Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

techdirt.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 434 posts

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

#141

Post by lotsofpulp »

andrepd wrote: post #126
lotsofpulp wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I assume there are capable people working at these large TV companies who can ascertain reasonably well what kind of demand there is for a dumb TV.

Also, TVs went from dumb to smart, so empirically, sufficient buyers voted for smart even when they had an option for dumb. The alternative is all the manufacturers simultaneously pulled all dumb TVs out of the market even though selling them would provide a competitive advantage in a razor thin profit margin business, which does not seem likely.

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

#142

Post by IYasha »

The only "smart" thing I wanted in a TV is a SMB-capable media player. And nothing else, literally. I had to hack my tv to install CIFS module and a few dirty hacks to mount the NAS, but it was worth it. Because I hate to have an external computer (aka set-top-box) connected to computer inside tv to be able to connect to computer on a network to show some damn movies and photos.

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

#143

Post by Brian_K_White »

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 watch youtube and play xbox on my tvs. I want the big screen sit back good surround sound. Laptops and phones are for airplanes and work.

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

#145

Post by KptMarchewa »

andrepd wrote: post #126
lotsofpulp wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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

The same argument has been posted multiple times for small phones. Yet, every time apple releases small phone, they are disappointed in sales.

https://www.macrumors.com/2022/03/28/apple-cutting-iphone-se...

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

#146

Post by andrewclunn »

I'd settle for a mechanism to update a "smart tv" to remove said "features" and prevent future updates. A rogue firmware update hack. Let's see them take users to court saying we're "not allowed to remove those advertisements... but not because we don't really own the device."

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

#147

Post by deergomoo »

andrepd wrote: post #132
everdrive wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our TV is basically just a movie machine in our case. We could watch movies on a laptop on the couch, but it's not as nice as having a TV. For what it's worth, our TV is actually a big old tube TV. We have a small collection of DVDs and VHS, and also a Raspberry Pi 3 which is very capable of playing movie files, and can even stream from Amazon in a pinch.

What, you have a CRT? And you play VHS movies? Mind if I ask why x)

I’m not the OP, but you’d be surprised just how good the image quality on a decent CRT is. They lack the resolution to display the sort of fine detail you get in HD video, but the brightness, contrast, dynamic range, and colour reproduction still holds up (assuming it was a decent unit at the time).

Importantly, they’re far more forgiving to lower definition content than modern displays, and while retro games are more of a driving force for still using a CRT today, I could totally see a VHS collection being a good reason to keep one around.

The main drawbacks are the size/weight, limited screen size by modern standards, obscene power draw, and the fact that they need maintenance to keep the geometry good.

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

#148

Post by IYasha »

stonepresto wrote: post #137
betamaxthetape wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

This probably means it tries to do the “device detection” when you switch inputs or plug in a new device. Tbh this is the worst feature for me, it’s exceptionally hard to get rid of even with access to the factory menu. I can blackhole my TV all day on the network, but this problem is persistent. Also as a note, it’s become increasingly difficult to root TVs. Even getting firmware can be a chore, and forget getting a…

And firmwares, especially from Samsung since around 2010, come with all sorts of encryption, protection, DRM and stuff. (

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

#150

Post by maximus-decimus »

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…

LLT did a review for a Samsung smart monitor the other day. It's coming. Nobody is safe.
Post reply on HN