[HN Gopher] Ask Wirecutter: Can you recommend a not-smart TV for...
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Ask Wirecutter: Can you recommend a not-smart TV for me?
Author : deeg
Score : 317 points
Date : 2023-04-07 17:50 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nytimes.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nytimes.com)
| voidfunc wrote:
| Every Sony Bravia has the option to be setup as "dumb"
| [deleted]
| httpz wrote:
| Can someone tell me why this is a big problem? I just plug in a
| Chromecast with Google TV and I never have to touch the TV remote
| or see the TV's original Smart TV UI ever.
|
| Isn't this solvable by just plugging in a $50 streaming stick of
| your choice?
| suprjami wrote:
| Even without wifi, these TVs are full of slow garbage operating
| system, and I wouldn't be surprised if some vendor is making a
| TV which you _must_ connect to the internet to use.
| httpz wrote:
| Even if the TV requires internet connection and the OS is
| garbage, once I set the input source to Chromecast, I never
| have to interact with the TV's OS.
| ab_testing wrote:
| The Spectre brand sold by Walmart has quite a few 4K dumb TV's .
| I bought one a few years ago and connected my Apple TV and works
| fine.
| koolba wrote:
| The TVs are okay for picture but the audio is terrible. An
| inexpensive soundbar or speaker system goes a long way on those
| TVs.
| daveidol wrote:
| Honestly I don't want my TV speakers to even attempt to be
| good. It's just added cost for a feature I will immediately
| disable anyway because my external speakers are always going
| to be better.
| thefourthchime wrote:
| I've gone through soundbars, full stereo equipment, etc...
| Call me a Apple fanboy, but my Airpod Max is amazing for
| watching movies with 5.1 or Dolby. That and I don't have to
| wake up the wife or kids.
| giobox wrote:
| This is true of virtually all TVs today, regardless of price
| point.
| 23B1 wrote:
| Yes all of my TVs are Sceptre (https://www.sceptre.com) and
| they're dumb and cheap.
| warmwaffles wrote:
| I love mine. Dead simple display.
| [deleted]
| rolenthedeep wrote:
| "just don't connect it to the internet" is such a typical HN
| response that completely misses the point. A smart TV with no
| internet connection is still a smart TV. It still has an entire
| operating system that needs to load wifi, ethernet, Bluetooth,
| usb driver stacks. It still has an awful, flashy interface that
| adds unnecessary steps between changing inputs. It still tries to
| load god knows what apps every time you turn it on.
|
| A dumb TV is a panel, some inputs, and an OSD menu that hasn't
| changed since 2005. It has exactly two functions: select an input
| and display that input. It should turn on in _seconds_ , not
| minutes. Changing inputs should have at most two steps and take
| no more than two seconds. It should have exactly as much
| processing power as is required to pipe an hdmi signal to the
| panel and nothing more. It should be so fundamentally incapable
| of injecting ads that the very idea is laughable. Hell, I'd even
| prefer it not have speakers.
|
| Disconnecting your smart TV from the internet only means it
| doesn't spy on you and advertise to you. It doesn't solve any of
| the other problems making these devices awful.
| madeofpalk wrote:
| meh, i think _your_ response is more 'typical HN'. Nether are
| more correct than the other, but if you're annoyed or
| distrustful of all the internet connected factors of a TV, just
| don't connect it to the internet. I think that's a fine non-
| perfect, pragmatic solution.
| mattl wrote:
| You can build your own with a monitor and SFTP, etc.
| nfRfqX5n wrote:
| What TV takes minutes to turn on?
| Terretta wrote:
| The problem is when HD video standards evolve (DV, HDR10), or
| bugs are found, etc., as well as handling things like VRR or
| lip-sync.
|
| Unless you externalize smarts to e.g. HDFury VRRoom (strongly
| recommend), these panels _need_ some smarts, regardless.
| lagrange77 wrote:
| So called digital signage displays may be worth looking at. They
| also look cooler.
| tonymet wrote:
| This is a big concern for the elderly. They have major challenges
| dealing with "smart" TVs and smart phones - due to complicated
| interfaces that are difficult to operate, hard to read, hard to
| interact with , slow to respond do.
|
| I see a huge business opportunity selling simplified consumer
| devices to the elderly. I'm surprised CES hasn't yet created a
| specific category or certification for elderly-friendly devices.
| TheBozzCL wrote:
| I've never seen a smart TV with objectively simple and good UI.
|
| LG's annoying menus and motion-controlled pointer are a good
| example of bad UI.
| jacobsenscott wrote:
| These products exist to some extent, but they don't seem very
| successful. The "elderly" today could be people who may have
| been using smartphones for 20 years, and wrote the foundational
| parts of all the software we use today. Soon enough you will be
| more likely to find someone who can debug a C program in a
| retirement community than an MIT classroom.
| tonymet wrote:
| they'll suffer from the same visual, tactile and cognitive
| challenges that make "smart" devices difficult.
|
| I'm sure the audience here who hates smart TVs would also
| prefer more elegant and intuitive devices.
| slackfan wrote:
| Article does not give a single not-smart-tv option.
|
| The journalism quality is _outstanding_.
| femiagbabiaka wrote:
| Because they claim the not-smart versions aren't worth it. They
| suggest alternative solutions, some of which commenters here
| have already echoed. Why the cynicism?
| nickthegreek wrote:
| Then provide the reader with the name of the very best crappy
| one and what features it lacks. That at very least answer's
| the question that was posed. The writer mention bluetooth
| connectivity as something they want tv's to have. I consider
| that feature stupid and wouldnt consider that a negative.
| slackfan wrote:
| The "aren't worth it" argument is entirely arbitrary and not
| backed up by a shred of evidence. Why defend bad journalism?
| itronitron wrote:
| The Betteridge's Law of Headlines strikes again.
| kgwxd wrote:
| For those that don't know, the law states "Any headline that
| ends in a question mark will contain a comment mentioning
| Betteridge's Law."
| Cyphase wrote:
| That's funny.
|
| What it actually states is this:
|
| "Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered
| by the word no."
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headlin
| e...
