[HN Gopher] Plasma Bigscreen
___________________________________________________________________
Plasma Bigscreen
Author : sudenmorsian
Score : 590 points
Date : 2022-09-15 22:29 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (plasma-bigscreen.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (plasma-bigscreen.org)
| bioemerl wrote:
| Hey I'm not at my friend's house and it's not 2005, why are we
| talking about big screen plasma TVs
| nivenkos wrote:
| Looks amazing, I'll have to see if I can set it up on desktop
| mode for the docked Steam Deck.
| ianai wrote:
| Anyone know if the various cable companies streaming sites would
| work on this? (Been a while, sorry.)
| abujazar wrote:
| I hope they'll get some design help.
| neilalexander wrote:
| Unfortunately this was the first thing I thought too and is
| often the first undoing of open source projects. It might be an
| impressive technical feat but it _looks_ a mess. Software
| developers often make the worst UX designers and all that.
| sph wrote:
| > Software developers often make the worst UX designers and
| all that.
|
| What bugs me is that most people make bad UI designers _and_
| they are completely oblivious to it. I see some people
| desktops and their editor 's colour schemes and I wonder if
| they have any sense of aesthetics at all. A cursory look at
| those "desktop theme" websites is the proof that 99% of them
| are just plain terrible.
|
| I swear I saw someone that replaced their default UI font
| with Times New Roman.
|
| It's like what Steve Jobs said about Microsoft: most people
| just don't have any taste. It sounds arrogant, but I think
| there's some truth to it.
| LeoPanthera wrote:
| The killer feature of Kodi (on most hardware, for example the
| Raspberry Pi) is that it can switch the output resolution to
| match the video you are playing. It also bypasses things like
| ALSA in order to be able to bit-bang audio in supported formats
| directly to an external receiver. These are basic functions of
| normal video playback devices like blu-ray players or cable
| boxes.
|
| A Plasma skin can't do any of this. So while it's probably very
| suitable for things like games and photo frames on a big screen,
| I fear that it is disadvantaged from the start for video and
| audio.
| jicksaw wrote:
| If it's using mpv, the xrandr plugin could work for resolution
| or frame rate switching.
|
| https://gitlab.com/lvml/mpv-plugin-xrandr
| ariendj wrote:
| Audio passthrough on the pi is done using ALSA. There is no
| bitbanging of anything going on here.
| rascul wrote:
| How does Kodi bypass ALSA?
| ariendj wrote:
| It does no such thing. It either plays out via ALSA or
| Pulseaudio.
| vasvir wrote:
| I can attest that KODI has options to bypass the default
| audio format that was automatically selected during handshake
| usually through HDMI.
|
| The use case is the following. Consider one that has:
| * 5.1 capable audio system * A TVBox (KODI) * A
| TV * A projector
|
| Now * The TV apps can play 5.1 content
| * The TVBox (KODI) can play 5.1 content when connected to TV
| through HMDI (5.1 was agreed in the handshake between TV and
| TVBox) * The TVBox __cannot play__ 5.1 content when
| connected to projector through HDMI because the projector is
| stereo audio only and there is no option to accept 5.1
| content.
|
| KODI gives the capability to __force__ audio output to be 5.1
| if the playing video has it. It can transcoding on the fly
| i.e simple 5.1 in file to DTS.
|
| It does not bypass ALSA. It uses ALSA. It bypasses the
| original HDMI handshake and follows the user's wishes.
|
| Of course it does not work in my case because a) that's the
| universe we live and b) it hits some android capability /
| security problem and it switches back to stereo output.
| jaimex2 wrote:
| He's talking about the embedded Kodi derivatives. (CoreElec,
| OpenElec, LibreElec etc)
|
| They run their own audio stack.
| ariendj wrote:
| No they don't. They run ALSA.
| rascul wrote:
| I would really like to know more about this, and I can't
| seem to find anything about it. Are these projects
| implementing their own drivers for all the various audio
| hardware they can use instead of using ALSA? That certainly
| wasn't the case some years back when I used OpenElec.
| mappu wrote:
| "ALSA" has two meanings - there is only one set of Linux
| kernel audio drivers, and they're all ALSA no matter what
| distro you use. I think you're talking about this
| meaning.
|
| The other meaning of "ALSA" is libasound / asound.conf /
| dmix, the old userspace audio stack, which is deprecated
| since Pulseaudio except for a few holdout distros. ALSA
| had difficulty mixing multiple playback streams, let
| alone bitstreaming DTS. I think the GP is talking about
| this meaning.
| account42 wrote:
| > ALSA had difficulty mixing multiple playback streams
|
| At some point long before PulseAudio was ever a thing
| maybe but dmix with the default config has been working
| just fine all this time.
| jchw wrote:
| I sort of disagree. ALSA didn't really have difficulty
| mixing multiple playback streams unless you go back
| _really_ far. dmix works quite well. It has a lot of
| problems, particularly dealing with routing, hot
| plugging, etc. but the dmix stuff always worked more or
| less fine for me, as long as I had it configured. otoh,
| pulse took quite a while to mature in my opinion, and had
| plenty of issues with this basic functionality over time,
| though I will at least be fair and say that it got blamed
| for a lot of ALSA driver issues and other nonsense too.
| (I think up until recently it was defaulting to doing
| resampling with a Speex resampler that suffered from
| fairly noticable aliasing in many cases, as a result of
| the projects paranoia to be seen as a resource hog...)
|
| That and bitbanging audio through GPIO or otherwise
| bypassing the ALSA stack doesn't seem all that
| unreasonable. I can't find any specific information about
| it with LibreElec/etc. but it would not surprise me.
|
| Oh well. I think Pipewire has a lot of potential today.
| It brings much improvement to routing and session
| management for audio and the hybrid scheduler design and
| considerations for pro audio use cases makes it very
| promising. I hope the need to bypass the Linux audio
| stack can disappear.
| dTal wrote:
| >let alone bitstreaming DTS
|
| On the contrary, that's super easy with ALSA. Literally
| all you need to do to "bitstream" is "play" the data as
| if it were audio, and not have any software in between
| trying to adjust volume or otherwise modify it. You could
| do it with nothing more complicated than "aplay", making
| sure to specify the correct card and not dmix.
| jcelerier wrote:
| AFAIK pulseaudio, PipeWire and Jack are all built on top
| of libasound's snd_ APIs, it's the only sane way to use
| ALSA - just like you aren't going to make manual syscalls
| for read or write but going to use a libc
| nephanth wrote:
| Doesn't pulseaudio solve that though ?
| electriczigjam wrote:
| I don't think this has anything to do with kodi, kodi does not
| seem to have a browser or allows running external applications,
| you can instead run kodi as an app on this
| LeoPanthera wrote:
| I'm sure you could run Kodi on top of this, but then it would
| be just as restricted as any other app, and not be able to do
| the things I mentioned compared to running it directly via
| something like LibreELEC.
|
| Kodi can actually run third party apps, for what it's worth:
| https://kodi.tv/addons/matrix/
| electriczigjam wrote:
| But kodi is still an application with addons, Kodi is not
| going to allow you to run native applications on top of it
| Jnr wrote:
| You can run native apps from Kodi.
|
| I used to launch Steam games in Big picture mode from
| Kodi just fine.
|
| Actually I was waiting for a desktop environment like
| this Plasma Bigscreen for a while but then got a new TV
| with Android and use that instead.
|
| I would still prefer to use Kodi as the main app launcher
| on Android but it gets Killed to save memory and takes a
| while to start up again.
