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Ask HN: What's the best hackable smart TV?

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Re: Ask HN: What's the best hackable smart TV?

#91
post #30

A dumb TV with an x86 HTPC attached to the back via VESA bracket. Sceptre dumb TVs from the Wal-Mart web site are your cheat code.

Winner!! I have a pair of these that have multiple HDMI ports. So my "hacking" is hanging a raspberry pi or a x86 computer.

Re: Ask HN: What's the best hackable smart TV?

#92

Do recommend the LG C series (C5 or C4 are new or the C1 series if you want a deal on classifieds - same hardware as the higher end models but needs a firmware bit flip). The OS is very rootable and it makes a great TV that doubles as a monitor. Supports free sync / g-sync. OLED is nice at this scale. Text is very readable, refresh rate is good. It uses the same panels as the fancier G series in the larger sizes. One…

I was looking for a 40-43in 4K TV for PC monitor use, considered the LG C series, but it wouldn't work in my bright room.

I went with Samsung QN90C instead and I'm super happy with it. It's very bright, fights glare well, and there's Jellyfin for it.

Re: Ask HN: What's the best hackable smart TV?

#93

For "fun and interesting" consider an LG WebOS TV. Many can be rooted[1] which allows installing a homebrew channel[2] of unauthorized apps or writing your own. I initially did it for Jellyfin before they made it into the official app store, but the Moonlight game streaming app has unlocked many hours of entertainment. 1. https://cani.rootmy.tv 2. https://www.webosbrew.org/

This is also the coolest thing you can do for a rooted webOS tv: https://github.com/satgit62/How-to-Install-and-set-up-Ambili... doesn't need to go through another device to capture the HDMI, it's built right in!

Second-coolest has got to be https://repo.webosbrew.org/apps/org.webosbrew.custom-screens... ("Bouncing DVD logo" screensaver)

Re: Ask HN: What's the best hackable smart TV?

#96
post #53
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Moonlight is really fantastic. It's worked better than Geforce Now for me. Amazon's thing worked best, but they don't have as many games as my Steam does.

Are you using it over Ethernet or WiFi? I remember I tried Moonlight to a local computer two or three years ago over Ethernet and the latency was still too bad, any ideas if that's better today?

If you were using a TV streaming stick, many have slow Ethernet due to slow port (Micro-USB), slow PHY hardware (100 mbps) or slow network stack. For the popular streaming apps they only need 25 mbps max, so most stick makers put no effort into design or validation testing beyond that minimal use case. And they don't care about latency.

I use Moonlight via direct 1 gbps Ethernet from a high-end gaming PC in the same house through a Google Chromecast 4K HDMI dongle with a powered USB-C hub for the RJ-45 input and it works flawlessly at 60 fps 4K 10-bit HDR with around 12 ms video latency. Some USB 3 hubs and USB Ethernet dongles won't reach full speeds on some streaming devices USB ports. The second one I tried worked at full 1 gbps.

You have to verify every software and hardware component in the chain is working at high-speed/low latency in your environment with a local speed test hosted on your source machine. I used self-hosted OpenSpeedTest. Moonlight works great but none of the consumer streaming stick or USB hub/RJ-45 dongles test for high speed/low latency across dozens of different device port hardware/firmware combos - so you can't trust claimed specs. Assume it's slow until you verify it's not.

Re: Ask HN: What's the best hackable smart TV?

#97

I have Sony Bravia TV that has Android TV so I went looking for the docs to confirm you can enable developer mode, access adb, and sideload apps. While looking at the docs I discovered I can load HTML5 apps from USB! I never knew that but I'm going to do some experimentation in the near future. https://pro-bravia.sony.net/develop/app/getting-started/inde...

best thing i ever did with my bravia was install a custom launcher via adb to finally rid myself of the endless ads, upsetting news, and terrible suggestions constantly shoved in my face without my consent. nice to be able to uninstall the misc bloat that you can't get to with the gui and just have a simple interface. all i want is to access jellyfin and maybe one or two other apps. much better all around experience now.

here's a nice reference for a lot of the stuff installed on bravia that you can elect to remove via adb:

https://github.com/therealhoodboy/skinny-bravia

Re: Ask HN: What's the best hackable smart TV?

#98

Do recommend the LG C series (C5 or C4 are new or the C1 series if you want a deal on classifieds - same hardware as the higher end models but needs a firmware bit flip). The OS is very rootable and it makes a great TV that doubles as a monitor. Supports free sync / g-sync. OLED is nice at this scale. Text is very readable, refresh rate is good. It uses the same panels as the fancier G series in the larger sizes. One…

I am curious if the Cx series has the same issue as my B2 where Dolby Vision (Atmos?) seems to kill the video processing circuitry and requires me to power-cycle it. Apparently the only fix is to disable it in your source, but it works like 75% of the time and I'd hate to lose the excellent picture quality of Netflix and YouTube via Google TV.

Worth trying are a different cable, and maybe a different source depending on your setup... my previous AVR had pretty consistent issues against my TV that I constantly had to soft power off and on to work around, it only happened when using the ARC port. On another setup, it turned out to be an issue with the cable.

YMMV.

Re: Ask HN: What's the best hackable smart TV?

#99
post #76

I have Sony Bravia TV that has Android TV so I went looking for the docs to confirm you can enable developer mode, access adb, and sideload apps. While looking at the docs I discovered I can load HTML5 apps from USB! I never knew that but I'm going to do some experimentation in the near future. https://pro-bravia.sony.net/develop/app/getting-started/inde...

There is also a Sony Bravia integration for Home Assistant (using the REST API that's in almost all Bravia TVs). https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/braviatv/

YMMV. it's never worked well for me. works great for the first week, then it stops connecting or i suddenly have several zombie bravia devices, all of which aren't connected.

Re: Ask HN: What's the best hackable smart TV?

#100

Do recommend the LG C series (C5 or C4 are new or the C1 series if you want a deal on classifieds - same hardware as the higher end models but needs a firmware bit flip). The OS is very rootable and it makes a great TV that doubles as a monitor. Supports free sync / g-sync. OLED is nice at this scale. Text is very readable, refresh rate is good. It uses the same panels as the fancier G series in the larger sizes. One…

all the methods to root have been patched in the latest webos version :(
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