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| The point is that you can't buy a decent quality TV that
| doesn't come with smart features, all you can do is keep it
| disconnected from the internet.
| typon wrote:
| I don't understand why that's so difficult for people? Just
| don't connect it to the internet. It's going to magically
| show you ads or track you without internet.
| karaterobot wrote:
| You absolutely can, as noted elsewhere in this (and about 25
| other HN threads).
|
| In any case, if the question is "recommend a dumb TV to me"
| the answer should include at least one dumb TV, even if the
| editor wants to note that they aren't as good as his favorite
| TV.
|
| This article is like if someone asked for a recommendation on
| a new bike, and the answer was "cars are faster, buy a car
| and pretend it's a bike"
| merlincorey wrote:
| But that's not true since you CAN buy a Spectre brand non-
| smart TV (which the only qualm listed in this thread is audio
| quality, not picture importantly) and you can buy commercial
| TV's meant for Hospitals and Office displays, etc.
|
| One option is cheaper (Spectre) and one option is more
| expensive (commercial), but you can, in fact, obtain a non-
| smart TV today and they listed 0 options for them.
| AdmiralAsshat wrote:
| It is disappointing. Thorin used to work at Lifehacker--he did
| good work there. The fact that he's only _quoted_ but didn 't
| write it, though, makes it sound like someone just ambushed him
| in the break room with a question and then wrote an article
| about it.
| frontiersummit wrote:
| Is it just me or does anyone else feel that Wirecutter only
| considers the upper end of the performance vs. price Pareto
| curve? Recently I read their review on dehumidifiers, and all
| 5x recommendations were Frigidaire/Electrolux models that cost
| twice as much as the Midea unit I ended up purchasing. (Midea
| is arguably a more reliable brand these days anyway, but I
| digress)
|
| Wirecutter wants to tell me what is the "best" when I really
| want to know what is the cheapest product that will satisfice
| my needs.
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| Because there are none that provide value. They list
| alternative options.
| rahimnathwani wrote:
| This is discussed quite often on HN, e.g. lots of comments here:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31706835
| asmor wrote:
| My TV is a projector (Benq TK700STi) and all its smart features
| are contained within a Google TV plugged into the back that ships
| with the device. You rip it out, you just get an extra HDMI port.
| The only problem I have is having to dim the lights / close the
| blinds to watch anything, but that makes using the TV a much more
| deliberate act and I found that to actually be a positive.
| docflabby wrote:
| If only a small size (up to 32ish inches) needed 4k monitor would
| probably surfice
| patrakov wrote:
| 43" 4K monitors also exist. E.g., Gigabyte AORUS FV43U. I am
| using it right now.
|
| If you need OLED, use Gigabyte AORUS FO48U (48").
|
| And here is a 55" quantum dot monitor: Gigabyte AORUS S55U.
| mgaunard wrote:
| What a bad article. A TV without smart features is simply called
| a monitor. Monitors are also usually much higher quality than
| TVs.
| elAhmo wrote:
| Monitor is a different device compared to a TV. TV without
| smart features is simply called a TV.
| mgaunard wrote:
| That is incorrect. A TV is simply a low-quality monitor,
| possibly with some kind of tuner or extra superfluous low-
| quality peripherals.
| jeffbee wrote:
| "That is incorrect" wasn't much of a rebuttal. Computer
| displays usually look like shit for video content, because
| showing video content well is much more complicated than
| nerds seem to believe.
| BEEdwards wrote:
| If you don't connect it to the internet it's not a smart tv...
| natural219 wrote:
| I bought a Sceptre a few years ago for this reason. Best TV I've
| owned, no smart features, great price and picture quality.
| fideloper wrote:
| From a (cynical?) content and affiliate point of view, I like the
| style of taking user questions (bonus points if H.B. is a real
| person) and answering it - rather than just a bland list of
| products by "expensive but good, less expensive but less good"
| that wirecutter is.
|
| This lets the authors also recommend extra tangential items ("get
| a projector!").
|
| On another note, my trust in these types of things have gone down
| overall (every google search for "best yadda yadda" yields a list
| with affiliate links now, unless perhaps you append "reddit" to
| your search).
|
| Wirecutter still has some trust for me. Anyone else?
| anateus wrote:
| I use rtings.com as base and triangulate with Consumer Reports
| and Wirecutter, and looks like I'm not the only one.
| KerrAvon wrote:
| Web search is useless, yes. Use Wirecutter, Consumer Reports,
| rtings.com, reddit, not necessarily in that order. You can't
| trust any one of these sources to have the same priorities as
| you do, but you can trust that they're giving you useful,
| original, non-link-farm-SEO-garbage information.
| spondylosaurus wrote:
| Wirecutter helped me find a brand of toilet paper that doesn't
| turn my bathroom into a dusty wasteland, so for that alone I'll
| always at least entertain their recommendations. Have yet to be
| led astray by any of their picks.
| adamwk wrote:
| Yeah I think Wirecutter and I sucked it up and signed up for a
| consumer reports subscription. Anecdotally I thought there was
| a period (maybe 2017?) where Wirecutter was becoming less
| trustworthy (maybe it was when I was looking for a mattress)
| but I feel like the quality has returned since then. I think I
| especially appreciate them for their more detailed sections
| below the summaries. Such as unlisted products and how they
| tested.
|
| Other than Wirecutter and consumer reports I feel all I have is
| sleuthing Reddit communities and even then it's hard to tell if
| the users aren't undercover salespeople
| DominikPeters wrote:
| I thought the answer was terrible. It's wrong in saying you
| must buy a smart tv to get a reasonable display panel (this
| comment section does provide good non-smart options),
| condescending to the question, needlessly verbose (sounded like
| early versions of chatGPT to me tbh), and is uncritical in its
| assumption that opting out of data collection means that you
| won't be tracked.
| m463 wrote:
| "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when
| his salary depends on his not understanding it." - Upton
| Sinclair
| CameronBanga wrote:
| A couple years ago, I bought the domain "DumbTV.com" and
| considered looking to source my own television sets from China to
| sell at a premium with no added features besides HDMI ports.
| Should have followed through on that.
| oh_sigh wrote:
| You could probably just link that to an amazon search result
| for "commercial TVs", which generally lack smart features and
| are mostly only designed for HDMI in
| nrp wrote:
| If you're not planning to do it, we may be interested in that
| domain.
| CameronBanga wrote:
| Unfortunately, it looks like I am misremembering. I never had
| the .com, but had the .io, .app, and a couple others.
|
| The one I did get and keep was DumbTV.org, as I thought that
| it may be more valuable to promote a basic sense of
| principals that made a TV a "DumbTV", and promote that as
| well as work to promote brands who were consumer friendly.
|
| I would discuss giving up that domain if it would be of
| interest. My email is my username at gmail dot com.
| OJFord wrote:
| 'We' being Framework? Did I miss some exciting news, or hear
| it here first?