|
| And using Kodi over HDMI is not an option anymore since a
| lot of content I watch comes in 4K 10bit HDR or 4K Dolby
| Vision and sadly desktop Linux does not support HDR and
| variable refresh rate over HDMI (so Linux Steam
| experience also bad).
| jaimex2 wrote:
| Indeed, Kodi shines because it has native addons that
| make a consistent experience.
|
| Everything is easy to drive via a TV remote.
|
| The skin system lets you have as much UI eye candy as you
| like.
|
| Chances are someone has made an addon for whatever you
| want to consume.
|
| You're just running ye old HTPC otherwise.
| cypress66 wrote:
| Changing the monitor resolution doesn't seem good. A software
| upscaling (like lanczos, or ML upscaling if you like that) can
| be much higher quality than whatever upscaling (probably
| bilinear) the display does.
| dTal wrote:
| There's no reason a "Plasma skin" can't do anything Kodi can
| do. They're both just a bunch of software.
| monocasa wrote:
| You don't typically don't want to switch output resolution to
| match the resolution of whatever your outputting on modern
| displays, but instead want to match the panel resolution and
| software scale the content. You're way too likely to confuse
| the monitor trying to match resolution. There's something to be
| said for matching frame rate, but there's even more dragons in
| that practically.
| Retr0id wrote:
| Truly modern TVs have much better scaling and frame
| interpolation than whatever your OS or media player can do.
| LtWorf wrote:
| At the cost of seeing the lips move a little after the
| actor said the words :D
| orbital-decay wrote:
| 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.
| jaywalk wrote:
| TVs have software too. My LG OLED gets updates to the
| upscaling software relatively frequently.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| Most people hang on to their TV for 10 years or way more
| than that. Expecting people to have truly modern TVs is a
| crapshoot. Only enthusiasts upgrade to the latest and
| greatest.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| And unless you're a very informed technical savvy
| consumer who does his research and knows what he's
| buying, upgrading your TV might end up being a downgrade
| for you as you could end up replacing a perfectly good
| dumb TV with a new WiFi "smart" TV that spies on you and
| serves you ads.
|
| No thanks, modern TVs!
| water8 wrote:
| What makes the TV software better than OS software?
| capableweb wrote:
| Usually software designed explicitly for the hardware
| where it runs, while OS software is designed to run on
| general hardware. If there is hardware specific fixes,
| they might be skipped as it'll make compatibility worse
| while software designed for exact hardware doesn't make
| tradeoffs like that at all.
| water8 wrote:
| I don't think the actual hardware components inside a TV
| are all that different from an SOC because they're
| essentially doing the same thing.
| gregmac wrote:
| Doesn't that depend on how good the implementation is? Some
| modern TVs and receivers have exceptionally good scaling
| built-in.
|
| I'd also bet with certain types of displays (eg: OLED, HDR
| and/or local dimming) there's benefits when there's a
| different aspect ratio (eg 21:9), letting the TV do something
| different to the backlight when it knows there there is no
| content in parts of the display vs getting a black signal.
| booi wrote:
| Actually matching framerates is a lot more common, for
| example to provide smooth playback of 23.976/24 or 25 fps
| when the native refresh is 60hz (not cleanly divisible).
| Usually this is done by going up to 72hz or 75hz rather than
| down but it's a lot better than keeping at 60hz and
| stuttering. Previously this was accomplished with something
| called telecining which.. isn't great.,
| account42 wrote:
| Shouldn't the optimal solution be to adjust the display
| refresh rate using vesa adpative sync these days? No need
| for shitty interpolation when most panels can run at
| variable refresh rates.
| water8 wrote:
| You can have multiple displays connected to an HDMI hub
| with different refresh rates. I have this problem with a
| projector that runs at 240 Hz in a TV that runs at 60 Hz.
| It confuses my receiver.
| charrondev wrote:
| I have an Nvidia Shield and the latest Apple TV for media
| playback. These pair with a pretty expensive home 7.1.2 theatre
| system.
|
| I've made my peace with software upscaling of video to match
| resolution/frame rate. At least the Apple TV does it pretty
| well. If you don't you get a really annoying flicker as the
| display changes resolution. The shield on the other hand has
| really bad up scaling by comparison, particularly with frame
| rates so I just leave it on.
|
| Far more important in my book is properly sending the raw audio
| out. I have a very expensive audio unit that will do a far
| better job upmixing the sound. Unfortunately the Apple TV
| doesn't let me send the raw audio out.
| ricardobeat wrote:
| [bad comment about design - removed]
| lordofgibbons wrote:
| >not to mention the harsh centered shadow, is an immediate
| turn-off. Unfortunately it's 2022 and linux design standards
| are still nowhere to be found.
|
| I honestly can't fathom how people can complain about a free
| software that protects your privacy and gives you full control
| of your purchased hardware. If some overflowing text, harsh
| shadow, or whatever is a show-stopper, preserving your privacy
| wasn't that high of a priority for you anyway.
|
| It's a free and opensource project. Feel free to open a PR or
| bug report.
| andrew_ wrote:
| > It's a free and opensource project. Feel free to open a PR
| or bug report.
|
| This isn't and never has been protection from constructive
| criticism. Nor should it be. Choose to ignore it, or dismiss
| it, sure. But belittling valid criticism is a bad look.
| throwawaylinux wrote:
| Complaining about UIs on forums that the people responsible
| for the issue will likely never see is not and never has
| been constructive criticism.
|
| It's a gripe, or a whinge, which is fine and open source
| shouldn't be immune to it. Although I will say that open
| source projects in my experience tend to be much more
| responsive to bug reports and actual constructive criticism
| from people paying them $0.00 than proprietary software
| projects are.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Naw, its more like: --protecting privacy -
| check --decent UI - In Progress
| lifeisstillgood wrote:
| There is a missing HOWTO in my life - a FOSS based home guide. I
| would like to take advantage of linux on the home router, or this
| TV or better ways to cross manage messaging on different
| platforms.
|
| Basically years ago FOSS made things simpler because it gave you
| back control.
|
| Now maybe I am just out of the loop, but I am not feeling the
| control in the everyday.
| pc2g4d wrote:
| That would be an awesome HOWTO
|
| I've been using OpenWRT (previously DD-WRT) on my routers for
| years now. Mostly I just enjoy not having nonsense on my
| router!
|
| I think how I got started with it was by finding my device in
| their devices table and reading the page specifically for it.
| https://openwrt.org/toh/start
|
| The biggest caveats would be: I've never had any issues
| personally, but be aware of the risks; avoid bricking your
| router, and be prepared to recover it in case the worst happens
| (make sure you back up the firmware before flashing it.)
|
| And once you're installed.... `opkg upgrade` is much riskier
| than `dnf upgrade`. There's usually no script doing necessary
| modifications for you. Use with care.
| lifeisstillgood wrote:
| If you want to join forces writing that HOWTO please shout !
|
| I dug out an old router in the garage and might play over the
| weekend
| osigurdson wrote:
| I wonder how long it will be before cheap TVs have no input ports
| (just a WIFI connection). That way the TV gets to decide what you
| watch to some extent. For example by interrupting your Netflix
| stream with a few ads from time to time.
| MBCook wrote:
| Video games are way too big a business. Until game consoles die
| and it all moves to the cloud (Stadium, etc.) I can't see ports
| going away on most TVs.
| kuu wrote:
| If I'm not wrong, latest Samsung TVs let you play Xbox games
| without an Xbox
| jacobsenscott wrote:
| I suppose they could do this even with ports - they could have
| small adds pop up in the corners, overlaying whatever is
| playing. They could charge $5 a month to disable the ads.
