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TV is broken

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Re: TV is broken

#161

Post by r00fus »

potatolicious wrote: post #90
droithomme wrote: post #57

There are many other things that are broken too. My fancy expensive name-brand digital TV takes a full minute to boot up from a cold start, longer than it took my tube based TV from the 1950s to warm up. Once on, it takes almost a full second to change channels while it rebuffers the stream of the channel being changed to. This prevents quickly flipping through channels to see what is on. As a result I just don't bot…

And this is why I groan when Samsung easily dismisses rumors that Apple is about to enter the TV space. The UX around TVs is horrific right now, and people put up with it because that's how it is. There's enormous room for a dramatic UX improvement and it doesn't seem like the incumbents realize this.

> The UX around TVs is horrific right now

It's not just the UX that's broken for TVs, it's the pricing as well. Apple has strong success stories in pricing as well as UX - witness the original iPhone data plan ($20/mo for unlimited data + 200 texts from one of the top-4 providers? very good) or the iPad (both the device and initial data plan).

Re: TV is broken

#162

Post by moheeb »

noahlt wrote: post #153

I could imagine a similar and opposite article, "Netflix is broken", written from the perpective from an older person instead of a younger one: Why do I need to sign in? Why do I have to choose something to watch – why doesn't it just let me start watching immediately? Why is it so hard to change channels? Why do I have to watch things on my small computer screen instead of my large television screen?

If Netflix had a 'random' button it would be their greatest innovation ever.

Re: TV is broken

#163

Post by WiseWeasel »

TylerE wrote: post #135
WiseWeasel wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the latter issue (and possibly slightly helping the first issue as well), switch your TV to 'game' mode. This is a low-latency mode that eliminates certain image processing in order to reduce the lag between signal and display. That should allow you to change channels faster.

No, it won't. Game mode reduces latency on the order of 2-3 frames, so a 0.1sec or less. The issue is that the tuner has to consume a complete data frame before it can start displaying, since it needs to get a keyframe for the codec to start working.

Hmm, I think I may have noticed that issue switching between HD channels at times, but SD channels maybe don't have the same issue?

I guess the time before a key frame appears can vary from up to a second to as low as 0, depending on when you happen to switch. It could be that a few frames, or 0.1 seconds becomes significant at that point, though you're right that it's likely to make little difference. I was not aware of the key frame issue until now, though; thanks for enlightening.

Re: TV is broken

#164

Post by lukifer »

nollidge wrote: post #91
lukifer wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's advertising. Agreed. It's simply a bad business model; you're the product, not the customer, etc. It also has a hugely distorted effect on content production, incentivizing shows to shoot for safe returns and broad appeal instead of monetizing hardcore fans of innovative niche programming. Put simply, I want businesses to care whether they have my money, not my eyeballs. I cut most forms of advertising out of…

> no radio There's definitely quality non-profit radio stations (NPR affiliates, for example) depending on where you live. At worst you get the fund drives that are annoying (but understandable) for a week. EDIT: This assumes you're in the U.S., though.

I listen to NPR occasionally, but I'm also not one of those people that wants my media chosen randomly. I usually consume NPR-type content in podcast form. (Although more and more podcasts are becoming advertising-driven... grrr.)

Re: TV is broken

#165

Post by Tooluka »

noahlt wrote: post #153

I could imagine a similar and opposite article, "Netflix is broken", written from the perpective from an older person instead of a younger one: Why do I need to sign in? Why do I have to choose something to watch – why doesn't it just let me start watching immediately? Why is it so hard to change channels? Why do I have to watch things on my small computer screen instead of my large television screen?

Why do I need sign a cable TV contract? On a paper? Requesting some people to make a draft and fetch me it with a decoder, 3 day before I can actually watch anything? What's a decoder anyway? Why do I need to BUY it? Even though I already have a brand new TV? What do you mean a GOOD decoder is 2-3 times more expensive? And it is forever bound to a certain cable provider? Why, it's just some generic hardware? Why is it SD? Do you aware that we have FullHD stuff for a decade already? Oh, you do have HD? 2-4 channels out of 130? And my decoder doesn't apply? What, even GOOD decoder doesn't apply? So I need this card which is more expensive than GOOD decoder? And card only fits about 20% TVs on the market?

Etc. etc. The list goes on indefinitely...

Re: TV is broken

#166

Post by naner »

droithomme wrote: post #57

There are many other things that are broken too. My fancy expensive name-brand digital TV takes a full minute to boot up from a cold start, longer than it took my tube based TV from the 1950s to warm up. Once on, it takes almost a full second to change channels while it rebuffers the stream of the channel being changed to. This prevents quickly flipping through channels to see what is on. As a result I just don't bot…

or how often I find I have to manually change the aspect ratio because it wasn't able to figure it out on its own.

This is a feature not a bug. Most people don't understand aspect ration and in fact will get upset if a standard def video doesn't fill the HD screen.

Actually, it is probably just laziness on the manufacturers part but it works out well for most consumers.

Re: TV is broken

#167

Post by cenuij »

Commercial television is a horrible user experience. Public service broadcasting in the UK is slightly less horrible. It's quality is declining as the BBC has tried to spread itself across a multitude of markets at the same time as trying to keep the license fee under control.

The bias of the BBC has always been in dispute. The right wing think the BBC is left leaning (because by their simple ratonale anything state funded is). The left wing want to keep the BBC out of the hands of the Scots, Welsh and Irish. The Scots, Welsh and Irish see the BBC as a propaganda machine for Westminster.

However, regardless of it's flaws, the BBC is probably the premier broadcaster of quality television on the planet; though I fear too many changes from idealogical government intervention will change this for the worse.

Re: TV is broken

#168

Post by nirvdrum »

rcthompson wrote: post #84
huggyface wrote: post #73

This is akin to saying that the internet is broken because some videos are prefaced by a commercial. Or HN is broken because some of the front-page are hiring ads for YC companies. I use a PVR for all of my "TV" needs (I have two large wall-mounted screens. They are great entertainment devices. I only mention that for consistency with those proudly informing that they only old some small CRT in the corner somewhere).…

The article is saying that for a child raised (mostly) on commercial-free media (Netflix), advertisements are so intrusive and annoying that the child rejects watching TV outright because of the commercials. I wonder if this is the kind of stuff that keeps advertising executives up at night. What would happen if everyone under the age of 20 thought like this (assuming that ad-free media sources still exist)?

I don't doubt that within a couple years, all licensed streaming media will have completely unskippable commercials. It's what's happened on DVD and Blu-Ray. At least with TV I have the option to change the channel or if I use a DVR, I can just skip through.

Re: TV is broken

#170

Post by jrockway »

Yes it is. The problem with TV is that advertisers have a lot more money than you do, so advertisers get to dictate how TV works.

I'm looking forward to a world where people produce content and I give them money to watch it. It works for the porn industry, so why not everything else? (Probably the same reason why our cell phones don't treat voice and data as the bits they are. There is more money to be made for the middlemen by offering "value add" instead of a "dumb pipe". And there's one thing middlemen do well: keeping themselves alive at the expense of everyone else.)

In the mean time, I'll just pirate everything. That cuts out the middleman!

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