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| 55 inch framework gonna be lit, imagine how many expansion
| slots it could fit
| jjensen wrote:
| Please do this.
| mannyv wrote:
| You can look at the "Commercial TV" section on Best Buy's site.
|
| Westinghouse used to have basic TVs, but I see all their big ones
| are smart now.
| endisneigh wrote:
| idk why people are against Smart TVs. It's not like the vendors
| put a 5G modem on it and pay for the ads to be served to you
| themselves with their own internet.
|
| buy your tv, don't connect to wifi. connect to your device of
| choice, done.
|
| trying to avoid smart tvs is so silly, as you basically exclude
| nearly all of the good ones.
| beefee wrote:
| Here are some reasons.
|
| 1. Cost. I'd rather not pay for hardware and software I won't
| use.
|
| 2. Environmental impact. Unused and unwanted hardware is waste.
|
| 3. Unauthorized users connecting to WiFi. TVs are often in
| common areas. The settings menus have no authentication. So an
| unauthorized user might connect the TV to a WiFi network.
|
| 4. Automatic WiFi connections. TVs might connect to open or
| partnered WiFi networks without telling the user. Hard to know
| without an audit.
|
| 5. Accidental WiFi connections. Settings menus might be
| unintuitive (or deceptive) enough to trick users into joining
| WiFi networks accidentally.
|
| 6. Future data leaks. TVs might be recording data and saving it
| to internal storage. The next owner of the TV could connect it
| to a network, and years of stored data would be leaked. Again,
| hard to know without an audit.
| scarface74 wrote:
| > Cost. I'd rather not pay for hardware and software I won't
| use.
|
| There is no more a "smart TV tax" than a "Windows tax". Smart
| TV manufactures make money via selling user data that more
| than offsets the $20 BOM for the smart TV components just
| like computer OEMs make money installing Windows crapware.
|
| > Environmental impact. Unused and unwanted hardware is
| waste.
|
| What unused hardware? When the built in smarts go obsolete,
| you buy an external device and connect.
|
| > Unauthorized users connecting to WiFi. TVs are often in
| common areas. The settings menus have no authentication. So
| an unauthorized user might connect the TV to a WiFi network
|
| That's true and it was happening a lot when we first moved
| into our condotel (condo that's rented out like a hotel when
| we aren't there and we get half the proceeds) and when we
| stay in hotels. I bought a wifi to wifi bridge to have a
| private network.
| endisneigh wrote:
| 1. Smart TVs are cheaper
|
| 2. Indeed
|
| 3. You can disable this
|
| 5. Disable
|
| 6. Disable
|
| Basically most of your criticism is resolved if you never use
| the wifi to begin with, and all apply to any hypothetical
| wifi enabled device you connect to a dumb TV, anyway.
| ultrarunner wrote:
| I use them for information displays. Our "smart" TVs boot
| slowly, show dialogs, and then complain that they can't sense
| the remote near enough to them, requiring a reboot. All in all
| it's an incredibly frustrating experience for something that
| should require zero interaction.
| endisneigh wrote:
| how often are you rebooting TVs for your information displays
| that this matters? and there are smart tvs with dumb remotes.
| amiga-workbench wrote:
| Its because they're garbage. When a CRT from the mid 80's
| powers on, warms its tube up faster and switches inputs quicker
| than a modern TV, something is very wrong.
|
| I'm pretty sure the NAND is degrading in my 2015 Sony Bravia,
| its bordering on unusable with its hangs, jitters and crashes.
|
| I barely trust any manufacturer to produce consumer grade goods
| that actually do their job properly, the best way to get more
| stuff working right is to narrow the featureset and hope that
| they're not completely incompetent.
| endisneigh wrote:
| there are plenty of excellent (smart) tvs. it's funny to see
| people posting on here talk about how long it takes for their
| TV to power on. clearly if you're wasting free time on here
| optimizing seconds isn't on the agenda.
| amiga-workbench wrote:
| My TV is either off to save energy, or because Android has
| gone completely insane again and it needs rebooting.
|
| If you do a full hard reset of my particular TV, it can't
| even run its own OOTB setup smoothly. Sony have got it
| playing some ambient chimes in the background, but the
| audio constantly breaks up and glitches.
|
| Its got an 8 core processor and it can't even handle audio
| playback in a bit of the UI which should have had heavy QA.
| endisneigh wrote:
| I get that. the point is that turning a TV on, even if it
| took 30 seconds, is basically nothing given the amount of
| time you spend watching it. it's not the right thing to
| optimize.
|
| do you know how long it takes to turn on an iPhone? you
| may have a stroke if I tell you.
| felurx wrote:
| Turning on a TV is something you usually do everytime you
| want to use it, and it's just plain annoying to have to
| wait. The comparison to an iPhone is bad, because you
| rarely reboot it. Imagine you had to wait for the iPhone
| to boot every time you want to read some stuff on the
| internet or call someone.
| endisneigh wrote:
| Idk, my smart tv takes less than 10 seconds to turn on.
| If you had a dumb tv you'd turn that on, but how long
| does a smart dongle take? My Google tv takes about as
| long as my smart tv
| cat_plus_plus wrote:
| Like one with physical nobs to adjust channel and volume? Ebay
| should be good. Want a remote control and on screen menus? That's
| a smart TV. The difference is that the price of embedded
| controller to run built in UI and live guide is no longer any
| lower than one needed to stream Hulu. Someone also needs to
| develop TV firmware and Android development is much cheaper than
| creating new embedded UI from scratch. And Hulu will pay for
| having a remote button / prominent placement on home screen /
| actual new user activation on the device. So overall, you are
| getting a discount for having ability to stream directly from TV,
| even if you never connect to WiFi. Enjoy!
