261–270 of 383 posts
Waring: This TV shows ads that can’t be turned off
Warning: This TV records what you watch, when and for how long and shares that with third parties
I know I wouldn’t buy a TV with that warning on the front of the box
I wonder if there is a market for dumb TVs. They basically don't exist today. Closest thing I could get was a Dell conference room monitor, which is $1200 for a 55 inch, and $4500 for a 75 inch. A far cry from the $700 I spent on my current 75 inch TV, but I'm strongly considering it.
I bought one brand 2 days ago. You need to look hard and not want the latest image quality/biggest size. I got a Samsung N5000 43" LED [1], 1080p, dumb as hell, boots in less than a second. Got it for 330 CAD$ before taxes. I try to be modest and consume less. I prefer using a Chromecast. [1] https://www.samsung.com/ca/tvs/fhdtv-n5000-global/
For those who use piHole or other network wide ad blocking, I've compiled a list of servers to block: https://factory-reset.com/wiki/Samsung_Telemetry_Servers Typically I would suggest not connecting your TV to any sort of internet connection - firmware updates don't typically tend to add or fix much on these devices. If you really have an issue, update the firmware, factory reset and then disable wifi / unplug ether…
blocking like that works for now, but what's the plan for when they switch to DNS-over-HTTP? and host everything on ephemeral AWS addresses?
Imagine a browser extension that whitelist the ip of the site you go to in the address bar for like 30 minutes in cooperation with the router.
All other ip traffic is blocked.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It’s getting harder and harder to. I ended up buying a projector and a screen, large TVs are pretty much all infected with this kind of “smart os” and I don’t want a tv constantly asking to be connected to the internet so it can download adware.
The term you're looking for is "Commercial Signage" or "Large-Format Displays" [1] This is of course US based but there are other vendors for North America, and I'm sure for EuroAsia and beyond. You're paying more for the fact that some models are built to last longer, and the fact there's no wireless or smart junk. [1] https://www.cdw.com/search/Monitors-Projectors/Large-Format-...
Not just built to last longer, but built to last in a lot of different environments (heat, cold, humidity, vandalism, vibrations) whereas consumer TVs are optimized to run at 20-25 °C in a home where they will be rarely moved. The QA on the panels is much more rigorous, too (it's the same thing as with Intel CPUs, the yield on panels hitting the standards for commercial signage is lower than your average consumer TV).
Also, you'll be getting spare parts for these in a decade if you need it (or, at the very least, can purchase a new device with identical specs in that time), there will be support from the manufacturer over that time, and more often than not you'll be able to find decent documentation about how to integrate them into whatever you're building.
And: some of these carry amazing features. Some two years ago when I was doing videography stuff for an event, there were four 60 inch full-HD monitors in a 2x2 grid - supplied with one DVI cable for the signal that was passed between them using in daisy chain mode, they were configurable to run in grids of up to 4x4 I believe, and the monitors simply took the incoming signal, cropped their section out of it, and displayed it scaled. Was a hell of a lot of fun playing with them.
I had one of those TVs. The ads show up in the menu bar. I called them and told them I paid over a thousand dollars for this TV and do not want ads. They said they'd be happy to help me disable my internet connection. I was so dumbfounded at the petty response that I simply hung up. Lost a customer for life. I will never again buy a Samsung product.
I bought a Samsung smart TV in 2014. I then went abroad for a few years, and came back in 2016. Unfortunately, in the meantime, the whole smart hub stopped working. The answer was the update the smart hub. Unfortunately, you have to update the smart hub through the smart hub which doesn’t work. Samsung support was useless. I now have a “dumb” TV with a separate Apple TV and it’s much, much better.
If you own an Internet-connected TV, you've been seeing these for 2 years or more. I submitted it 11 months ago ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21427405 ) and it wasn't new then. The ACR-based retargeting audiences ( https://www.samsung.com/us/business/samsungads/resources/tv-... ) are probably the most offensive. For example: "Reach viewers who saw your competitor’s ads as quickly as 60 seconds after linear a…
How can we block all of this? Is Pi-hole sufficient?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
1. Turn off your Samsung TV's internet connection 2. Connect Apple TV via HDMI Not only does this improve your privacy, but it improves the UI and remote of your TV.
> Not only does this improve your privacy, but it improves the UI and remote of your TV. Two out of three anyhow... the Apple TV remote is pretty mediocre. Gets rid of a lot of junk I never use, and a bunch of stuff I really miss (the mute button for starters).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
1. Don't buy a smart TV 2. Done
What do you buy instead? I don't imagine it's easy to find a recent, high-quality TV without "smart" features. A few years ago, I looked into getting a digital signage display instead, but they were pretty expensive.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I can on my 2019 model. Maybe they changed it? What happens if you ignore it and switch HDMI inputs with the remote?
You can absolutely ignore it, even without switching inputs; it appears above the menu/input bar at the bottom and isn't modal. However, it reappears every time the TV is turned on. At some point, a houseguest (assuming those are a thing at some point in the future) is going to hit "okay", or I'm going to do so accidentally while fumbling with the remote, and that isn't the same thing as actual/deliberate consent fro…