes time to boot. Making it worse, some of those TVs' CPU are crap and thus every operation takes much longer than those dumb ones. Lots of vendors also start to ship new remotes that removed all the essential buttons, especially the video source button, and I have to press 5 or more ti…

This is exactly what we did. Our ‘television’ was never hooked up to actually receive broadcast signal, we’ve always just used it as a big screen for the media/gaming PC set up in the lounge, and at some point I realised if I’m going to spend my evenings staring at Good Screen I might as well upgrade from this 40” 1080p TV with a dead pixel row. So I looked around and eventually bought a Philips 559M1 55” monitor ins…

Afaik the difference between whats called a "monitor" and whats called a "TV" nowadays is that..

TV's show a compressed or upscaled image. TV's have much higher latency.

And thats why something called a monitor is so much more expensive for the same size display.

Re: It’s Still Stupidly, Difficult to Buy a ‘Dumb’ TV

#130

Post by 3np »

chii wrote: post #10
ajsnigrutin wrote: post #6

Every TV is "stupid" when it's not connected to the internet, and none of them can transmit your data when disconnected.

If it turns out that too many people are disconnecting their tv, the manufacturer would merely add in a sim card. They don't yet ATM because they don't need to - too many people are stupidly connecting their wifi.

I also theorize that 5G will drive down the overhead enough to make that more prevalent.
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