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Own a Vizio Smart TV? It’s Watching You

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Re: Own a Vizio Smart TV? It’s Watching You

#21

Post by nitrogen »

wildmusings wrote: post #18
ourmandave wrote: post #3

I don't understand why you'd want a Smart TV. If something goes south (in this age of disposable tech) it becomes like those TV/VCR combos of the past where 1/2 of it doesn't work. http://www.howtogeek.com/176392/smart-tvs-are-stupid-why-you...

Smart TVs don't cost more. And they function just fine as normal TVs. I got a 60 inch Vizio smart TV for about $400 and I'm pretty happy with it. I was pretty skeptical about the Smart TV features, but the built-in Netflix and Amazon Prime apps are actually very convenient and are more user friendly than a Chromecast. I can search, pause, rewind, change episodes, etc. without using my laptop. When the Smart TV featur…

"It's nothing new" is not an excuse to continue a bad trend.

Re: Own a Vizio Smart TV? It’s Watching You

#22

Post by rodgerd »

wildmusings wrote: post #18
ourmandave wrote: post #3

I don't understand why you'd want a Smart TV. If something goes south (in this age of disposable tech) it becomes like those TV/VCR combos of the past where 1/2 of it doesn't work. http://www.howtogeek.com/176392/smart-tvs-are-stupid-why-you...

Smart TVs don't cost more. And they function just fine as normal TVs. I got a 60 inch Vizio smart TV for about $400 and I'm pretty happy with it. I was pretty skeptical about the Smart TV features, but the built-in Netflix and Amazon Prime apps are actually very convenient and are more user friendly than a Chromecast. I can search, pause, rewind, change episodes, etc. without using my laptop. When the Smart TV featur…

> Smart TVs don't cost more.

Yes, they do. My non-smart Panasonic was a couple of hundred dollars cheaper than the equivalent smart ones.

Re: Own a Vizio Smart TV? It’s Watching You

#23

Post by wildmusings »

rodgerd wrote: post #22
wildmusings wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Smart TVs don't cost more. And they function just fine as normal TVs. I got a 60 inch Vizio smart TV for about $400 and I'm pretty happy with it. I was pretty skeptical about the Smart TV features, but the built-in Netflix and Amazon Prime apps are actually very convenient and are more user friendly than a Chromecast. I can search, pause, rewind, change episodes, etc. without using my laptop. When the Smart TV featur…

> Smart TVs don't cost more. Yes, they do. My non-smart Panasonic was a couple of hundred dollars cheaper than the equivalent smart ones.

Fair enough, I should have said: Smart TVs don't necessarily cost more.

Re: Own a Vizio Smart TV? It’s Watching You

#24

Post by McGlockenshire »

windexh8er wrote: post #8
McGlockenshire wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm kind of surprised we haven't seen any tuners on a stick, given the increasing trend of things that directly connect to HDMI ports. On the other hand, most "dumb" monitors don't seem to often include multiple HDMI inputs, so that might explain that.

Tuners on a stick have been around for well over a decade (Hauppauge was probably one of the first consumer focused brands and still sells a myriad of tuners). The problem is CableCard (out of CableLabs, which is run by a consortium of all the providers) and it's amazingly restrictive licensing. This is part of the reason why you can't really get a tuner for things like MythTV... Well, you can - but even though thing…

I was actually talking about the physical "on a stick" format, not actual tuners.

I'm a proud owner of an HDHR and am eagerly looking forward to Silicondust's software DVR. My CableCard experience has been remarkably trouble-free for years, but I've also been using it with Windows Media Center.

I couldn't ever get the HDHR working with MythTV. It has a long way to go as a product for end users, and hope it finds more success one day. I've worked (professionally) with the devs behind MythWeb and Schedules Direct, and I know they have some good talent available to them.

Windows Media Center remains the best software or hardware DVR experience I've ever had, and it makes me very sad that Microsoft decided to discontinue it.

Re: Own a Vizio Smart TV? It’s Watching You

#25

Post by wildmusings »

nitrogen wrote: post #21
wildmusings wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Smart TVs don't cost more. And they function just fine as normal TVs. I got a 60 inch Vizio smart TV for about $400 and I'm pretty happy with it. I was pretty skeptical about the Smart TV features, but the built-in Netflix and Amazon Prime apps are actually very convenient and are more user friendly than a Chromecast. I can search, pause, rewind, change episodes, etc. without using my laptop. When the Smart TV featur…

"It's nothing new" is not an excuse to continue a bad trend.

So long as it can be turned off, I don't really care. My decent-quality TV was cheap and I'm sure that it would have cost more if Vizio didn't supplement their revenue with this program.

Re: Own a Vizio Smart TV? It’s Watching You

#26

Post by GauntletWizard »

jevinskie wrote: post #17
LordKano wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't get it either. That article hits the issues why I won't buy one. I'd much rather have a plain old dumb tv and a smart device attached to it. With the same tv, I have been through a Chromecast, a NeoTV, a Roku 2 and a Roku3. I have kept adding features on to the same old tv. Also, I'm concerned about EOL issues. A friend of mine had a smart Blu-Ray player, the manufacturer stopped updating the software and whe…

Yup. A smart TV makes you find a single product that is both a good A) TV and B) media center/computer or whatever you want to call it. Decoupling the devices makes it easier to shop for the best TV and the best TV media center.

I have a smart TV only because there are no alternatives. TVs in larger sizes that are just TVs are hard to come by, and were even two years ago when I bought it. If you find me a TV with 4k resolution and more than four HDMI ports and no 'smart' features (except CEC, because having my Chromecast and amazon fire stick turn on the TV is magical), I'll switch in a heartbeat.

Re: Own a Vizio Smart TV? It’s Watching You

#27

Post by Bud »

wildmusings wrote: post #25
nitrogen wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"It's nothing new" is not an excuse to continue a bad trend.

So long as it can be turned off, I don't really care. My decent-quality TV was cheap and I'm sure that it would have cost more if Vizio didn't supplement their revenue with this program.

You trust the companies to leave the features disabled if you disable them?

I don't.

Vizio is a bad actor, here. This paragraph illustrates that quite well:

"Cable TV companies and video rental companies are prohibited by law from selling information about the viewing habits of their customers. However, Vizio says that those laws - the Video Privacy Protection Act and cable subscriber protections - don’t apply to its business."

Re: Own a Vizio Smart TV? It’s Watching You

#28

Post by Bud »

bsilvereagle wrote: post #2

The "fix" to this is to not let your TV connect to the internet. Instead, use a set top box that you trust to stream Netflix, etc. Mythtv or tvheadend are good solutions for live tv if you have a computer with a capture card.

No. The fix is to militate against "smart" TV makers and boycott them until they remove this malware and stop snooping as a means to gain more revenue. That is the only fix. No other fixes are trustable and verifiable at this point.

The fix is, don't ever buy a smart TV. Buy the stupidest TV you possibly can.

TV makers don't know anything about software and security, and they don't care at all about user privacy. So they shouldn't be allowed to write software and put features in their TVs.

Re: Own a Vizio Smart TV? It’s Watching You

#29

Post by Bud »

qq66 wrote: post #12
jordache wrote: post #11

sneaky ass vizio.. the setting to disable this is buried under a system diagnostics section with the word "Reset" prominently showing as the menu entry. It's as if they want to discourage owner from venturing into that menu out of fear of the Reset.

Much safer to never give the TV network credentials.

Nope. Not safer. There are ample ways for TVs to sneak onto the internet, without credentials, and those ways are only growing with time.
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