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

261–270 of 434 posts

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

#261

Post by basch »

philistine wrote: post #196
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's not connected to internet From the article: “As a dumb TV fan who has bought several sets in the last decade, 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 swi…

I don’t get that point. A dumb TV would not need firmware updates. And if you’re already shopping like a madman, you should be able to figure out which TV locks out functionality. And the loading UI for the TV; I guess that’s the only fair point. But it’s clear there’s a hidden point in the argument; I don’t want functionality I won’t use. I don’t want the risk of connecting my TV. The temptation to see what it looks…

>A dumb TV would not need firmware updates.

Post processing, and other parts of rendering are still occurring. For example, if you game, have an Xbox, and a Sony TV, VRR is a feature that gets added to the TV after you buy it.

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

#262

Post by pnutjam »

Markoff wrote: post #31
contravariant wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Blocking the MAC address from making connections outright seems like a more sensible way to prevent surveillance. Assuming of course you are using it as a truly 'dumb' TV and not as a client for Netflix etc.

wouldn't be easier just not set internet connection in first place? I don't think TV can hack into secure WiFi network

Give it an IP with no gateway, or a bad gateway.

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

#263

Post by JohnFen »

next_xibalba wrote: post #256
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.

> The fact consumers love something doesn't make it a good thing. It does make it a good thing for them. Which begs the question: why is it that you get to decide what is or isn't a good thing? Or: why shouldn't people be able to decide for themselves? The answers against the latter are, at their root, paternalistic and elitist. > they love also facebook Ah, yes. The old "facebook is as bad as cigarettes" trope. It f…

But something is seriously wrong with a society where it's impossible to avoid a thing that you consider harmful to yourself just because the larger market prefers it.

It used to be that one of the strengths of our economic system was that you could find something to meet your needs even if your needs weren't the same as the majority.

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

#264

Post by robg »

Working in this space and seeing the potential for true smart displays tied to lifestyles, curious what folks would want to see in TVs as a better medium than phones. What features do you want? What pain points do you have that huge immersive displays could help with?

Unfortunately the margins are so thin, need to be investigating new revenues streams or else the business fails under commoditization pressures. Agree that Adtech is not the answer.

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

#265

Post by tapanjk »

Perhaps I do not get it, but a big screen never appealed to me. I think of smart TVs as a big screen with a built-in computer, and a laptop as a computer which has a built-in screen. I always thought the laptop is a better bang for the buck.

Perhaps I am missing the point because I do not live in the western world. I have observed my people who moved to the west are into large screen TVs, but I never understood the lure.

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

#266

Post by landmass »

kesslern wrote: post #179
hypertele-Xii wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Until your neighbor enables an open, unprotected wifi, your smart TV connects to it and auto-updates to start showing you ads.

Are there any TV models that are proven/documented to do this? I hear this claim all the time but I can't find a single demo of it happening. A previous HN thread [0] couldn't come up with any examples either. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25275350

Amazon Sidewalk shares signals in a blatant misuse of my WiFi password.

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

#267

Post by astura »

tapanjk wrote: post #265

Perhaps I do not get it, but a big screen never appealed to me. I think of smart TVs as a big screen with a built-in computer, and a laptop as a computer which has a built-in screen. I always thought the laptop is a better bang for the buck. Perhaps I am missing the point because I do not live in the western world. I have observed my people who moved to the west are into large screen TVs, but I never understood the l…

You can watch TV with friends and family.

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

#269

Post by jerf »

mrjin wrote: post #177
Gigachad wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds like you are out of touch with the average consumer. They absolutely love smart TVs and would consider a TV without apps and streaming to be broken. In fact, even the ideal HN approved setup is just a smart TV where the online bit is a removable stick on the back. The average consumer just doesn’t care about being able to swap it out.

Oh well, I'm not sure how do you define average consumer. I don't really watch TV but I do have to deal with TVs for other members in the family. Put all those Ads/tracking/slowness issues aside, the quality of the Smart TV OSes/Apps were/are just bad. We had a Sony, which was good in most of the aspects except the OS/Apps were terrible. Had to factory reset a couple of weeks or so or the apps would not launch at all…

"The first thing was the remote removed most the buttons, especially the video source button"

This is not a defense of Samsung, but something you can try if you're stuck with it: While the Samsung remotes have slimmed down quite a bit, at least on my TV it still responds to the buttons the old more fully-sized remote controls had. If you get a universal remote and program it for Samsung TVs, you may find you get a lot of the functionality back that your remote is missing.

I can't speak for every year's TV; mine's a few years old now. But you may already have a universal remote just lying around, in which case this is really cheap to try.

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

#270

Post by augstein »

tapanjk wrote: post #265

Perhaps I do not get it, but a big screen never appealed to me. I think of smart TVs as a big screen with a built-in computer, and a laptop as a computer which has a built-in screen. I always thought the laptop is a better bang for the buck. Perhaps I am missing the point because I do not live in the western world. I have observed my people who moved to the west are into large screen TVs, but I never understood the l…

I was in the same boat when I was younger. After upgrading to a (dumb) projector for movies and gaming (ex shooters), I can’t go back, since the immersion and amount of details I see on a big screen for me is just an order of magnitude better.
Post reply on HN