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The downfall of smart TVs: From promises of seamless viewing to ad tool

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Re: The downfall of smart TVs: From promises of seamless viewing to ad tool

#371

Post by Arrath »

SayMyName wrote: post #142
xoa wrote: post #87

FWIW, it is still possible to get TVs without this stuff, albeit at a premium. TVs are still made for business usage in areas like conference rooms, wall displays etc. They're often found under labeling like "commercial digital signage" or "business display" or the like, they seem to often try to avoid using "TV" (if being cynical maybe to make them harder for normal people to discover and confuse them if they do). B…

You can still get cheap ones. And by cheap I mean TLC/Hisense level quality displays. Walmart sells Sceptre's for low prices and have no smart features, best purchase I've made in years. We use a lot of Rokus here and my issue isn't the ads, its that every Roku built-in TV gets REALLY slow after a few updates, so now it's just easier to chuck a $20-30 device instead of having to buy an entire $300+TV. Sure I don't ge…

> gets REALLY slow after a few updates

The curse of smart TVs, I swear.

My TV pops an error and says it's still powering on if I try to change inputs right after turning it on.

Yet, if it is turned on by a device, like I begin casting to my chromecast, or turn on my xbox, it'll go to that input immediately no problem.

Re: The downfall of smart TVs: From promises of seamless viewing to ad tool

#372

Post by drcongo »

drcongo wrote: post #366
scarface74 wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m in a Hilton hotel right now. You don’t get a standard Wifi password. You go to a web page where you enter your room number and last name and then your MAC address is allowed for a certain amount of time.

Ahh damn. Does signing in on the phone first not work? I'm struggling to remember what the captive screen wanted last time I did it, it's been a while.

Also, I've never tried it, but can't one just tether the Apple TV to the phone?

Re: The downfall of smart TVs: From promises of seamless viewing to ad tool

#373

Post by OJFord »

jamesbfb wrote: post #307
LeifCarrotson wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OMG it has a carrier board for an RPi Compute Module built in: https://i.imgur.com/D3p8bCA.png That's amazing!

Jeff Geerling talks about this very TV in one of his videos a while back: https://youtu.be/-epPf7D8oMk If my partner wasn’t so hell bent in decor when choosing a TV, I would have loved one of these!

Funnily enough that's actually featured in the images/video carousel in GGP's NEC link. Was surprised to see his 'YouTube thumbnail face' there!

Re: The downfall of smart TVs: From promises of seamless viewing to ad tool

#374

Post by lotsofpulp »

nesk_ wrote: post #203
kornhole wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if you have been following the news about Apple expanding its advertising business. If you don't want a corporation collecting data about your viewing, you could modify your approach slightly and try kodi.tv. I have Librelec running on a RPI with attached SSD as house media server. The add-ons catalog is large and growing, but it won't have all the channels you might want.

Unfortunately yes, I saw the news about Apple. I'm waiting to see what will happen concretely, but I'm not very optimist. We'll see and maybe it will be time to move to another device :'(

The “news” about Apple was Bloomberg guessing about Apple’s plans with zero evidence. Pretty sad example of the success of clickbait.

Re: The downfall of smart TVs: From promises of seamless viewing to ad tool

#375

Post by yborg »

xoa wrote: post #87

FWIW, it is still possible to get TVs without this stuff, albeit at a premium. TVs are still made for business usage in areas like conference rooms, wall displays etc. They're often found under labeling like "commercial digital signage" or "business display" or the like, they seem to often try to avoid using "TV" (if being cynical maybe to make them harder for normal people to discover and confuse them if they do). B…

That NEC isn't a TV though, i.e. it has no tuner.

Re: The downfall of smart TVs: From promises of seamless viewing to ad tool

#376

Post by OJFord »

saxonww wrote: post #286
vonseel wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does kodi / librelec have decent Netflix/Prime/HBO Max/Apple TV+ apps? I was under the impression they don't really support the big streaming apps and aren't really of use outside of watching torrented content.

