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Ask Wirecutter: Can you recommend a not-smart TV for me?

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Re: Ask Wirecutter: Can you recommend a not-smart TV for me?

#781

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A smart TV with no internet connection And it's soon going to be impossible to dodge it going on the Internet anyway. Manufacturers are hard at work making sure that if any of any neighbor's Internet of Shitty Insecure Things [TM] device participate in the scam, the smart TV shall use your neighbor's device to escape and access the net. I forgot the name of the protocol / "feature", but it's a very real thing. So u…

How is it not illegal for your device to highjack a neighbour's internet connection?

Because your neighbor "agreed" to to the possibility in the process of setting up their device as part of that device's TOS.

Re: Ask Wirecutter: Can you recommend a not-smart TV for me?

#782

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At that size isn't that basically a monitor ?

What even is the difference between a tv and a monitor other than size?

Sound, remote, additional "optimization" like adaptive contrast, (non-accurate, vivid) colors etc., more outputs like optical audio,....

Re: Ask Wirecutter: Can you recommend a not-smart TV for me?

#783
post #762

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vizio M65Q6

> Vizio Well there's your problem (paraphrased from someone who used to work for them)

Yeah, it’s sad all the answers to this problem are some form of victim shaming.

Re: Ask Wirecutter: Can you recommend a not-smart TV for me?

#784

I've designed and built many such TVs for the commercial/industrial vertical. I am currently working on developing such a TV for the consumer market and launching it under the name DUMBO.TV Let me know your thoughts. Reference pix of 70" industrial display using Samsung LCD panel and in-house LCD controller with physical OSD menu buttons along with IR/RS232 control capability: https://imgur.com/a/k6zrH3s

Have you considered making the firmware open source? Or at least hackable so folks could run open source on it. The BoM and hardware design would be nice too, but thats a bigger ask :)

Re: Ask Wirecutter: Can you recommend a not-smart TV for me?

#785

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have to be careful. My Samsung smart tv throws up a splash screen whenever any HDMI input is plugged in or wakes up, which can only be dismissed by using the remote. Sometimes it even shows a few frames of the HDMI input before switching to the splash screen. Infuriating!

This kills me about the Apple TV. It didn't used to display an ad for Apple's channels but now it does and it requires the remote to dismiss... Previously you could just blindly airplay something but now you have to airplay + dismiss the ad with the remote.

That sounds horrible and I would immediately quit the ecosystem... I have never experienced this in nearly a decade of use, but I also pay for TV+; is it possible you got the bad luck of getting a terrible A/B test or something?

Re: Ask Wirecutter: Can you recommend a not-smart TV for me?

#786

I've designed and built many such TVs for the commercial/industrial vertical. I am currently working on developing such a TV for the consumer market and launching it under the name DUMBO.TV Let me know your thoughts. Reference pix of 70" industrial display using Samsung LCD panel and in-house LCD controller with physical OSD menu buttons along with IR/RS232 control capability: https://imgur.com/a/k6zrH3s

You should have opened a mailing list, for your first hundred HN customers.

Re: Ask Wirecutter: Can you recommend a not-smart TV for me?

#787

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Raspberry pi and Kodi or libreelec?

You misunderstood the question. These are not operating systems which replace to TV's rubbish firmware.

Vizio TVs run Linux, systemd etc. If Software Freedom Conservancy win their lawsuit against Vizio for GPL violations in their TVs, you will probably be able to install open source Linux distros with Kodi on any Vizio TV and soon afterwards lots of other smart TV vendors will be similar. Maybe there will also be an equivalent of OpenWRT for TVs, a distro focused on improving open source TV support.

https://sfconservancy.org/copyleft-compliance/vizio.html

Re: Ask Wirecutter: Can you recommend a not-smart TV for me?

#788

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there any chance whatsoever that you can use open source software/firmware for it? I am not in the market for a TV and I am only a hobbyist with a tendency to spend more than I should on anything that lets me open the hood and tinker with it. If there is any consumer electronics company that wants to be the anti-Apple, I'd support it in any possible way. Seriously, I even wonder if there could be some type of "Pat…

I’m not a licensing expert but my general vision is that if we can get assistance from community firmware designers, I’d be more than willing to champion this initiative. Would love to create an evaluation board that others could utilize around come up with their own interpretation of a perfect display.

Are you likely to use Linux on your device? Would be great if we could run standard distros on your TVs.

Re: Ask Wirecutter: Can you recommend a not-smart TV for me?

#790
post #757

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unhooked.Tech is one suggestion. That way if you want to expand into other devices / spaces, it is already covered.

this is a good example of a preemptive design choice. it's almost always better to optimize for success today, not for success in the future. imo a name like "slab", or even literally "dumb tv" would be much more effective.

Unhooked invoked “unplugged” with me. It is a good analogy for me. They can still put it as the Slab TV product under the Unhooked brand.
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