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The downfall of smart TVs: From promises of seamless viewing to ad tool

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Re: The downfall of smart TVs: From promises of seamless viewing to ad tool

#501

Post by unethical_ban »

Gigachad wrote: post #16
DethNinja wrote: post #6

There is a much better option for HN crowd: Buy a large/modern computer monitor and connect it to your homelab’s media server. Literally there is no need for a smart TV so long as you are capable of setting up a small homelab.

I’d honestly rather watch adverts than have to run a home server again.

A home served setup can be as simple as a Shield Pro with a hard drive attached. It's a lot simpler than 2009 for me, when I was running FreeBSD desktop with nvidia drivers painfully installed and a wireless keyboard.

Re: The downfall of smart TVs: From promises of seamless viewing to ad tool

#502

Post by _23sd »

rovr138 wrote: post #97
littlecranky67 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "they use any open wifi they can see" myth has been brought up on HN multiple times, and never did anybody provide any credible proof of this rumour (that started as a single reddit comment).

How about one that can do 5G? Samsung and Huawei are doing 5G TV, https://www.techradar.com/news/samsungs-5g-8k-tv-promises-to... https://www.techradar.com/news/huawei-is-developing-a-5g-8k-...

Worth noting that these articles are from 2019 and there hasn't been much talk of 5G TVs since. Aside from plain old 5G hype, SK Telecom wants 5G TVs as part of their envisioned ATSC/5G convergence that would bring more OTT services to broadcast TV (using their 5G network, naturally). This is mostly for the Korean market, since in North America broadcast TV is less popular and 5G networks have less capacity.

Re: The downfall of smart TVs: From promises of seamless viewing to ad tool

#503

Post by tenebrisalietum »

scarface74 wrote: post #496
tenebrisalietum wrote: post #494

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The media producing individual/group/company could do something else with their time/capital that isn't so casually pirateable, such as building housing or producing actual goods/services, instead of the "produce once then sit on your ass and collect royalties forever for the next century and a half" behavior that media production encourages.

Are you spending your time building houses? Are you willing to quit your job and work for Habitat for Humanity?

Yes, I would download a car.

Re: The downfall of smart TVs: From promises of seamless viewing to ad tool

#504

Post by cmiles74 »

afavour wrote: post #259
kadoban wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Much of society either is paying or is willing to pay. Note that even in places that we _do_ pay, for example cable TV, we still get ads.

Right but that means you're not paying full price, since the ads subsidise it. So to modify the OP's point, people are going to need to be prepared to pay more for content and IMO we're already at price saturation point now.

Strong disagree on this one. I'm pretty sure someone looks at the service that lacks (to their mind) sufficient advertising and is making decent revenue and thinks something like "Wow, a couple (more) ads and this could make a lot more money!" And then (more) ads are added.

Unless there's some dis-incentive we can expect to see more ads in more places. People abandoning the service doesn't seem to be enough, I suspect the longer someone has a particular service the more they become accustomed to it and the more pain it takes to get them to move to another service.

Re: The downfall of smart TVs: From promises of seamless viewing to ad tool

#505

Post by scarface74 »

tenebrisalietum wrote: post #503
scarface74 wrote: post #496

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you spending your time building houses? Are you willing to quit your job and work for Habitat for Humanity?

Yes, I would download a car.

Do you admit it is easy to tsk tsk and say how other people should work. But you won’t make the same sacrifice?

Re: The downfall of smart TVs: From promises of seamless viewing to ad tool

#506

Post by teddyh »

netsharc wrote: post #490
teddyh wrote: post #451

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This reminds me of the pre-Snowden times, where people often assumed that governments widely recorded internet traffic, since they had both the capability and the motivation, but people like you dismissed it as “urban legends/conspiracy theories” because there wasn’t any hard evidence.

How do you know what I did in regards to the Five Eyes? I wonder what's easier to check and verify, a secret government tapping of the Internet, or if the TVs in millions of people's living rooms are trying to connect to open WiFi networks...

(I did not mention or claim anything about you personally.)

You’re right in that this should be easier to find. But I haven’t seen any concerted effort to buy N number of smart TVs and do security analysis on them in order to find something like this.

Re: The downfall of smart TVs: From promises of seamless viewing to ad tool

#507

Post by entropicgravity »

I also am not fond of TV's that snoop on everything in my living room and spew out unwanted ads. But recently I had to buy a new TV. Here's my setup.

The TV is an LG 55" model OLED55C1 (could be a Costco specific model number), very good color and sound. I expect to keep it for ten years or more as I did with my previous LG plasma.

Next I got an Asus PN51 Ryzen 3, very cute, small and quiet mini computer (had to add an SSD and memory). I loaded the latest Linux Mint onto it and used an HDMI cable to connect it to the TV. The TV was not happy about not being connected to wifi (that's what the PN51 is for) but eventually it succumbed.

The final piece is a Logitech MX Ergo wireless blue tooth mouse. The result is fabulous all around as a TV and a computer.

So all in it's about $2k USD which is a lot up front but given the hours of use by our household over ten years it's probably the best value I've bought since my last TV.

Re: The downfall of smart TVs: From promises of seamless viewing to ad tool

#508

Post by asdff »

afavour wrote: post #259
kadoban wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Much of society either is paying or is willing to pay. Note that even in places that we _do_ pay, for example cable TV, we still get ads.

Right but that means you're not paying full price, since the ads subsidise it. So to modify the OP's point, people are going to need to be prepared to pay more for content and IMO we're already at price saturation point now.

Even if you are paying full price, inevitably the complany will have some brilliant CEO who figures out that not showing ads constantly is leaving money on the table.

Re: The downfall of smart TVs: From promises of seamless viewing to ad tool

#509

Post by SergeAx »

I bought a smart LG TV about a month ago. This is my first smart TV, and I was very cautious about it because of "too smart TV" stories. It is OLED and the picture worth every euro I paid for it (and it was quite a few euro, to be honest). I am downloading HDR 4k movies and playing them from USB stick. I also watching YouTube occasionally, casting it from the phone (TV plays it by itself, not receiving a stream from phone, which is great for quality).

I didn't see any ads yet (including YouTube, because of Premium). What am I doing wrong?

Re: The downfall of smart TVs: From promises of seamless viewing to ad tool

#510

Post by sjsdaiuasgdia »

weberer wrote: post #86
rendall wrote: post #57

> Some may argue that there's no need to be dramatic and that there's nothing wrong in seeing an occasional ad every now and then. Oh, no, I am very dramatic about this. I will go to any lengths not to see advertising. I will entirely forgo any platform that shows me even one ad, especially when I pay them. Amazon Prime video is already pushing it with their preroll previews. The second it's something else I'm cancel…

They already started showing ads to people with Twitch Prime a few years ago. It seems like its only a matter of time.

While not a solution for every Twitch viewer, sending the video from a browser or the Android app to a Chromecast device gets rid of ads.
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