| excalibur wrote:
| > Want a remote control and on screen menus? That's a smart TV.
|
| This is factually incorrect. The defining feature of a Smart TV
| is internet connectivity. You wouldn't know it from the
| selection in your local Wal-Mart, but there are a great many
| TVs in the world, with flat panels and menus and everything,
| that lack the physical ability to connect to the internet. I
| have one hanging on my wall.
| raffraffraff wrote:
| I bought LG digital signage. It's just a big monitor with a few
| HDMI inputs. I stuck a tiny PC on the VESA mount, and I use that
| to play media and stream online comment. I don't watch actual TV
| (cable, satellite etc).
| than3 wrote:
| Sceptre is the only brand that still makes non-smart TVs.
| elpool2 wrote:
| The HiSense TV they recommend underneath "Buy a new TV but don't
| connect it to Wi-Fi" is _NOT_ a good choice if you 're not going
| to use wi-fi. It will regularly cut away from whatever you're
| currently watching and ask you to finish setting up the Google
| assistant thing. Or sometimes it will audibly say "I'm sorry, I
| can't find you're wifi connection.." at random times, even though
| you never attempted to enable wi-fi. There is no way to turn
| these features off.
| karaterobot wrote:
| > "Any TV worth buying is very likely going to ask to connect to
| your Wi-Fi, and that's been the case for many years now," he
| says. "If you can find one manufactured recently that isn't
| smart, I don't know that I would trust it to be worth what you're
| paying for it, because it'll likely be missing several other
| salient features that you may actually want, like Bluetooth
| compatibility, HDR functionality, built-in channel scanning, or
| the ability to auto-label and optimize devices by HDMI input."
|
| TLDR: "Even though you're asking for a not-smart TV, we're
| denying the premise of your question: you don't actually want one
| after all. Here are a few smart TVs you might like."
|
| I have a 60" Sceptre dumb TV, it's the exact one that comes up in
| every single thread on this topic. It's 4K, it cost about
| $400-$450 whenever I bought it -- 3 or 4 years ago -- and it is
| great. It cannot connect to the internet, it doesn't know what a
| Netflix is, and it has all the ports I need.
| bscphil wrote:
| > it'll likely be missing several other salient features that
| you may actually want
|
| I disagree with you; the answer they give is pretty reasonable.
| Sceptre TVs are recommended everywhere you look if you search
| for dumb TVs, they're not hard to find. But people looking for
| a brand new TV often want common modern TV features, like HDR.
| Heck, I'm holding on to an old plasma set until I can get a
| decent OLED at a reasonable price. Hopefully where "smart"
| features are either absent or enthusiasts have worked out how
| to eliminate any privacy hazards.
|
| A $400 Sceptre is very much not what I am interested in. But I
| _am_ interested in a dumb, privacy-friendly screen! It 's not
| "denying the premise" of wanting a dumb TV to point out these
| limitations, as well as offer what is the most practical
| alternative for most people - just don't connect it to WiFi.
| karaterobot wrote:
| > It's not "denying the premise" of wanting a dumb TV to
| point out these limitations, as well as offer what is the
| most practical alternative for most people - just don't
| connect it to WiFi.
|
| They denied the premise of the question. The question was
| "Can You Recommend a Not-Smart TV for Me?" and the answer
| wasn't just "no, there are none I can or will recommend",
| which would be one thing. Instead the answer was "I'm not
| going to answer that question, because you don't actually
| want the thing you said you want". Since _some people_ want
| dumb TVs, and they do exist, it would have been possible for
| the author to recommend the best example of that product,
| whatever they felt about it personally, or whatever
| assumptions they had about what the questioner actually
| wanted.
| topspin wrote:
| > modern TV features, like HDR
|
| Many of the Sceptre 4K models have HDR. MEMC as well. Likely
| the $400 price point is blown at that point, but who buys
| 1080p and cares about HDR?
| itronitron wrote:
| Digital projectors are usually 'not-smart' and some of the short
| throw projectors can be placed quite close to the screen or wall
| if space is an issue.
| TheBozzCL wrote:
| No mention of smart TV's embedded planned obsolescence? If they
| stop updating the firmware, eventually the smart features and
| apps stop working as well.
| TillE wrote:
| For the HN audience especially, a simple computer monitor seems
| like the obvious answer. Set it up however you like.
|
| Maybe it's a little more complicated if you still have cable or
| something, but unless you're watching live sports, there's not
| much value there.
| jblz wrote:
| I'm pretty sure Cable boxes all have HDMI these days, so that
| shouldn't be an issue.
|
| Monitors won't have an over-the-air tuner, so, you'd need to
| use an external device to watch broadcast TV.
| rufus_foreman wrote:
| You don't need a cable box or a TV to watch cable TV anymore,
| you can stream it over it the internet.
|
| HMDI from a computer to a monitor or a projector would work
| fine.
| dehrmann wrote:
| Except most monitors are smaller than 40" and don't have
| speakers.
| porkbeer wrote:
| If you are using the built in speakers on any tv, you are
| losing the game. Additionally a few of my monitors have
| crappy speakers that turn up as a hdmi output device, often
| to my dismay.
| hilbert42 wrote:
| My solution is dead simple and easy to implement. Use a large top
| line computer monitor and connect one or more dumb-type PVRs/Set
| Top Boxes to it. Moreover, this is usually a much more flexible
| arrangement than a TV (and one is never tempted to connect WiFi
| because it's just not available--nor is there any snoopy O/S to
| connect WiFi to).
|
| Problem solved!
|
| __
|
| _Edit: Dumb-type PVRs /STBs (the ones with no internal storage
| and only a USB socket to add your own drive) are dirt cheap ($30
| - $50 at most) and are available just about everywhere. Moreover,
| they're very small and compact. Because of their convenience I'll
| take them anywhere (couple directly into my PC or laptop HDMI
| port, etc.).
|
| I have at least six operational and two are new and still in
| boxes (I almost consider them as disposable items--I just draw on
| a new one when and as necessary)._
| LaserDiscMan wrote:
| They're not cheap or large, but broadcast monitors can be an
| option here. Very expensive unless bought used though. Lots of
| lesser known manufacturers in the space, and some great deals can
| be found. The largest size most manufacturers will do is around
| 32 inches.
|
| CRT Broadcast monitors are somewhat of a collectors item for
| retro game enthusiasts.
| humps wrote:
| All smart TVs are dumb if you perform one simple action. When the
| terms and conditions screen pops up during the TV setup process
| simply select "No." Congratulations, you have a dumb TV. This is
| what I do and so far it has worked.
