Live data from Hacker News

Plasma Bigscreen

plasma-bigscreen.org

231–240 of 276 posts

Re: Plasma Bigscreen

#231
post #58

I realize "Plasma" is the name of the KDE presentation layer across all platforms, but it's mildly awkward to see in this context considering plasma TVs have only been a dead technology for six years or so: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_display

Frankly it's disappointing that most of the comments on HN so far have been focused on the "marketing" and the website. The FAQ states that this project is still in very early stages and not yet intended for use as a daily driver. So if you actually read the website, it's clear why it's not consumer grade. I would much rather they focus on developing than marketing at this stage. The basic thing going on here is simp…

> I would much rather they focus on developing than marketing at this stage.

Totally reasonable to feel this way, but personally I think naming is so important that it transcends any technical merit a project might have.

For my own projects, I never write a single line of code until I come up with a name I truly love. Some times it takes weeks, but then the project has an identity which keeps me motivated over the long term and actually inspires my technical choices of what to build.

Compare to the “Yet Another” naming scheme which (to me) feels like a preemptive apology for a project’s mere existence: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yet_another

Re: Plasma Bigscreen

#232
post #152
post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They do, which is why you should never connect them to the internet.

Seriously? Well not connecting them to the internet works less and less, Amazon is rolling out their 900Mhz mesh with echo devices and there's LTE-M, NB-IoT and such. The idea of not letting a device connect to the Internet is slowly becoming a thing of the past unless you live in a faraday cage (which is becoming more and more tempting). Oh, correction, thanks to mesh networks like that of Alexa living in a Faraday…

Even with a mesh, devices still have to be authorised to get access. Just don't do that.

The more difficult option is if they come with cellular modems built-in, thus bypassing any of your infrastructure (which needs authorisation). That of course is technically possible, tho probably commercially unacceptable (modems cost ~15 to 20 dollars in bulk which is significant at smart-tv scales, not counting the data cost).

Re: Plasma Bigscreen

#233
post #130

If they expect ordinary people to use this, the Install page could use some love: https://plasma-bigscreen.org/get/ The very first heading is "Neon based reference rootfs". It gives the impression that you must know exactly what these words mean and what you're doing, or there's no hope of ever using this thing. (The classic 1990s style Linux onboarding experience, in other words.)

I know what those words mean and I can't figure out if I can install this on an LG TV I'm planning to purchase.

Re: Plasma Bigscreen

#234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand why people think electronics are supposed to die. Even if they do, it's often just some capacitors that died in the power supply. An easy fix!

Back in the day, there was a strong public perception/rumor that plasma screens would fail much sooner than other kinds. Maybe it was just a FUD campaign, after all.

Plasma did have an issue with 'burn in' on static images. If you did a lot of gaming on them, you could see it. Same with banners on news programming.

If you watch a lot of movies, it isn't an issue. Plus, the TVs came with a 'burn in' reduction program that you could run a couple times a year, but that operated by sweeping an intense white bar across the screen, so you were effectively 'wearing' the pixels down to a similar level to reduce the obvious burn in. If you ran that cycle to often, it would kill the maximum brightness.

Re: Plasma Bigscreen

#235
post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously? Well not connecting them to the internet works less and less, Amazon is rolling out their 900Mhz mesh with echo devices and there's LTE-M, NB-IoT and such. The idea of not letting a device connect to the Internet is slowly becoming a thing of the past unless you live in a faraday cage (which is becoming more and more tempting). Oh, correction, thanks to mesh networks like that of Alexa living in a Faraday…

Even with a mesh, devices still have to be authorised to get access. Just don't do that. The more difficult option is if they come with cellular modems built-in, thus bypassing any of your infrastructure (which needs authorisation). That of course is technically possible, tho probably commercially unacceptable (modems cost ~15 to 20 dollars in bulk which is significant at smart-tv scales, not counting the data cost).

> Even with a mesh, devices still have to be authorised to get access. Just don't do that.

Nope, the whole point of Amazon Sidewalk is that it "just works." I don't think there's even a way to know what devices are connected, let alone any kind of authorization.

Re: Plasma Bigscreen

#236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still have a 50" 720p Toshiba plasma, from 2006. Won't die... Been wanting to upgrade to a newer larger tv for years, but this thing keeps running along without issue...

I don't understand why people think electronics are supposed to die. Even if they do, it's often just some capacitors that died in the power supply. An easy fix!

An inevitable consequence of consumerism: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Throw-away_society

Re: Plasma Bigscreen

#237
post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm still rocking my 12 year old plasma TV, the thing won't die!

I connected a simple energy meter to my old (inherited with a house purchase so don't know exact age) 720p non-smart plasma TV to an energy meter just to get an idea of its power consumption. It was pulling between 350-400W! For comparison my 10 year old 1080p LED smart TV pulls about ~90W.

That's a benefit during winters in Canada, when it's on, I don't need to turn up the heat...

Re: Plasma Bigscreen

#238
post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depending on how much it's on in a day, and the price of energy the cost of replacing it with an LCD might pay for itself.

wouldn't LCD be downgrade? i never owned plasma tv, but AFAIK biggest advantage are perfect blacks, so I guess OLED should be more natural upgrade path?

LCD with full-array local dimming can get really close. It also gets much brighter than OLED. It's a much tougher decision than it used to be.

Re: Plasma Bigscreen

#239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Truly modern TVs have much better scaling and frame interpolation than whatever your OS or media player can do.

Unlikely. I doubt that state of the art video processing is available in hardware. There are custom finetuned neural upscalers and frame interpolators available for every kind of content.

TVs have software too. My LG OLED gets updates to the upscaling software relatively frequently.

Re: Plasma Bigscreen

#240
post #58

I realize "Plasma" is the name of the KDE presentation layer across all platforms, but it's mildly awkward to see in this context considering plasma TVs have only been a dead technology for six years or so: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_display

Frankly it's disappointing that most of the comments on HN so far have been focused on the "marketing" and the website. The FAQ states that this project is still in very early stages and not yet intended for use as a daily driver. So if you actually read the website, it's clear why it's not consumer grade. I would much rather they focus on developing than marketing at this stage. The basic thing going on here is simp…

> Frankly it's disappointing that most of the comments on HN so far have been focused on the "marketing" and the website.

Or it's a strong signal toward the creators that their clever idea for naming was only clever in their heads and nowhere else?

I too got confused and was wondering "is this a project to revive old plasma TVs somehow?".

Post reply on HN