Maybe a stupid question, but why isn't there a DD-WRT/OpenWRT-eqsue firmware for TVs?
It’s Still Stupidly, Difficult to Buy a ‘Dumb’ TV
171–180 of 434 posts
Re: It’s Still Stupidly, Difficult to Buy a ‘Dumb’ TV
#172Are there any efforts to build alternative, open-source or just modified for privacy TV firmware? How hard is it actually to flash TV firmware with custom one? I understand, that there are too many TV models for unified solution, but at least some LG models were running modified version of webOS.
Re: It’s Still Stupidly, Difficult to Buy a ‘Dumb’ TV
#173I for one enjoy that my Smart TV is subsidized by all the morons who think that my data is worth anything. It's not connected to internet. It's connected to Apple TV box. Thanks for the discount.
> It's not connected to internet From the article: “As a dumb TV fan who has bought several sets in the last decade, I’m usually told something akin to: “well, just don’t connect the TV to the Internet!” But that route locks you out of firmware updates, and some TV makers remove functionality if you refuse to participate in their online ecosystem. Many smart TV GUIs also need to load before you’re even allowed to swi…
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Re: It’s Still Stupidly, Difficult to Buy a ‘Dumb’ TV
#174I’m dead serious I’d pay an $80 to $100 premium for a dumb TV I’d even consider replacing a couple Smart TVs are just terrible
The other day I was reading the HDMI spec. I realised, in almost full horror, it’s stupidly streaming pixels instead of image deltas. When every TV has memory enough for several full frame images, this is just crazy.
I've recently came to despise HDMI too. When I realized how many OFFICIAL standard revisions are there and how many fakes are on the market...
With DisplayPort you have one cable serving you for a DECADE of HW revisions, supporting all framerates and resolutions. With HDMI you have to buy a new cable for each upgrade and when, for example, HDMI 2.0 says "Supports 4K" it only means 60Hz, and you have to buy a "8K" cable to connect a 4K gaming display. Not to mention varieties of "ethernet-enabled", "ARC-capable" and other bullshit out there on the market. And some rare proprietary HDMI cables too! Not to mention some 2.1 cables are actually optical...
Re: It’s Still Stupidly, Difficult to Buy a ‘Dumb’ TV
#175Earlier quoted context omitted.
Our TV is basically just a movie machine in our case. We could watch movies on a laptop on the couch, but it's not as nice as having a TV. For what it's worth, our TV is actually a big old tube TV. We have a small collection of DVDs and VHS, and also a Raspberry Pi 3 which is very capable of playing movie files, and can even stream from Amazon in a pinch.
What, you have a CRT? And you play VHS movies? Mind if I ask why x)
It's a fun novelty. You can find VHS for free at yard sales and other places. It often costs less to get a VHS than rent a movie on Amazon or something else.
CRTs in general are honestly superior in a number of a ways. They effectively have built-in anti-aliasing, they tend to have better color depth, and usually have better speakers than a flatscreen TV. They're also better for most retro video game systems. Where I am, you can also still get a decent number of CRT TVs for free.
I've also never understood the obsession with higher resolutions. Particularly in the case of old movies, films were not shot with the expectation that you could see every detail. Even when we still had a flatscreen we'd rent from Amazon at 480p just to save a dollar or two. Higher resolution doesn't really inherently look better in many cases. But, I'll definitely admit some newer movies will flash some text on screen sometimes that is hard to make out on an old CRT.
I guess my primary argument is not really that CRTs are so amazing (although they're better than people remember) -- but only that flatscreens are not really that great either. A great movie is a wonderful experience on either. Once you get into the film, the story, music, and characters really prevent you from fixating on pixels. We're not missing anything, and we haven't spent any money to support this hobby. In the case of VHS and DVD, old movies generally look better on a CRT. In the case of new movies, there is some compromise, but it usually doesn't matter.