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| You are assuming that:
|
| 1. It will be honored 2. It will not be changed to default
| during update
| mrpippy wrote:
| I'd be more worried that the TV would just say "T&C
| acceptance is required to use this product, please return me
| to the store" and turn itself off
| humps wrote:
| you can easily tell if anything has changed every time you
| turn the TV on, plus, I haven't hooked them up to the
| internet
| TYPE_FASTER wrote:
| It's worth noting that TVs that run Google TV (which includes
| Sony Bravia) let you choose Basic TV or Google TV.
|
| https://support.google.com/googletv/answer/10408998?hl=en#zi...
|
| If you don't want to connect to the internet, you can select
| Basic TV at setup and get the equivalent of a dumb TV.
| EastSmith wrote:
| Never buying a Sony device ever again. Got one 4,5 years back
| (3rd one for last 10 years). It had Google TV and I could not
| pass a screen and use the TV unless I agree a stupid EULA. Had
| to take it, because ... family, but they made me feel soo
| stupid.
|
| Pair this with a horrible PS support and Sony is banned for
| life for me.
| captn3m0 wrote:
| This only applies to new models, post 2021 I think. I'm
| considering getting one, and I am having to check which year-
| model combination has Basic TV support.
| paxys wrote:
| TL;DR - buy any good TV and don't connect it to the internet.
|
| I bet the more tech-minded consumers can open it up and
| physically disconnect the wifi module pretty easily as well.
| djaychela wrote:
| Since getting pi-hole on my home network, I've been amazed at the
| amount of phoning home my old (7 years+) smart TVs are trying to
| do. All of the domains are about content matching, which I'm
| thinking is no longer happening since getting pi-hole as the
| domains are never bring resolved for them.
| nvr219 wrote:
| Check this out:
|
| https://imgur.com/VJVmDd3
|
| This is from 2 days when there was literally nobody using
| anything in the house because I was out of town.
| norgie wrote:
| To be fair, blocking can cause more requests than "normal" as
| they don't always use good back offs. My Nvidia Shield used
| to spam my DNS with 10s of thousands of requests a day like
| this after I blocked the domain, but they seem to have fixed
| it at some point.
| emodendroket wrote:
| I feel like all these extreme measures to try and protect your
| privacy aren't really that effective and are a big inconvenience.
| I like using the apps on my television.
| lbotos wrote:
| Search: <brand name> digital information display
|
| Samsung 4k
| https://www.samsung.com/us/business/displays/4k-uhd/qb-serie...
|
| It's more expensive then the subsidized ones, but right in the
| description:
|
| QB65B--N * Direct-Lit 4K Crystal UHD LED Display for Business
| Without Embedded Wi-Fi or Bluetooth
|
| As others have suggested as well, possibly a monitor, but I'm not
| aware of many 65" 4k monitors (But they may exist)
| nrvn wrote:
| DIDs are great but there are two main problems with them:
|
| 1. They appear to be more expensive than consumer TV's
|
| 2. They might be more difficult to find through usual channels
| because they are targeted at businesses (but it probably
| depends on where you are located)
| ajmurmann wrote:
| This seems to be a great option. It seems much harder to get
| reviews and even buying options. Looking for an LG OLED, there
| seem to be some really cool things from regular screens, to
| flexible and transparent ones, but I need to "inquire for
| purchase options" and the regular screen only comes in 65".
| That's a good size, but more options would be great. It's sad
| how harder it is to buy something that doesn't spy on you...
| esperent wrote:
| I've use a 48 inch LG OLED as a monitor for about two years
| now. It's set in PC mode and except for the occasional time I
| hit the wrong button on the remote, I completely forget it's
| a Smart TV.
|
| I did connect it to the wifi once to update the firmware.
| Note that it also took a lot of fiddling with I first got it
| to get a decent picture setup - although part of that was
| finding out that I needed a fancy HDMI cable to get 4k@120hz,
| and another part was figuring out that HDR isn't really
| viable for daily PC usage (turning on HDR makes the picture
| _darker_ , because although the dynamic range has gone up,
| the max brightness of OLED is not that high so it has to make
| things dimmer for the dynamic range to be available. Plus
| Windows HDR management sucks). Oh and the gloss finish means
| it's not suitable for bright environments. But otherwise it's
| a beautiful screen and would be an awesome TV too with wifi
| turned off and connected to a TV dongle of some kind.
| dopeboy wrote:
| My parents bought a LG TV recently. The UI is just horrific.
| Which PM thought the real time cursor was a good idea?
|
| As much as you can, get an AppleTV and leave it on.
| TheBozzCL wrote:
| The worst part of the cursor is that it seems there's no way to
| disable it. At least I haven't found it.
| btdmaster wrote:
| A reminder that https://github.com/iptv-org/iptv is back up now
| with all its hardware non-requirements!
| newhotelowner wrote:
| LG used to had non-smart tv for hospitality/healthcare market.
| All newer models has apps/calls home if you connect to ethernet
| (Even their non-smart line up). I was able to launch Youtube from
| my computer. I am assuming they may call home through HDMI.
| carom wrote:
| I have Sceptre (recommended on HN) and love it. Just hook up an
| Apple TV and it is great. If you are an audio snob you'll want a
| sound bar, but for a cheap TV it does the job well.