| osigurdson wrote:
| It would be hard to achieve unless it was somehow necessary
| to connect the TV to wifi in order to use it at all (even
| when something is plugged into a port). That would be pretty
| confusing for people I think.
| jacknews wrote:
| Shhh!
|
| But you're right this is quite possible, perhaps you will be
| able to buy an ad-free model at a premium, like with Kindles.
|
| Probably some ads would be preloaded, so you'll end up giving
| it wifi just to get new ads instead of enduring the old ones
| over and over and over again.
| charlie0 wrote:
| Wow, so this is why the marketing departments exists. I thought
| this was related to actual plasmas TVs lol.
|
| Looks pretty cool though. I'm keen on open source privacy minded
| software I can run on my TV. Currently, I have Kodi and it would
| be nice to have other high quality alternatives.
| ekianjo wrote:
| It does not tranform your TV into anything. it needs a RPi in
| order to do anything.
| andrew_ wrote:
| This. And it just kills me how so many things "linux" look so
| unpolished. Why is it so difficult for projects like this to
| find and get designers interested?
| bee_rider wrote:
| Windows is also pretty unpolished, I think it is impossible
| to get people to work on polishing unless you have infinity
| dollars, like Apple. At least Linux has the excuse that it is
| a community project -- things that the community decides not
| to work on are sort of definitionally not annoying enough to
| be worth working on, or they would.
| jokethrowaway wrote:
| Windows is polished, but their product people are terrible
| / constrained by someone higher up to do terrible stuff.
|
| Apple is getting there though, probably because of the same
| managerial culture.
| jeroenhd wrote:
| I disagree. On my laptop running Windows 11, the edges of
| context menus are horribly pixelated because of the round
| corners they've added. Maybe there's a setting to fix
| that but I shouldn't need to look for that after I hit
| the "update to Windows 11" button.
|
| This is something GNOME does better for God's sake and
| they can't even show thumbnails in a file picker!
|
| I'd say Windows is selectively polished. Some parts are
| worked out beautifully while others are hacked together.
| macOS is a lot better in terms of polish (but a lot worse
| in many other aspects).
| bee_rider wrote:
| The whole "3 different settings UIs, one from each era of
| Windows, in Windows 10" thing, despite being a bit over-
| played, seems a bit unpolished. Maybe the plumbing is
| really polished, I just don't muck around with that in
| Windows.
| pilsetnieks wrote:
| It says it has "silky smooth interfaces" and "polished
| experience" in the very first page under the very first
| example image where not only the typeface is butt-ugly, also
| text layout is all kinds of messed up.
| vineyardmike wrote:
| This comes up a lot... The reason is that no OSS projects
| want a product manager. They want contributors.
|
| Most projects, if you say "I think the gui should look like
| X" they'll reply with "show me the pull request then". No one
| wants a manager when they're already volunteering, and not
| enough people who have the skills to make things look
| aesthetic exist and contribute.
|
| Source: look at other comments on this article.
| newaccount74 wrote:
| I think the problem is deeper than that: To do a good UI,
| you need multiple skills: design, development, user
| testing, etc. It's rare that a single person can do all of
| that, so you need multiple people to collaborate, which is
| hard, because of the lack of managers.
|
| So you only get contributions from people who can
| contribute on their own, which is developers.
| jokethrowaway wrote:
| I disagree, from my experience designers are generally
| not interested in OSS projects like developers are. There
| is one designer for 50 developers.
|
| Probably because for developers, OSS is a badge of honour
| and can help your CV / find paid jobs - while for
| designers it's just a dribble nobody cares about.
|
| When designers partecipate, they get to contribute and
| even impose (sometimes questionable, think kde4) choices.
| tiborsaas wrote:
| Maybe it's time for developers to launch projects that
| make designers look good when participating in OSS
| projects.
| electriczigjam wrote:
| If only there were more people trying to complain less and
| contribute more. Its not closed source
| toastal wrote:
| If you buy a nice panel, you won't be able to color calibrate it
| because of the use of Wayland; Wayland doesn't support color
| management yet.
| jacknews wrote:
| Does it have widevine for netflix etc al, and hardware media
| acceleration?
|
| I tried using an rpi4 as a media player a few months ago, and it
| was simply not fast enough, although one reason is I could not
| get HVEC hardware acceleration to work. I reverted back to using
| an old T430 laptop with a broken screen and k/b, which is ideal
| for 1080p.
| jokethrowaway wrote:
| I used a rpi2 for video at 1080p. x264 was no problem, x265 was
| laggy.
|
| With a rpi3 or a rpi4 both should be fine.
|
| Librelec (and other ROMs) ship the ffmpeg fork which uses the
| acceleration
| djbusby wrote:
| I use the pi for storage (external 4TB USB) and minidlna to
| show on network. Playable by VLC, Roku and other DLNA aware
| devices. The RPi is headless.
| [deleted]
| ghostly_s wrote:
| All this promotional glitz, but no information to indicate this
| actually currently is usable on _a single consumer streaming
| device or smart tv_ , let alone the particular one I have. A
| minute spent on the pages of their linked distros seems to
| confirm it's vaporware.
| deanCommie wrote:
| Nitpick for anyone involved in this project:
|
| > Plasma Bigscreen turns your TV or setup-box into a fully
| hackable device
|
| I know what you meant, but given the concerns people have with
| privacy of their TVs, smart devices, and in general the security
| of their internet connected home, describing something that turns
| your TV into being "fully hackable" feels like it's ripe for
| misunderstanding.
| ibejoeb wrote:
| Hah. Same line, different nit.
|
| > TV or setup-box
|
| We're talking about a set-top box, right?
| ze0ng wrote:
| Misleading to state that this turns your TV or set-up box into a
| fully hackable device, while the software just runs on a
| RaspberryPI
| jhoelzel wrote:
| i was also googling for the supported TV sets and then i found
| it :D
| npteljes wrote:
| I agree. I thought this was something that you can load onto
| your smart TV.
| antupis wrote:
| I would love something like this, modern smart tv is kinda
| horrible experience and nobody is not making consumer dumptv
| anymore.
| jeroenhd wrote:
| In theory this runs just as well on TVs if the right drivers
| are present. They ship postmarketOS versions of their firmware,
| for example.
|
| Sadly, pmOS doesn't support any TVs as far as their website is
| concerned (https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/TVs) but with
| some work (getting the mainline kernel to boot based on the GPL
| sources or getting the built-in kernel to boot pmOS) you can
| flash your TV with this firmware. In practice you won't be able
| to do much with it as TV SoCs are almost always shipped with
| underperforming hardware and as little RAM and storage as
| possible, but you could.
| therealmarv wrote:
| Name is so strange. Even people here think about old Plasma TVs.
|
| We desperately need an alternative to Chromecast for all sort of
| web videos. There is none (even Apple Airplay is not as good).
|
| That's one of the reasons why I cannot switch to privacy Android
| forks or non Chromium browsers.
| Sunspark wrote:
| I was hoping there was a new plasma TV available.
| qwerty456127 wrote:
| Is this a good replacement for Kodi?
| manholio wrote:
| Why would I need to install an operating system on the flimsy SoC
| the manufacturer embedded in my TV, with the sole intention of
| turning it into an advertising terminal? How fast will that
| hardware - software combo go out of date compared to the useful
| life of a TV? I own a 10 year old, non-Android Sony Bravia TV
| that looks superb, do they support that?
|
| Sorry, but I don't see it as a problem worth solving. Just make
| sure your TV is airgaped, use it as dumb terminal and deliver
| signal from a suitable and well maintained device.
| pavlov wrote:
| 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.)