Re: It’s Still Stupidly, Difficult to Buy a ‘Dumb’ TV
#176Earlier quoted context omitted.
The other day I was reading the HDMI spec. I realised, in almost full horror, it’s stupidly streaming pixels instead of image deltas. When every TV has memory enough for several full frame images, this is just crazy.
Encoding would add latency and it is not free. A single frame in 4k UHD 10-bits takes more than 10Mb (1/3 of the L3 cache on modern CPUS).
And you are already paying enough because of HDCP.
Re: It’s Still Stupidly, Difficult to Buy a ‘Dumb’ TV
#177Smart TVs were created for all kinds of agendas but none were actually for us the consumers. All those agendas require an OS which takes time to boot. Making it worse, some of those TVs' CPU are crap and thus every operation takes much longer than those dumb ones. Lots of vendors also start to ship new remotes that removed all the essential buttons, especially the video source button, and I have to press 5 or more ti…
It sounds like you are out of touch with the average consumer. They absolutely love smart TVs and would consider a TV without apps and streaming to be broken. In fact, even the ideal HN approved setup is just a smart TV where the online bit is a removable stick on the back. The average consumer just doesn’t care about being able to swap it out.
Oh well, I'm not sure how do you define average consumer. I don't really watch TV but I do have to deal with TVs for other members in the family. Put all those Ads/tracking/slowness issues aside, the quality of the Smart TV OSes/Apps were/are just bad. We had a Sony, which was good in most of the aspects except the OS/Apps were terrible. Had to factory reset a couple of weeks or so or the apps would not launch at all and all of a sudden, apps would not function properly even after resetting. So we used it with a android TV box, which was actually much batter. Not long after switching to TV box, kids cracked the screen. So I got a Samsung hoping it would be better. Samsung's apps seem to be slightly better than Sony but the remote is a pain the neck. The first thing was the remote removed most the buttons, especially the video source button. So I have to press 5/6 times just to get to the sources. If I pressed buttons too quick, add another 2/3 presses to it. And after switching, the menu bar does not go away I have to press another button just to get it out of the screen. Since I have multiple HDMI devices connected to the TV, Samsung was trying to be smart by turning on one of the devices automatically. That was extremely dumb as most of the time I was just trying to get to the one after it and it turned on the device unexpectedly. Okay, I turned off the device unexpected turned on, you guess what, the TV is turned off as the current video source was now off. So I have to turn of the CEC over HDMI and then I'll have to use multiple remotes to control different devices. If it was dumb TV with a traditional full size remote, it can be much easier.
Re: It’s Still Stupidly, Difficult to Buy a ‘Dumb’ TV
#178A serious, non-trolling question to all. I've not had a TV for decades and for me that's a good thing. I've watched TVs in pubs (I'm in the uk) and round my mates' houses so it's not become some strange alien thing, and I'm still happy to be without it (that is, on balance; there are good things about broadcast TV and some bad, and the latter outweighs the former for me). In your opinion, is there actual overall valu…
Many people use their TVs almost exclusively for video games (including me)
Re: It’s Still Stupidly, Difficult to Buy a ‘Dumb’ TV
#179I for one enjoy that my Smart TV is subsidized by all the morons who think that my data is worth anything. It's not connected to internet. It's connected to Apple TV box. Thanks for the discount.
Until your neighbor enables an open, unprotected wifi, your smart TV connects to it and auto-updates to start showing you ads.
Are there any TV models that are proven/documented to do this? I hear this claim all the time but I can't find a single demo of it happening. A previous HN thread [0] couldn't come up with any examples either.
Re: It’s Still Stupidly, Difficult to Buy a ‘Dumb’ TV
#180Earlier quoted context omitted.
It isn't much different to open YouTube, pick whatever's recommended, and just let autoplay pick the next video to play. You get better tailored content.
And what are you connecting YouTube to to display that content? For most people that's a TV I would guess.
(scroll back a bit - that's not quite the point being debated)