101–110 of 524 posts
I disabled WiFi on my Samsung TV after they were injecting ads into the home screen. Spend $800 to get ads served in their shitty/slow UI.
In general, my last like, 5 Samsung products have been disappointing, mostly due to software, or lack there of.
(I'm asking because I don't know. It's not advocacy. I have NONE of this equipment currently.) So, if I get gigabit cable internet and want to buy a 4K tv and plug it in for streaming Netflix, Amazon Prime, YouTube, etc. (no broadcast, no WiFi to reduce bandwidth), is the solution to leave the WiFi off on TV setup (or give it a bad password to avoid opportunistic connection) and to plug the ethernet cable coming out…
This is why I (currently) trust Apple, because they appear to care about privacy. I am not blinding myself to the possibility that this may change, but right now this is their selling poin tto me.
Apple cares about privacy enough to make Google their default search provider for many billions each year. Apple pays lip service to your privacy and obviously cares more about money just like any other corporation.
Apple is definitely a for profit business and they charge for their products instead of subsidizing with data aggregation or theft.
(I'm asking because I don't know. It's not advocacy. I have NONE of this equipment currently.) So, if I get gigabit cable internet and want to buy a 4K tv and plug it in for streaming Netflix, Amazon Prime, YouTube, etc. (no broadcast, no WiFi to reduce bandwidth), is the solution to leave the WiFi off on TV setup (or give it a bad password to avoid opportunistic connection) and to plug the ethernet cable coming out…
Oh, and WiFi won't change how much bandwidth you're using. And given the low (compared to Bluray) bitrate of 4k content on the streaming services, you probably don't need gigabit.
And, it's not for everyone, but I personally like just hooking up a small PC (Intel's NUC works well here) and using that instead of AppleTV or Roku.
When can I buy a TV without smart features? I don't doubt that my smart TV is reporting some data about my usage, but I barely have a choice in the matter.
It's surprising to me that you can't find a single medium or high-ish end TV without smart features, but at the same time chromecast/firetv/apple tv units and sticks also seem to be selling very well. Is everyone just putting up with the shitty built-in smart interface, but then switching inputs to their separate unit of choice?
1. A TV that just displays video from an HDMI input.
2. An A/V amplifier that just receives an HDMI A/V signal from a single input, passes the video from that to to the TV, and does Dolby/DTS/whatever decoding of the audio, amplifies the result, and sends it to my speakers.
3. An HDMI switch that I can plug assorted A/V source into (FireTV, Roku, OTA TV tuner, Blu-ray player, Cable box, etc) into, which I'll connect to the A/V receiver.
(Actually, what I really want is for the switch to split the A/V signal into separate audio and video on two different HDMI ports. Video goes to the TV, audio the A/V amplifier--except now it is just an A amplifier. But I think there may be licensing restrictions on that kind of splitting that make it so you can only split at the step that converts to analog for the speakers).
All of the HDMI connections should support Ethernet over HDMI.
None of these should have WiFi built-in. They networking should be via Ethernet. If I want WiFi, I'll add a WiFi access point to the home theater LAN.
I'm not sure how Ethernet over HDMI interacts with HDMI switches. If you have, say, a 4 input, 1 output HDMI switch, does that switch all signals, so that you only have Ethernet between the one selected input and the output, or are the Ethernet lines treated specially and connected like a hub, so that all devices on both sides of the switch can communicated over Ethernet, regardless of which input is currently selected for A/V?
If the later, then the home theater LAN can use the HDMI ports. If the former, then all the devices need an Ethernet port.
I disabled WiFi on my Samsung TV after they were injecting ads into the home screen. Spend $800 to get ads served in their shitty/slow UI.
(I'm asking because I don't know. It's not advocacy. I have NONE of this equipment currently.) So, if I get gigabit cable internet and want to buy a 4K tv and plug it in for streaming Netflix, Amazon Prime, YouTube, etc. (no broadcast, no WiFi to reduce bandwidth), is the solution to leave the WiFi off on TV setup (or give it a bad password to avoid opportunistic connection) and to plug the ethernet cable coming out…
When can I buy a TV without smart features? I don't doubt that my smart TV is reporting some data about my usage, but I barely have a choice in the matter.
This is no different than PC makers who make money from bundled crapware and stickers plastered on the computer.
People use to complain about the “Windows Tax” and thought the computer would be cheaper without it being bundled, but the PC manufacturers actually loss money when Windows wasn’t bundled because they also couldn’t bundle third party crap.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Things like this are why I never will buy a so-called smart tv, the only exception being is that it is better/cheaper than alternative and in that case will keep connectivity disabled like you did.
Good luck in 5 years, there will likely only be an option or two left and they will be as shitty as today's flip-phones. A few years ago I was in the market for a TV and was flabbergasted as to why I couldn't get a nice, big, 'dumb' TV.
When can I buy a TV without smart features? I don't doubt that my smart TV is reporting some data about my usage, but I barely have a choice in the matter.