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| 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.
| ognarb wrote:
| Note taken, the developer of Plasma Bigscreen asked for help
| recently with the content of the website
| (https://mail.kde.org/pipermail/kde-promo/2022q3/000223.html).
| So if people have other recommendations or want to help, feel
| free to reach us in the #kde-promo:kde.org matrix channel or
| just post a comment to this message.
| dogcomplex wrote:
| I'm a programmer with a postgrad education and 10 years in the
| industry and I don't know what those words mean.
| dmos62 wrote:
| Root file system (rootfs) that's based on dev-unstable branch
| of KDE Neon. This doc is obviously not aimed at non-techs,
| but for Linux-savy people the first sentence should fully
| explain the heading.
| miked85 wrote:
| I think you mean KDE-savy - I've been using Linux for over
| 20 years and had no idea what this heading meant.
| seba_dos1 wrote:
| "reference rootfs" makes it obvious what it is to Linux-
| savy people, so you don't need to know what Neon is to
| assume that it's some kind of a distro.
| miked85 wrote:
| I would say that is very debatable, but it is possible
| that I am not Linux-savy enough.
| chinux wrote:
| You would have to actually be in the KDE user community to
| understand this terminology. KDE Neon is the distro that KDE
| created. What they are trying to say that its based on their
| flagship Linux distro. I think they might have written that
| in the most new user unfriendly way they could.
| boltzmann-brain wrote:
| I'm a programmer since >30 years ago, have studied
| mathematics, can speak >5 languages, have programmed in more
| dead technologies than an average programmer knows current
| ones, and I don't know what those words mean.
| [deleted]
| fadlan wrote:
| My name ist fadlan adnrika
| tristan957 wrote:
| How do you flag an account as a bot?
| badrabbit wrote:
| Is it possible to replace LG's webos with this,after rooting it?
| vegai_ wrote:
| Being able to replace the junk that's on every TV these days
| would be awesome. But unfortunately this is not that.
| cowtools wrote:
| I've seen this before when I was setting up postmarketOS. It's an
| alternative to the crapware on samsung """smart""" TVs.
| xwdv wrote:
| At first I got excited that maybe someone finally developed a
| modern TV with no Smart TV features at all but nope it's just
| linux crapware I'll never use because I just plug in an Apple TV
| box anyway.
| dataengineer56 wrote:
| I bought an LG OLED recently after giving up on my dream of
| finding a dumb consumer OLED. I assumed I would disconnect it
| from my network and use my Chromecast for media, but instead I've
| recently unplugged the Chromecast. The interface is surprisingly
| good, it has every app that I want and it's fast. I can press the
| Netflix button when my TV is off and be watching a show within
| seconds.
| capableweb wrote:
| Same here, surprisingly good compared to the last LG TV we had
| in 2012 or something, they've made it a lot snappier. Maybe as
| time goes on, with more updates, it'll end up in the same
| situation...
|
| What I really miss though, is being able to write my own apps
| for the TV without having to jump through 1000 hoops, sign 5
| EULAs/NDAs/contracts and be able to develop said apps on my
| computer and then simply push them to my TV, just for me.
| mijoharas wrote:
| I used to write software for smart TV's, so ended up using a
| lot of them. LG were easily my favourites (N.B. this was 6
| years ago now).
|
| One of the best things is the dev enviroment was so simple,
| just a basic linux setup with a sensible toolchain. (Samsung
| was easily the worst in terms of dev experience due to their
| tizen crap).
| gkhartman wrote:
| If a display manufacturer produced a quality display and
| supported something like this, I wouldn't mind paying a good deal
| extra for it. I wouldn't even mind if it shipped with a
| proprietary OS and I had to do the installation myself. I'd love
| to see Framework or Purism make a Linux powered smart TV.
| da768 wrote:
| NEC has commercial displays with builtin Pi CM4s.
|
| https://www.sharpnecdisplays.us/products/displays/ma551-mpi4...
| squeaky-clean wrote:
| I'd be willing to pay that much if image quality was similar
| to (or slightly worse) consumer TVs of the same price.
|
| I'm sure smart TVs make some money off data tracking, I know
| it's a part of Roku's business model. But I feel like most of
| the additional cost in this went to the "commercial grade"
| features. It can be left on at full brightness for months on
| end. It can probably withstand a kick from a teenager at the
| mall. The 3 year commercial warranty also probably has some
| actual urgency behind the support.
|
| Do any non smart models exist that aren't targeting
| commercial usage? It's probably not practical, thr market for
| that is probably 0.01% of the total TV market.
| djbusby wrote:
| There are loads of non-smart large displays on Alibaba.
| Just a dumb display with two HDMI and and DP maybe.
| collegeburner wrote:
| theres a _ton_ more to panel quality than size and
| resolution and im guessing that alibaba stuff isn't so
| great there. or is at best hit or miss.
| antongribok wrote:
| The fact that it actually comes with a Raspberry Pi is
| incredibly cool to me.
|
| Oh, and of course there's a review of it from Jeff Geerling:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-epPf7D8oMk
|
| Actually, this thing has some pretty decent specs... my
| initial reaction was that it was overpriced, but now I'm
| thinking this is a decent deal for what you get.
| capableweb wrote:
| Looking at the product page, quite prominently this is
| displayed:
|
| > WARNING: This product can expose you to chemicals
| including Styrene and Formaldehyde (gas), which are known
| to the State of California to cause cancer, and Lead
|
| I'm not sure the risks are worth the price, I've never seen
| such warning on any product, but I don't live in the US. Is
| that a common warning to see? How likely is that to happen?
| Is it a thing that happens in case the TV breaks in half,
| or is something that slowly slips out in the air around the
| TV?
|
| The linked website says "Exposure to these chemicals may
| take place when products are acquired or used", am I
| supposed to believe that just buying this TV and bringing
| it home can make those chemicals to leak out into the air
| in my home?
|
| The statement brings so many questions but so few
| answers...
| weberer wrote:
| Yeah, styrene and formaldehyde are very common
| everywhere, usually due to styrofoam packaging. Wood and
| textiles are often treated with formaldehyde, even in
| Europe. Lead based solder is less common these days, and
| pretty much banned in the EU due to the RoHS directive,
| but there are weird exceptions, like how its OK in
| servers or networking equipment.
| Leo_Verto wrote:
| California mandated these sort of warnings a while ago so
| manufacturers just started slapping them on all of their
| products, just in case. Great example of alarm fatigue
| [1].
|
| [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alarm_fatigue
| gkhartman wrote:
| This looks really great. I know it's expensive for the image
| quality, but this TV will probably outlive most consumer TVs
| since it's made for 24/7 operation.
|
| The cost to image quality ratio would probably scare most
| consumers away, but I might have found my next TV. Thanks for
| sharing.
| ThrowawayTestr wrote:
| A bargain at only $2200USD
| buildbot wrote:
| For a true commercial grade product with an actual 10bit
| panel? It kinda is? Plus it won't spy on you
| preisschild wrote:
| For that price you can get a 77in OLED tv from LG and a
| raspberry which you can use for Bigscreen. Might be
| better if your main use isn't prone to burn-in (e.g. by
| displaying the same UI elements over months).
| pandemicsyn wrote:
| Its not like it doesn't have cons:
|
| - 60Hz refresh rate - 8,000:1 contrast ratio with local
| dimming on - 500 cd/m2 brightness and "HDR compatibilty"
| - 86% DCI coverage
| jstanley wrote:
| Your grandparent comment said:
|
| > If a display manufacturer produced a quality display and
| supported something like this, I wouldn't mind paying a
| good deal extra for it.
| Lammy wrote:
| Relevant: "There's a simple reason your new smart TV was so
| affordable: It's collecting and selling your data, and
| serving you ads" (2019)
| https://www.businessinsider.com/smart-tv-data-collection-
| adv...