| agilob wrote:
| A reminder ha LG webOS can be exploited by visiting a website
| https://github.com/RootMyTV/RootMyTV.github.io
| dan1234 wrote:
| Patched in mid 2022, unfortunately.
| NoraCodes wrote:
| This article misses the point. I desperately want a non-smart TV
| because I don't want to deal with the absolute mess that is smart
| TV software. I want to have a TV with a nice panel, a basic OSD
| that lets me switch inputs and set up color/HDR profiles, and
| that's _it_.
| cortesoft wrote:
| My main issue with smart TVs is how long they take to turn on.
| I just want it to turn on and off in under a second.
| andrewia wrote:
| Did you actually read the article? They said their first two
| picks will boot to the most recent input without any UI to step
| through, which they consider acceptable. Combined with CEC
| input switching, I agree that the UI shouldn't be much of a
| concern. I use a TCL P607 disconnected from the internet, and
| the UI is not a concern because of CEC switching.
| CivBase wrote:
| > If you can find one manufactured recently that isn't smart, I
| don't know that I would trust it to be worth what you're paying
| for it, because it'll likely be missing several other salient
| features that you may actually want, like Bluetooth
| compatibility, HDR functionality, built-in channel scanning, or
| the ability to auto-label and optimize devices by HDMI input.
|
| I don't care about any of those features except for HDR, and I
| suspect that's the case for most others who would be interested
| in a dumb TV.
|
| That said, the easiest solution is really just to buy a smart TV
| and keep it off your network and connect a laptop or HTPC. But
| I've heard horror stories of newer TVs auto-connecting to
| whatever open network they can find and some even having LTE
| radios, so who knows how long that strategy will work.
| aj7 wrote:
| Why is it bad to have a TV connected to wi-fi or the internet?
| How is Apple TV a solution to that problem?
| TheBozzCL wrote:
| Several reasons:
|
| 1. Planned obsolescence at the firmware/app level. Eventually,
| manufacturers and app maintainers stop supporting your TV. When
| that happens, you need to change the whole smart TV. Dumb TV +
| smart box means you can upgrade separately and at your leisure.
|
| 2. Privacy concerns. Smart TVs openly monitor your usage, which
| includes not only how you use the TV but also what you watch on
| it, and sell that data for marketing purposes. Often you need
| to agree to the tracking to get many of the connected features
| - for example, my TV demands that I accept data collection to
| use AirPlay. Locking features behind an EULA and tracking is
| crappy, IMO. TBH I don't know if Apple TVs are better, but I
| Pihole my whole home network anyway.
|
| 3. Bad UI and UX. Many smart TVs are a PAIN to navigate.
| Convoluted, inconsistent menus, menus hidden inside menus
| hidden inside menus, slow start-up speeds or even straight up
| slow UI. The added complexity doesn't really justify the extra
| features, IMO. Purpose-built smart boxes normally do a better
| job. And if you don't like the current UI, selling it and
| buying a new one is much more convenient that selling your TV
| and buying a new one.
| robg wrote:
| The chart here shows the problem:
|
| https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/chart-of-the-day-or-century-8...
|
| TVs have been so commoditized, if you were a TV manufacturer, how
| would you stay in business in the next thirty years?
| dehrmann wrote:
| Are there any open source TV firmware projects? In theory, I
| don't mind smart TV features, I just don't trust most companies
| with my data, and getting the interface right is hard.
| hosteur wrote:
| Raspberry pi and Kodi or libreelec?
| suprjami wrote:
| You misunderstood the question. These are not operating
| systems which replace to TV's rubbish firmware.
| mongol wrote:
| Dropping traffic from the TV's MAC address in the firewall shodo
| the trick, no? Or perhaps it changes over time?
| Thorentis wrote:
| Buy a projector. This has two benefits:
|
| 1) Most projectors are not smart, so it solves that problem.
|
| 2) You don't have a gaping black hole in your living space urging
| you to be sucked into watching it. I despise TV and mass media
| and what it has done to our society. A projector at least hints
| at film being more of an art form that can be appreciated for its
| own sake. You have a movie night, you set everything up, you pack
| it up when done. It's intentional, it's not just "I'm bored,
| let's scroll through Netflix and find something watchable".
| sys_64738 wrote:
| I know it's offtopic but I knew our leisure viewing was in
| trouble way back when the first Blu Ray DVD players had fans in
| them which came on loudly when watching movies.
| giantg2 wrote:
| "When you're setting up your new TV, opting out is as simple as
| skipping the step that connects your TV to the internet."
|
| Is this actually true? I thought I've heard of some TVs
| connecting to any open network automatically if it was connected
| to a secure one.
| aidenn0 wrote:
| > "Any TV worth buying is very likely going to ask to connect to
| your Wi-Fi, and that's been the case for many years now," he
| says. "If you can find one manufactured recently that isn't
| smart, I don't know that I would trust it to be worth what you're
| paying for it, because it'll likely be missing several other
| salient features that you may actually want, like Bluetooth
| compatibility, HDR functionality, built-in channel scanning, or
| the ability to auto-label and optimize devices by HDMI input."
|
| I literally need zero of these things:
|
| 1: BT, auto-labeling HDMI inputs: My receiver does these
|
| 2: built-in channel scanning: I live in a valley and can reliably
| pull in 0 channels
|
| 3: HDR functionality: This would be nice for future-proofing, but
| I don't own any HDR content.
| fzeindl wrote:
| I use a Philips 43 inch PC monitor attached to an AppleTV. Works
| great, and has 100ms response.
| https://www.philips.at/c-p/BDM4350UC_00/brilliance-4k-ultra-...
| hklijlyh wrote:
| YC mods, lololol most obvious AstroTurf yet. Stop trying to make
| dumb tvs a thing. Where are all these these people in real life?
| It's just so obvious it's worse then those shitstack articles.
| that_courtney wrote:
| The spyware and apps are revenue features for the manufacturer.
| They help subsidize the price of the set. So get a TV with all
| that bloat for best value, and just keep the device off the net.
|
| If you do want to put it on the net, here's some help on
| disabling privacy-busting features:
| https://www.consumerreports.org/electronics/privacy/how-to-t...
