Floppy disks are getting hard to come by, and will soon be too expensive. A good option would be to have the same data printed as QR codes in labels glued to small domino sized wood blocks that could be inserted in a slot in a box and read by a cheap camera module.
It wouldn't be making fun floppy disk noises then though!
You could wire in one of those small phone vibration motors and get similar noises out of it. Experimenting with different ways of mounting the motor so that it makes metallic or mechanical noises would be fun. If you really wanted to get the full audio experience you could also add another motor that spins a small, disk shaped load that you could ramp up and down for the steady whirring noises.
The Yoto system actively encourages you to buy 'blank' cards to fill with your own content, and the process is relatively simple. Simply remove the DRM from the borrowed media, (convert to an appropriate format if required), then upload to the card. Wipe your card whenever you borrow a new audio book from the libarary for a clear conscience. yt-dlp is also a great source of content.
This is true - we've taken advantage of it somewhat (my wife ripped Harry Potter this way, and we recorded ourselves narrating some favorites). Mainly (shamefully) "Simply remove the DRM" is doing some work in your sentence. We just, uh, haven't gotten together the executive function to figure out how to do it with the Libby app on the iPhone. As a Hacker News poster I want to be the type of person who figures this o…
That's fair, library systems can be very variable, where we are we can access audiobooks on a desktop, so there's access to the raw files, I can see how if you're doing it with an iPhone app it's considerably harder!
There are some off-the-shelf products that work similarly in the audio space: https://us.yotoplay.com/ https://us.tonies.com/ I had plans to build something that for the TV, but having kids means I never had the time. And honestly, that might not have been such a bad thing since it made setting limits easier. I was able to teach my kid to turn the TV off when she was fairly young (and pause more recently), which seem…
These are also easy to DIY with a raspberry pi, rfid card reader, some blank cards, and phoniebox [0] for the software. I don't have much electronics experience and had it up and running fairly easily for under $40. [0] https://github.com/MiczFlor/RPi-Jukebox-RFID
I thought the same before we actually got a Yoto. This is one of those "I could easily DIY that" things that you really couldn't.
When Netflix released an awful update that had that problem, I called and threatened to cancel.
And they immediately fixed the lag?
Within a few days it appeared that the update was recalled.
It was the bad update that made videos start playing as soon as you selected them, instead of going to the information page. I get the impression I wasn't the only person who complained; I suspect that any manager who sat down to watch TV that night probably twisted a few arms.
I don’t run into this because I never allow the TV to connect to the internet. I basically use it as a dumb screen with a set of speakers and a bunch of devices connected to it: Apple TV, consoles, etc. As such, when I do use the TV remote - if I need to manually change sources, adjust picture settings, or whatever - the TV’s UI remains responsive. I have heard that some brands of TV will try to stealth connect to op…
This is always the top reply and it's not particularly useful. I want the ease and convenience of having a single device both play and display content, there's no reason that should be so hard. Of course I know I could Buy More Things but that sucks as a suggestion. This is how most people use their TVs these days (despite the issues with it). It's reasonable and fair to ask for a better experience.
I tried the smart tv, but then the app devs stopped updating the apps for that model or version of the OS. there's nothing wrong with the picture, but to be able to keep using apps would require a new tv. That's when I switched to devices connected to the TV, and stopped using the TV's apps. Devs will always update for devices like Roku, AppleTV, etc as there's enough users. I can only imagine the number of users for specific model of tv's OS will get smaller and no longer worth effort on the dev's time.
I don’t run into this because I never allow the TV to connect to the internet. I basically use it as a dumb screen with a set of speakers and a bunch of devices connected to it: Apple TV, consoles, etc. As such, when I do use the TV remote - if I need to manually change sources, adjust picture settings, or whatever - the TV’s UI remains responsive. I have heard that some brands of TV will try to stealth connect to op…
This is always the top reply and it's not particularly useful. I want the ease and convenience of having a single device both play and display content, there's no reason that should be so hard. Of course I know I could Buy More Things but that sucks as a suggestion. This is how most people use their TVs these days (despite the issues with it). It's reasonable and fair to ask for a better experience.
its a double edged sword, better hardware and experience = more expensive (see Sonys higher end stuff) 90% of would much rather drop the money on the less expensive BIG TV with a cpu that cant even transcode properly and harvests your data to offset the price. ive got a lot of family and friends that use my plex server and i pretty much force them to get a dedicated streaming device for it or warn them that unfortunately i cant help them if the content doesnt want to play.
> Modern TVs are very poorly suited for kids. They require using complicated remotes or mobile phones, and navigating apps that continually try to lure you into watching something else than you intended to. I'd argue that's not too different for grown-ups. ;)
My biggest gripe is how terribly slow it is to navigate UI on a TV. The latency between user input and the UI responding can be upwards of 10-20 seconds. Just incredibly user hostile.
Our Samsung running Tizen has the obnoxious need to check if antenna-based broadcasting is available, every single time you open the settings menu.
It never is, it won’t ever again be in Europe. But it checks. And lags. And then whatever you chose in the menu is not what it selected.
Every. Single. Time. Going to settings makes me wince.
Honestly we don't need TVs, just big monitors. I can figure out the rest, thank you.
The monitor I use for work is 43” and can double as a TV. It also has 4 HDMI inputs, which can act as 4 displays. I could, in theory, watch TV via a streaming box, play a console, and still have the equivalent of 2 21” monitors going at the same time. I’d love this kind of flexibility on my primary TV in the living room.
Is this something you're actually able to do with this monitor, or that you think it should be able to do it? If it can actually display all 4 inputs at the same time, I'd be interested in knowing the model and price of that monitor. That's a feature that tends to require special equipment that's not cheap.
I tried to look for a 'dumb' tv for a long time to get to a setup like this. The ultimate setup would be 1) a totally dumb and stupid tv + 2) a streaming box like Apple TV or whatever. I just want the audio/visual aspect of the screen, nothing else.
Dumb TVs really don’t exist anymore. You just have to buy a smart one and treat it like it’s dumb. Over Christmas my mom was complaining about her TV and I found a setting to have it start up with the last used input, which meant no more dealing with the smart interface and motion remote. I have an LG as well, but I wasn’t able to find the same setting available, unfortunately. Thought the automatic selection seems t…
got a Sony last year that gave me the option on startup to enable or disable the smart TV os, picked the disabled option, TV isnt connected to the internet and the thing works beautifully.