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| The headline is not true.
|
| > Without that revenue stream, Baxter said, consumers
| would be paying more up front. "We'd collect a little bit
| more margin at retail to offset it," he said.
|
| A little bit.
|
| The value of that tracking is worth a lot to a company
| making near-zero margins, but it's not a very big impact
| on the full price.
| kuschku wrote:
| TCL said they're now making more money with tracking than
| with sold TVs. Just as comparison.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| But still somewhere in the single digit percent, I think.
|
| The march of technology is responsible for almost all of
| the cheapness of TVs, and niche commercial targeting is
| responsible for the non-cheapness of other TVs.
|
| Hisense has a $430 TV comparable to that $2200 model but
| with better color. Tracking, I dunno, might be $50.
| jstanley wrote:
| What does this get you over connecting up an old laptop to a TV
| screen and controlling it with a bluetooth keyboard?
| vineyardmike wrote:
| To add to this, if you use an over the top box (eg Apple TV,
| game consume, laptop), you don't really need anything more
| than a display. All the smarts just add lag and add GUI items
| that can be buggy. My Samsung takes like 20 seconds between
| power and and display content simply because it tries to load
| the smart GUI, and times out on network connection (which
| doesn't exist).
| Entinel wrote:
| Most new TVs are smart TVs so even if you do this you are
| still running on like Samsung have been caught screen
| capturing your TV and phoning home for advertising.
| denkmoon wrote:
| Your TV can't phone home unless you give it internet.
| Haven't heard of them shipping with mobile network access
| yet.
| Liquix wrote:
| But when everyone keeps buying ""smart"" TVs and
| accepting the spyware, pretty soon they will start
| shipping with baked in 4G chips, and there will be no
| other option. Vote with your wallet by _never buying a
| smart TV under any circumstance_. They are cheaper than
| actual TVs because the data collected is so lucrative -
| buying one is implicitly supporting that slimy business
| model, even if you don 't connect to WiFi.
| bogwog wrote:
| Don't even need 4G chips, just a regular ol'
| wifi/bluetooth module thanks to stuff like Amazon
| Sidewalk:
| https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/devices/introducing-
| amazon-...
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| Love how the illustration shows houses directly on the
| road with no sidewalk.
| denkmoon wrote:
| There are no non-smart/"actual" TVs. Find a 55" OLED that
| doesn't have "smart" features.
|
| I mean personally I don't care so long as I don't see
| ads, but the advice you're really giving is "don't buy a
| TV". Can't say I disagree though.
| kuschku wrote:
| And that's what the Amazon Sidewalk mesh is for
| nmstoker wrote:
| How would they phone home without your help? If you're
| going the route suggested above then it would make no sense
| to bother putting your Samsung TV on the WiFi
| oyashirochama wrote:
| Or just simply block their connection with a PiHole.
| gkhartman wrote:
| A much cleaner implementation that doesn't clutter the room
| with cables and an old laptop. Added bonus that I wouldn't
| have to explain how it works to each guest that tries to use
| it (assuming that the UX resembles other TVs people have
| used).
| jstanley wrote:
| But people have used computers before. It works exactly the
| same as a computer. I think it's much _easier_ than using
| typical smart TV interfaces.
|
| It has the added bonus (over typical smart TV interfaces)
| that typing text becomes much faster. You can use the web
| browser as a web browser. You can use uBlock origin. You
| can have several tabs open at a time and switch between
| them at a sensible speed. It's _so_ much better than a
| smart TV.
|
| You don't need the room cluttered with cables, you can put
| the laptop in a cabinet underneath the television.
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| Even better, get a tiny computer and use cable ties to
| secure it to the TV mount (or velcro to the back of the
| TV). No wires will be seen.
| pabs3 wrote:
| If Software Freedom Conservancy win their lawsuit against Vizio
| for GPL violations in their TVs, you will probably be able to
| install open source Linux distros with KDE Plasma Bigscreen or
| Kodi on any Vizio TV and soon afterwards lots of other smart TV
| vendors will be similar. Allowing the vendor operating system
| to remain on the device after you purchase it basically means
| spyware these days.
|
| https://sfconservancy.org/copyleft-compliance/vizio.html
| water8 wrote:
| Ironically, this will probably destroy plasmas
| andy_xor_andrew wrote:
| Given the Steam Deck runs KDE, I'm surprised I don't see Valve
| down on the list of patrons at the bottom of the page.
|
| Seems like this type of functionality/framework could be
| beneficial to the Steam Deck, since anything that looks good on a
| 10-foot display should also look good on the Steam Deck's
| display.
| jaimex2 wrote:
| SteamDeck already does what this does and more though.
| djbusby wrote:
| Is it known if Valve is contributing things they've
| improved/fixed upstream.
| shmerl wrote:
| I get an impression it's close to direct competition to their
| console UI. I wanted to see a gaming UI like that that's fully
| open source.
| Lammy wrote:
| 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
| irjustin wrote:
| Admittedly i thought this as well. was hoping for a new plasma
| tech! Not that i think it's better, just nostalgia - it was the
| first 'new gen' tv I owned back in 2007. Heavy but well worth
| it at the time.
| greyhair wrote:
| Still running my Panasonic 50" Plasma from that era. So
| heavy. And yes they are power hogs, but in reality, ours
| really isn't on that often. Three, maybe four hours a week,
| on average.
|
| But oh, the picture quality back then, compared to LCDs and
| rear projection. No comparison, and even today, it holds up
| well.
| megablast wrote:
| Agreed. What a dumb name.
| mcv wrote:
| Also, calling a home device "hackable" is not exactly going to
| make it attractive to most people. I know what they mean, but
| most people will read that very differently.
| dmantis wrote:
| I highly doubt that "most people" would ever change their
| stock TV or TV dongle OS. So it targets geek and privacy-
| aware auditory and geek auditory understands what that means.
| kbumsik wrote:
| Not sure in other countries, but in my country (Korea) they
| were called PDP and rarely called plasma TV even knowing the
| technology behind it. It's a bit funny thinking about "Plasma"
| but it should be fine.
|
| BTW, it had been dead for 10+ years...time flies so fast.
| grishka wrote:
| In Russia there was definitely a period when any large flat
| panel TV was called "plasma".
| marktolson wrote:
| I'm still rocking my 12 year old plasma TV, the thing won't
| die!
| mrpopo wrote:
| Maybe give it up, the energy savings associated with
| replacing it with a LCD/LED TV will quickly add up,
| environmentally and economically. Depends on how much TV
| you're watching though.
| sergers wrote:
| 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...
| msk-lywenn wrote:
| 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!
| Szpadel wrote:
| this is about justification. The current thing works fine
| but I would like the new expensive thing. I cannot
| justify expense of replacing working thing, but if it
| would die, then it's justified expense.
|
| it isn't about that it's more economical purchase when it
| dies, but I even saw people breaking stuff just so they
| "had to" buy new thing that they want.
| TaylorAlexander wrote:
| Perhaps you've noticed this already but having bought my
| last TV in 2008 I had no idea how cheap they've gotten!
| Checking Amazon right now I see a 50" 4k Samsung for
| $450.