| joshchaney wrote:
| Amazing that their budget recommendation is the Roku TV. I can
| tell you from experience if you don't connect them to Wi-Fi there
| is an LED that will constantly blink on the bottom front of the
| TV, with no way to disable in software. So unless you like your
| TV with an electrical tape aesthetic, I would avoid Roku TV's.
| alphabet9000 wrote:
| my guess for why that is there is hinged on roku's assumption
| that most people's brains are so fried that the concept of
| something being "distracting" isn't even a possibility any more
| andrewia wrote:
| It depends on the TV manufacturer, since Roku is just a
| software layer. My TCL P607 has no such LED.
| SeanLuke wrote:
| > "Any TV worth buying is very likely going to ask to connect to
| your Wi-Fi, and that's been the case for many years now," he
| says. "If you can find one manufactured recently that isn't
| smart, I don't know that I would trust it to be worth what you're
| paying for it, because it'll likely be missing several other
| salient features that you may actually want, like Bluetooth
| compatibility, HDR functionality, built-in channel scanning, or
| the ability to auto-label and optimize devices by HDMI input."
|
| I don't think I would want _any_ of those features.
| kulahan wrote:
| The HDMI input labeling thing is nice. When my family comes to
| visit, it's pretty neat that they can go to inputs and select
| "Chromecast" or whatever instead of "HDMI 1"
| dublin wrote:
| Another thing to look at in new TVs, both smart and dumb, is
| egregious boot times. Instead of the expected instant-on, many
| new TVs take a Looooooong time to start up - the Sceptre 4K TV I
| bought for the office last year takes 20 seconds to boot and
| display output - and it's a _dumb_ TV!
|
| I built IoT sensors with embedded web interfaces 20 YEARS AGO
| that booted in under a quarter second. It's intolerable in the
| third decade of the 21st century that we're stuck with boot times
| for _appliances_ that are two orders of magnitude slower that
| that! (And FWIW, Red Hat had full Linux booting in under five
| seconds over a decade ago, but it never caught on...)
| yumraj wrote:
| Both of the recommendations are Chinese brands, that doesn't
| inspire much confidence..
| znpy wrote:
| I bought a 42" full hd tv from the brand names "Ok" in 2021, at
| mediaworld/mediamarkt.
|
| It's completely dumb but it's got 2 hdmi inputs. I love it.
| bombcar wrote:
| Best Buy has "non smart" in the search options:
| https://www.bestbuy.com/site/searchpage.jsp?_dyncharset=UTF-...
|
| I've not dug into details if they are actually all non-smart TVs,
| but perhaps I should. Ability to cast to the damn thing easily
| from a phone is really nice, though.
| adamwk wrote:
| For me it's less about privacy (I just disconnect it from wifi)
| but just how slow they are. I bought an Apple TV to get around
| this but it still takes so long for it to even turn on
| YurgenJurgensen wrote:
| My TV remote has a dedicated Netflix button. I don't have a
| Netflix subscription and never will, but it wastes 30 seconds
| every time I accidentally push it because the UI is that slow
| and backing out of this nonfunctional Netflix app takes so many
| steps.
| ed25519FUUU wrote:
| The approach I've taken is to just keep my TV off the internet
| (never join a WiFi network) and make it smart via an Apple TV,
| which I personally believe to have the strongest privacy
| protection of any smart TV device.
|
| Another bonus is my TV UI hasn't changed despite changing and
| upgrading TV brands.
| emmelaich wrote:
| I attempted to do this with a new TCL TV. And continue using
| Chromecast dongle. But the damn thing freezes. So I'm using the
| inbuilt Chromecast for now!
| cinntaile wrote:
| Why do you want a not-smart tv? I thought the point was to
| not have tracking, but you were using a Chromecast dongle and
| I would expect Google of all companies to keep track of what
| you watch at least? Is it the security risks that probably
| show up after the tv software stops updating?
| freedomben wrote:
| I would guess Google's privacy stuff is still an order of
| magnitude better than the TV manufacturers. Google actually
| gives you a decent amount of control over your data. There
| are definitely better privacy options than a Chromecast,
| but I don't think it's fair to put Google in the same
| category as Vizio/Samsung/et al.
| was_a_dev wrote:
| Hasn't some models (thinking Samsung) been shown to connect to
| any WiFi network they can?
|
| edit: Appears to be an urban legend, with not much substance to
| back it up!
| codetrotter wrote:
| Sure but if everyone has WPA2 encryption enabled on their
| network, such as is the case in my neighbourhood, then there
| is no network for the TV to connect to anyways.
| prmoustache wrote:
| Couldn't a device looking for wifi just connect wherever
| you or your neighbours hit the wps button on their wifi
| router?
| midasuni wrote:
| Amazon whisper net etc from ring doorbells and other
| privacy violating things come to mind as possible
| connections.
|
| Mostly theoretical though.
| KerrAvon wrote:
| But that would require an accessible WiFi network.
|
| I'm sure someday it'll be impossible because they'll embed 5G
| chips and do it over cell without involving your consent, but
| that day isn't here yet.
| ghayes wrote:
| Simple, just put it in a Faraday cage.
| tomcam wrote:
| It's not that simple. The Faraday cage I got from Costco
| seems to phone home to a server in China. Obviously I
| returned it and used the money to buy a whole lot of
| tinfoil.
| samtho wrote:
| I'm... not sure if you are joking.
| all2 wrote:
| Quarter inch mesh is pretty cheap at the local hardware
| big box. It'd be good for attenuation up to 7ish Ghz.
|
| I've seriously considered getting a roll and building a
| cage.
|
| There's also emf paint that one could use.
| YurgenJurgensen wrote:
| Surely, grounding the aerial would be the simpler option,
| right?
| lostlogin wrote:
| It's surprising how cages work. The MR one at work will
| leak if the door is open .5mm, it lets blue tooth and
| wifi through and some phone calls.
|
| Works pretty well for MR at 3T (which is actually more
| like 2.89T) though - 125Mhz ish.
| kube-system wrote:
| Anyone who says that "blocking" wifi is easy is someone
| who hasn't tried. Even very expensive professionally
| built cages don't "block", they attenuate. And modern
| wifi equipment is surprisingly good at working just fine
| with weak signals.