Kodi didn't the last time I checked. Note that unless you're running Windows or Mac, 4k from Netflix is not available anyway. In fact, 1080p would not be available, according to their system requirements. Linux tops out at 720p on both Chrome and Firefox. I have to assume this would extend to Kodi on whatever platform you're running Kodi on. https://help.netflix.com/en/node/23742

Or the official apps right, that page is just about browsers (and implicitly unofficial apps)? So you could have the Kodi & Netflix apps on an Android TV (e.g. Nvidia Shield) device and have 4K Netflix.

Re: The downfall of smart TVs: From promises of seamless viewing to ad tool

#377

Post by cerol »

Is there an end to the Data Age ®?

Sometimes I have this interesting thought, that someday, when even the oldest people alive will not know or will not remebered how things worked back then. Then someone, or a group of people, will suddenly rediscover, or reinvent (as we always do throughout history) things that today still exist. Maybe someone will come up with "shops where you are served by real people", or paying for content you watch. Or a "shopping mall, but without cameras" ("but who will be watching me?"). Or a vehicle you can drive yourself.

I know it's a silly philosophical thought. But what it points to, for me, is that data harvesting works because it trades privacy for convenience, and even if it's too little, there are ways to opt-out (the trivial case being opting out of convenience). But it's a much too thin line to thread.

People are aware of the massive commercial surveillance. They just don't care. Human society is built upon trust or its lack thereof. When trust can't be established, surveillance arises. It only becomes a moral problem when it is done asymmetrically, and in an unprecedented scale.

When is too much too much? When your TV starts showing ads, even when unplugged from electricity? When you have to watch an ad to start your EV car (unless you purchase the Quick Start+ package for 9.99/mo)? You can take a break from ads today. That, in a way, ensures that you can consume ads for longer. But industry seems to be moving in the direction of eventually leaving you with no way to opt out. Then, the convenience might not be worth it anymore. That means either a market demand for ad-free products, and a subsequent return to pay-for-content business model, or some sort of social turmoil.

Or maybe that's their plan to get us to consume less: just stick everything with insane amounts of obnoxious ads, so we won't buy anything anyway.

Re: The downfall of smart TVs: From promises of seamless viewing to ad tool

#378

Post by AlwaysRock »

I run an hdmi cable from my laptop and have a bluetooth keyboard with a scroll pad on it. My wife doesnt like it. But its so much faster than a "smart tv". My issue isnt even the ads. Its that half of these tvs feel like they are running on low memory because of how slow they are. Add in the streaming apps that crash just often enough to be really annoying...

I wish it didnt have to be that way.

Re: The downfall of smart TVs: From promises of seamless viewing to ad tool

#379

Post by 12ian34 »

whimsicalism wrote: post #235
ilitirit wrote: post #127

YouTube's advertising strategy is pushing me to get rid of my SmartTV, or at least find a 3rd Party solution to completely block the ads. I was completely fine with one or two 6 second ads randomly playing before a video, or during a lengthy video. Then they added 14 second ads, which was very annoying, but bearable since it's about the same length as the two short ads. But now they're advertising even if I simply op…

I have actively returned to using my computer to watch YT/Hulu because the overhead of seeing the ads is just too high on our TV.

Same. I have Google TV and YouTube in there for me is now unusable due to the number of ads. It feels like it's gotten twice as bad in the last 6 months.

On Android, I use Newpipe (via F-Droid). On laptop/desktop I use uBlock and SponsorBlock which do a great job together.

Re: The downfall of smart TVs: From promises of seamless viewing to ad tool

#380

Post by mrweasel »

sligor wrote: post #219
mrweasel wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

YouTube do have a paid option, which doesn't have ads (unless the content creator has some sponsorship deal). It is the subscription service I get the most value from. Based on a few videos from content creators, it also seems like it's a good deal for them. I think Linus Tech Tips phrased something like: It matters much more than you think. Other have shown data suggestion that Premium customers contribute as much a…

The paid option is very expensive. I would pay for an ad-free only Youtube, but this option is not available in my country. I already pay for Spotify and Netflix. So I don't care about other services of youtube premium except ads-free

If you don't need/want YouTube Music, then yes, it's way to expensive. If I where to buy today, I would get the version without YouTube Music, and replace it with a service where more money goes to the artists.
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