| saaaaaam wrote:
| Expense doesn't always mean purely financial. There is an
| environmental cost to buying something new as well, and a
| social cost in supporting the manufacture of electronics
| that may have less than perfect supply chain ethical
| standards.
|
| I'm not saying this to be snarky or judgemental - your
| comment genuinely made me think about the issue and this
| was my response.
| TaylorAlexander wrote:
| Yes absolutely.
| BHSPitMonkey wrote:
| 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.
| greyhair wrote:
| 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.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| Could have been FUD from manufacturers looking to push
| thier LCD TV over the competition plasmas.
| canibal57 wrote:
| An inevitable consequence of consumerism:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Throw-away_society
| treve wrote:
| 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.
| Szpadel wrote:
| 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?
| jaywalk wrote:
| 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.
| eptcyka wrote:
| OLEDs have very good blacks, but as soon as a pixel needs
| to emit any light at all, it will be significantly
| brighter than what a regular IPS pixel can emit at it's
| lowest brightness.
| bzzzt wrote:
| Also depends on the TV you upgrade to: replacing a 50"
| plasma with an 84" LCD will do nothing to decrease your
| energy usage.
|
| While plasma uses a bit more energy than LCD it's not
| that big of a deal (especially if you've got one of the
| last gen plasma panels) if you don't use it as some sort
| of moving wallpaper but just turn it off when not in use.
| mrpopo wrote:
| Probably still would, if you interpolate this graph:
| https://www.rtings.com/images/power-consumption.png
|
| Still, wouldn't recommend buying a huge TV. Jevons
| paradox and all.
| amag wrote:
| 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.
| jjkaczor wrote:
| That's a benefit during winters in Canada, when it's on, I
| don't need to turn up the heat...
| safety1st wrote:
| 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 simply that the KDE guys are
| working on a 10' experience and that's great, there is no good
| 10' experience today on Linux. Unless you count Steam Big
| Picture mode I guess? But a desktop environment which knows
| what to do about 10' would be really exciting.
|
| Edit: for anyone who's interested, this appears to be the repo
| for the Bigscreen project:
| https://invent.kde.org/plasma/plasma-bigscreen/activity
|
| The distro images on the website may be out of date.
| chasil wrote:
| Is this essentially Lineage for smart TVs?
|
| Can the vendor OS be wiped from these devices?
|
| If so, is there a list?
| safety1st wrote:
| I think that's close to, or part of, their vision:
| https://plasma-bigscreen.org/vision/
|
| What they have in the Downloads section now is basically a
| variety of distro images which you can run on a Pi, or a
| device that supports pmOS, etc. There's a long way to go
| before you could buy any random smart TV and flash this
| onto it. Though maybe less long if you have a smart TV with
| an embedded Pi which might be a thing these days?
| brodouevencode wrote:
| What is a "10' experience"?
| safety1st wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/10-foot_user_interface
|
| There are 10' experiences for Linux (Kodi, Plex, and Steam
| Big Picture are what I know of), but these aren't
| integrated into the desktop, they are focused on TV/movies
| and gaming respectively, so KDE focusing on this problem is
| something new.
| kwhitefoot wrote:
| Sitting three metres from the screen I presume.
| JosephGuerra wrote:
| No way. that would be a 9'9" experience, I believe..
|
| Although I think your point is correct.
| Lammy wrote:
| It's the common term for a user interface that's large and
| legible to users sitting across a room from the display:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/10-foot_user_interface
| safety1st wrote:
| Here's a link with a lot more information. The big news today
| is that the UI component for Bigscreen has just gone live as
| a part of the KDE 5.26 beta, which is relatively
| straightforward to install on any Linux distro (or image to a
| USB stick): https://kde.org/announcements/plasma/5/5.25.90/
|
| Maybe the post's main link should be changed to this one?
| That Bigscreen website seems to be confusing and out of date.
| chungy wrote:
| It makes me happy Big Buck Bunny is still being used for
| demonstrations.
| kwhitefoot wrote:
| The splash screen makes it look like this is something you
| can simply install on a television of your choice.
|
| It is perfectly reasonable to criticise the marketing when it
| gets in the way of the message. Having to find and read the
| FAQ to discover that it is basically just a prototype desktop
| environment for existing distros is a bit silly.
| sbarre wrote:
| I will admit that at first glance I thought this was a
| firmware hack for TVs, and I immediately started digging
| around the site to try to find a list of compatible TVs...
|
| Once I found out what it was, it was still quite cool and I
| am curious to follow development, but I agree the site
| design/layout/copy is confusing at best, misleading at
| worst.
| pdimitar wrote:
| > _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?".
| [deleted]
| Lammy wrote:
| > 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
| donatj wrote:
| Yup. I wandered around page for about 20 seconds before
| realizing it wasn't some sort of open source hardware plasma
| TV.
| sandebert wrote:
| I only realized it after reading this thread. Seems like a
| very confusing name chosen.
| sangnoir wrote:
| Plasma (display) TVs are mostly dead - or at least no
| longer mainstream.
|
| On topic: I'd love to have my TV run an open source OS that
| can run all the streaming apps to avoid OEMs snooping on
| what I'm watching
| comboy wrote:
| You have HDMI port, there are RPis and others, I don't
| think TVs are running image recognition on HDMI input
| (yet).
| sangnoir wrote:
| LG WebOS TVs are capable of image + sound fingerprinting
| at OS level! Not only can they identify what you're
| watching, it's accurate enough to tell which scene you on
| and provide "handy" information overlays.
| lrvick wrote:
| They do, which is why you should never connect them to
| the internet.
| comboy wrote:
| 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 cage is not actually
| enough if at least one device is connected. Yay.
| greyhair wrote:
| If all my neighbors dive into Amazon 'sidewalk' at
| 900Mhz, and trash my DECT handsets and my ZWave IoT, I am
| going to be really pissed.
| leidenfrost wrote:
| If you build your own house maybe you can. And then run
| an access point and a repeater for 4g, like LTT did
| TickleSteve wrote:
| 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).
| jaywalk wrote:
| > 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.
| eptcyka wrote:
| I'm pretty sure they do perceptual hashing of all
| displayed output.
| theodric wrote:
| I'm pretty sure you'll only ever be able to have either
| an open source TV _or_ all the streaming apps. No reason
| for Amazon, Netflix, YouTube, or the others to support
| this platform.
| ognarb wrote:
| The biggest hurdle is the DRM. Plasma Bigscreen ship with
| it's own browser but you still need the proprietary blob
| for the DRM running on an ARM device instead of the usual
| one for intel/amd. Making things worse, even on intel/amd
| the video quality is often limited to 1080p on Linux.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| Funny, since DRM is never an issue if you play pirated
| content. Arrgh maties!
|
| But ironically, DRM is only a huge annoyance for paying
| law abiding customers.
|
| Did you pay Ubisoft $50 10 years ago for Assassin's Creed
| 2, am amazing game? Great, because now you can go f*ck
| yourself instead of playing the game since Ubisoft took
| the server running the DRM for that game offline. Did you
| pirate the game? Great, because now you can play it for
| free indefinitely.
|
| And there are countless horror stories of paying customer
| bases getting shafted on the products they (used to) own
| via DRM.
| jl6 wrote:
| Fortunately since 2015 it has been legal to circumvent
| DRM for games that have had their single-player mode
| rendered inoperable by the decommissioning of an
| activation server:
|
| https://copyright.gov/1201/2015/fedreg-
| publicinspectionFR.pd...
|
| Yes, it still sucks when publishers make their customers
| jump through hoops like this, potentially exposing them
| to malware if the necessary DRM circumvention software
| comes from a dubious source.
| jbay808 wrote:
| I purchased DUNE on YouTube. Turns out even after paying
| full price, the image quality is limited to 480P unless
| you watch via a smart TV.
|
| To prevent piracy, or something.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| Are you watching YouTube on Linux by any chance? AFAIK
| modern versions of chrome and FF should not have this
| issue even on Linux but I could be wrong as I'm out of
| the loop on modern DRM.
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| Even worse is the fact that they sacrifice quality for
| bandwidth. Even if you manage to meet all their silly DRM
| requirements, you get poor quality video that's high
| definition in name only. There are titles in Netflix that
| have compression artifacts in 90% black frames.
|
| Meanwhile pirates enjoy Blu-Ray rips encoded by people
| known for taking pride in providing the highest possible
| quality.
| atoav wrote:
| In combination with "Bigscreen" for sure.
| voidfunc wrote:
| It wouldn't be an open source project if the branding wasn't
| 100% utterly atrocious and self-defeating.
|
| This is not only incredibly hard to search for, but completely
| confusing. Good job once again open source devs!
| dTal wrote:
| On the contrary - "Plasma" is one the best branding efforts
| in the open source ecosystem so far.
|
| It's not really confusing or hard to search for if you know
| that "Plasma" is a KDE product - for instance, Plasma
| Bigscreen is the first Google result for "kde plasma tv" and
| "kde tv". It's 8 years old, it covers several different
| products with a similar look and feel, and it sounds as cool
| as it looks.
|
| Big brands don't have an issue with using common words for
| product lines (like "surface" and "pixel"), and I don't see
| why open source should cede that ground.
| Toutouxc wrote:
| I agree with what you're saying, but you could've said it
| nicer.
| captainmuon wrote:
| The name is generally really unfortunate, and I wish they would
| switch back to KDE for the Desktop Environment (and call the
| framework Klibs or KDElibs or something).
|
| Many people have positive associations with KDE, but associate
| Plasma with bloaty QML based desktop widgets from the KDE4 era.
| If they even associate it with KDE, and not with plasma TVs or
| blood plasma.
| qwerty456127 wrote:
| People who know KDE hardly need marketing - they already know
| what is what and what they want. So they could name it
| whatever way, I only care about how well does that name
| integrate in the whole namespace of Linux apps/libs/packages.
| At the same time, for non-techies or people coming from other
| OSes Plasma automatically sounds cool, doesn't it?
|
| Nevertheless, as for what I personally feel, I agree - I like
| KDE better.
| account-5 wrote:
| Literally what I thought the thread was about, and actually
| why I avoided clicking into it so long.
| beebeepka wrote:
| Good. I am going to try KDE on a TV ever again. They don't seem
| to care, so why should I?
|
| It's a sad state of affairs when the best GUI for a TV is Gnome 3
| daqnal wrote:
| Do they have any information on resolution, chip, or anything
| else?
| soulofmischief wrote:
| From what I can see, it's a software ecosystem and not a
| specific hardware device.
| tweetle_beetle wrote:
| Are there any good tv operating systems which use standard
| desktop/laptop architectures? Was excited by this until I saw
| it's only released for SoCs. My hacks/scripts on Windows + Flirc
| are getting tiresome.
|
| Been looking at one of the Android distributions, BlissOS.
| rendall wrote:
| I don't understand what this is. I read the explanation but
| didn't fully understand it.
|
| It's an OS one can load onto a smart TV, replacing whatever is
| there? Like, if I had a Samsung TV that began advertising at me,
| this could overwrite the UI?
|
| If so, I looked for a hardware compatibility list and saw only
| Raspberry Pi, which confused me.
| cal85 wrote:
| My first assumption was it's just an OS for installing on a
| little computer like a Raspberry Pi, for plugging into a TV or
| monitor via HDMI.
|
| But you're right it's unclear, this bit of the intro seems to
| imply you could install it straight to a TV: "Plasma Bigscreen
| turns your TV or setup-box into a fully hackable device". So
| far I haven't heard of any smart TV that lets you install a new
| OS, might be possible with hacks though.
| puzzlingcaptcha wrote:
| I think it is meant as an open-source product OEMs can put on
| their TVs instead of some in-house Android TV derivative.
|
| Sadly it's a non-starter without widevine certification.
| stragies wrote:
| Is "capable of Widevine certification" not tantamount to "Has
| HW/FW/SW in place to securely lock out the user/owner, and
| introduce backdoors"?
| puzzlingcaptcha wrote:
| Most likely, but I mean from OEM's point of view. Noone
| wants to sell a TV that can't play Netflix.
| Silhouette wrote:
| Unfortunately I can't figure out the scope of this project from
| the content on the site right now. Perhaps if there are any
| contributors reading this they might like to clarify?
|
| The tagline on the home page is "A privacy-respecting, open
| source and secure TV ecosystem" so that sounds promising. Is this
| some sort of alternative firmware to replace the junk installed
| as standard on most "smart" TVs now - like installing OpenWRT on
| your network gear or rooting your phone and installing one of the
| alternative Android distros?
| CharlesW wrote:
| > _Is this some sort of alternative firmware to replace the
| junk installed as standard on most "smart" TVs now..._
|
| I believe it's more along the lines of an open-source Apple TV
| or Roku box.
| MBCook wrote:
| What could you actually run on something like that? None of
| "normal" apps would be there for the various streaming
| services.
|
| I guess it could be a plex front end but outside of that can
| it really do much people usually do with their TVs?
| cestith wrote:
| My TV is WebOS. One of my streaming boxes is Android. I
| stream to my phone from an Android phone sometimes. I have
| an old Mac Mini with Ubuntu hooked up to a TV. I have two
| different XBox systems hooked up to two different TVs.
| These devices all have applications to stream video from
| things that aren't Plex.
| MBCook wrote:
| But those are all non-open source solutions that Netflix,
| Amazon, etc. are willing to make apps for.
|
| I don't see streaming services making apps for this
| district any time soon.
| cestith wrote:
| Ubuntu is primarily open source.
| zelienople wrote:
| I am dissapoint.
| tinsa wrote:
| It is not an alternative firmware one can flash, it is
| something that can run on any existing linux distribution
| either on a single board computer or your PC connected to a TV
| screen
| pabs3 wrote:
| It sounds like the answer is no, but if Software Freedom
| Conservancy win their lawsuit against Vizio for GPL violations
| in their TVs then Linux distros, including this, could get
| ported to Vizio TVs.
|
| https://sfconservancy.org/copyleft-compliance/vizio.html
| pabs3 wrote:
| Looks like this is based on two different distros, KDE Neon for
| RPi4 and postmarketOS for other devices:
|
| https://plasma-bigscreen.org/faq/
| solardev wrote:
| Does it let you watch Netflix, HBO, etc. with the usual DRM
| stuff?
| jaimex2 wrote:
| Nope. 720p and lots of CPU.
| hda2 wrote:
| Okay, follow up question then: Does it easily support
| streaming/downloading torrents?
| deusum wrote:
| If I understand correctly it uses a RPi or other ARM device
| attached to the TV.
|
| Is there anything out there tbat overwrite the TV's "smart"
| firmware? Something analogous to OpenWRT and its router support?
|
| It would be bet cool if you could use the controller and buttons
| "natively".
| _carbyau_ wrote:
| Yeah, I was super interested until it turned out to be Yet-
| Another-RPi-MediaPlayer-image.
|
| I mean, it seems cool if the voice commands etc all actually
| work but it is one of many.
|
| Being able to update the actual TV firmware like: OpenWRT,
| Canon Hack Development Kit, Valetudo(vacuum robot) is what
| would really have my interest.
| amelius wrote:
| > Is there anything out there tbat overwrite the TV's "smart"
| firmware?
|
| Or use a monitor instead of a TV?
| [deleted]
| denkmoon wrote:
| >It would be bet cool if you could use the controller and
| buttons "natively".
|
| This is what LibCEC is for.
| qbasic_forever wrote:
| You might be able to use your native remote if it's infrared
| and LIRC supports it, and you get a little USB IR receiver
| dongle: https://www.lirc.org/
|
| Or what I like is to get a generic air mouse/keyboard remote
| that has programmable IR buttons for volume, input select,
| power on, etc. to control the TV's native settings. There are a
| ton of inexpensive options: https://www.amazon.com/air-mouse-
| remote-keyboard/s?k=air+mou...
| emmelaich wrote:
| The Google TV remote has trainable buttons. I can operate the
| chromecast and but also adjust volume direct to TV. And turn
| TV on and off.
|
| So, rarely have to use the TV remote. It's used only for live
| TV (rare) and switching input, also rare.
| weberer wrote:
| I use LibreElec on a Raspberry Pi 4 and it already supports
| receiving remote control messages from the TV. So if you hit
| the play button on your remote, your TV's IR receiver will
| pick it up, then pass the signal to the Raspberry Pi over the
| HDMI cable.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Is there a bit of commonality for remote button frequencies?
| I have 3 different remotes for TV equipment plus my AppleTV
| remote. The volume buttons from all 4 remotes work, and I've
| never attempted to program/train/learn them.
| dzhiurgis wrote:
| Samsung TV i've got for my parents recently can control
| apple tv and random eastern european iptv box. Really
| surprised by this.
| qbasic_forever wrote:
| Yeah most use a 38khz pulse wave and then encode ones and
| zeros in it. There are tons of different brand-specific
| protocols for stuff like volume, power, etc. but you're
| right there is a lot of overlap and commonality. Some
| universal remotes just fire as many different brand signals
| on button press as possible.
| inhumantsar wrote:
| There isn't really. Most manufacturers have multiple sets
| of patterns.
|
| There are smart remotes with libraries of patterns and
| capable of switching between those, eg Logitech Harmony
| (assuming that's still a thing).
|
| There are also "learning" remotes. One of these would be
| easiest to homebrew. Basically you've got an IR detector.
| You point your existing remote at it and tell it to start
| watching for whatever button you want to map. Then you
| press that button on your existing remote. Voila, key
| mapped. You just have to keep doing that for all the
| zillion and a half buttons on your remote and you've got
| yourself a clone.
| pabs3 wrote:
| If Software Freedom Conservancy win their lawsuit against Vizio
| for GPL violations in their TVs, you will probably be able to
| install open source Linux distros with KDE Plasma Bigscreen or
| Kodi on any Vizio TV and soon afterwards lots of other smart TV
| vendors will be similar. Allowing the vendor operating system
| to remain on the device after you purchase it basically means
| spyware these days.
|
| https://sfconservancy.org/copyleft-compliance/vizio.html
| fomine3 wrote:
| Open source != custom code can be run. Bootloader would be
| locked by cryptographically signing. There are source
| distributed TVs already.
| pabs3 wrote:
| That would not be GPL compliant (both v2 and v3), so would
| not conclude the lawsuit.
|
| https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2021/mar/25/install-gplv2/
| https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2021/jul/23/tivoization-
| and-t... https://events19.linuxfoundation.org/wp-
| content/uploads/2017...
| mike_d wrote:
| A lawsuit against Vizio for GPL violation cannot compel
| them to open or release software from their OEMs. For
| example you are never going to get a functional driver
| for the display panel made by Panasonic.
|
| It isn't even clear that Vizio would be able to comply
| with GPL enforcement, since they largely just OEM TVs
| built by AmTran in Taiwan and don't do much more than
| slap a logo on it.
| jeroenhd wrote:
| > It isn't even clear that Vizio would be able to comply
| with GPL enforcement, since they largely just OEM TVs
| built by AmTran in Taiwan and don't do much more than
| slap a logo on it.
|
| They should've looked better at their contract, then.
| It's not the consumer's task to make sure these companies
| and their suppliers stick to their licenses. If their
| suppliers ship software that's not compliant (i.e. the
| vendor doesn't follow GPL's requirements) then Vizio is
| not allowed to ship them either.
|
| If they can't comply with the license, they shouldn't be
| allowed to be sold in jurisdictions where the GPL is
| considered legally binding; after all, they are violating
| copyright. Any damages from their vendors' malpractices
| can be resolved in a separate lawsuit if Vizio wants to
| hold them accountable but you can't hide behind your
| vendors to sell illegal wares.
|
| As GPLv3 states:
|
| > All rights granted under this License are granted for
| the term of copyright on the Program, and are irrevocable
| provided the stated conditions are met.
|
| If they can't or won't release the GPL source code, they
| can't legally ship the software as they haven't met the
| requirements for their license and if they do, authors of
| the GPL'd code could sue them for copyright violations.
|
| In fact, this paragraph could bring them into even hotter
| water:
|
| > However, if you cease all violation of this License,
| then your license from a particular copyright holder is
| reinstated (a) provisionally, unless and until the
| copyright holder explicitly and finally terminates your
| license, and (b) permanently, if the copyright holder
| fails to notify you of the violation by some reasonable
| means prior to 60 days after the cessation.
|
| > Moreover, your license from a particular copyright
| holder is reinstated permanently if the copyright holder
| notifies you of the violation by some reasonable means,
| this is the first time you have received notice of
| violation of this License (for any work) from that
| copyright holder, and you cure the violation prior to 30
| days after your receipt of the notice.
|
| In other words, if copyright holders notify them of their
| violation and Vizio doesn't act in a timely manner,
| copyright holders could permanently retract their GPL
| licensed code from Vizio. Should a particularly important
| Linux developer choose to do so then that could
| effectively deny Vizio the right to ship Linux on any
| device it sells (to areas where GPL is upheld, such as
| the USA or Germany).
| cycomanic wrote:
| That's a pretty strong statement to make.
|
| It would highly depend on the contract between Vizio and
| their suppliers no? In particular if the lawsuit finds
| that anything from the supplier (like e.g. the display
| driver) is part of the GPL violation the contract likely
| contain clauses that would force the supplier to provide
| source code. Otherwise Vizio has grounds to sue their
| supplier.
|
| That's the beauty about going after the big customer
| facing companies, it offers the strongest leverage.
| mike_d wrote:
| Suing a rebranding company is actually the dumbest move.
| If I buy Ford trucks wholesale and put my own logo on the
| grill and my own software on the entertainment system
| that uses GPL code in violation of the license, you can
| sue me until the cows come home but you are never going
| to get all the other software Ford has on that car.
|
| The idea that a court could compel Vizio to provide
| enough source code that you could run your own OS on the
| TV is pure fantasy. You would need to obtain binary blobs
| for firmware and drivers from an original TV, and
| distributing them would in turn be software piracy.
| lrvick wrote:
| You could copy the blobs from your own rooted TV, as with
| Switch jailbreaks.
| xattt wrote:
| At one point, there was SammyGO firmware to root non-Tizen
| Samsung Smart TVs. However, it seemed to be for sideloading
| certain apps only.
| KMnO4 wrote:
| I think remote buttons are passed through CEC. For example, I
| can use my TV's remote to open the menu and change settings,
| but when the menu is closed I can also use it to navigate my
| Fire Stick UI.
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