| modriano wrote:
| The mesh would have to be so fine that you wouldn't be
| able to see the screen (unless you were inside the
| "cage").
| tzs wrote:
| Google is telling me that the mesh for a Faraday cage
| that would block WiFi could have hole sizes up to about 5
| mm. Suppose you made your faraday cage (or at least the
| part that goes in front of the screen) out of 40 gauge
| wire (0.07874 mm diameter) with the wires spaced 2.25 mm
| apart.
|
| On a 70" 4K TV a pixel is about 0.4 mm x 0.4 mm. If the
| mesh were close to the screen I think about 30% of the
| pixels would have wire in front of them. Of those 30%,
| 1/6 would both a horizontal and a vertical wire in front
| (let's not go crazy and talk about orienting the mesh
| diagonally or anything like that), and 5/6 would only
| have one wire in front of them. So that's 70% of pixels
| not interfered with, 25% having one wire in front of
| them, and 5% having two wires.
|
| The 25% with one wire crossing would have about 20% of
| the pixel occluded by the wire. The 5% with two wires
| crossing them would have about 36% occluded.
|
| My guess is that the screen could be seen pretty well
| through that.
| hilbert42 wrote:
| Make life easy, just stop RF getting to and from your TV
| by cutting the WiFi, Bluetooth and mobile antenna leads.
| lancesells wrote:
| Simple, go wired and encase the house in a faraday cage.
| xattt wrote:
| Houses finished with stucco tend to do this as a side
| effect, since stucco is applied onto a fine metal grid
| screwed to framing.
| eropple wrote:
| Really, anyone who's lived in a sufficiently old house
| knows you can run your _own_ Wi-Fi in a Faraday cage.
| Just probably not between rooms.
| lostlogin wrote:
| Underfloor foil insulation works pretty well as a cage.
| It also adds a nice electrocution risk when installing
| and is banned in my area for this reason.
| eropple wrote:
| Metal lath under the plaster. Ripping that out was a
| mess.
| giobox wrote:
| I've seen rumblings that day may be very soon, too. Once
| devices in the home have embedded prepaid 5G out with your
| control, all sorts of home networking/firewall challenges
| are going to arise. We are entering a world in which it
| will cost very, very little to embed 5G into almost
| anything with say 1GB of prepaid eSim data for analytics
| collection, regardless of whether device resides on your
| LAN or not.
| dwighttk wrote:
| living room faraday cage
| hilbert42 wrote:
| As I said above, just nuke the antennas (a box cutter
| through the antenna leads is usually enough. If you're
| really paranoid, short the lead out at or near the
| equipment end (as near as to the feed IC as is possible).
|
| I do this on old smartphones that I have no intention of
| ever using as a phone again (say for testing APS etc.).
| It's dead easy, a razor blade through the circuit board
| tracks that connect to the antenna(s) and it's all over--
| no phone, with or without SIM (i.e.: no emergency
| service) and no WiFi or Bluetooth.
|
| Very simple really.
| ed25519FUUU wrote:
| There's only a fractional amount of people using smart
| TVs without WiFi. I'm very dubious it's worth the cost to
| imbed GSM cards in each TV to reach the fraction that
| doesn't allow the TV on WiFi.
| midasuni wrote:
| Large portion of those who currently don't connect will
| faraday cage their connection to remove the ability too.
|
| Then of course there's a lack of 5G. I certainly don't
| have any where I live. Just about have 1 bar of 4g near
| the window.
| rhn_mk1 wrote:
| If that happens, it's going to be to reach those who
| can't set up wifi manually. It's better user experience
| not to have to, leading to fewer returns.
| YurgenJurgensen wrote:
| It would simplify setup for non-technical consumers. I'm
| sure people complain about having to input a WiFi
| password with a TV remote.
|
| WiFi/Cellular convergence as a concept also doesn't seem
| like the most unlikely future.
| gruez wrote:
| > It would simplify setup for non-technical consumers.
| I'm sure people complain about having to input a WiFi
| password with a TV remote.
|
| So they'll add a $50 LTE/5G modem to the BOM just to save
| the trouble of entering a password using arrow keys, a
| process that takes maybe 2-3 minutes?
| samtho wrote:
| They're closer to $18-$25 at quantity these days,
| especially if you don't want one with GPS built in as
| well, you can get it on the lower end.
| giobox wrote:
| I've long wondered about what wifi/cellular looks like on
| an infinite timescale... it does strike me as unlikely
| too we will maintain two separate wireless standards
| forever for IP data. I think embedded cellular or
| equivelent global wireless access will one day just be as
| taken for granted as embedded wifi in a lot of devices.
| Technologies like eSims are all steps in this direction.
|
| I've seen others in this thread argue embedded cellular
| isnt worth the cost, but this misses the critical point -
| if it costs almost nothing (we are close to this point
| already) and is already built into every off the shelf
| SoC, of course manufacturers will use it. We are talking
| pennies per unit at scale here in future.
|
| The auto industry has already done this - Ford for
| example have embedded cellular analytics you can't turn
| off (or at least its non-obvious to me as an owner) on
| _every single new Ford_ and has done so for several years
| now, and you don 't pay a penny as the end user, even on
| their most basic entry level cars.
| hilbert42 wrote:
| It wouldn't last five minutes on my car without being
| disabled. Easy to do, use a portable spectrum analyzer,
| find the source of the RF and then nuke the antenna.
|
| Same goes for any other appliance that radiates RF
| signals (IoT, etc.).
| girvo wrote:
| It'll be 4G, because NB-IoT is already here and pretty
| excellent for data collection.
| AlexAltea wrote:
| This already happens with Nespresso coffee machines (they
| have an SIM that connects to the Internet, whether you want
| it or not). That day is already yesterday.
| hilbert42 wrote:
| For heaven's sake just cut the leads that freed the
| antenna with a razor blade or box cutter.
|
| All over, done permanently. Never another internet
| connection.
| robocat wrote:
| A SIM? Reference?
| shrike wrote:
| Wow, they sure do. Page 29 of the user guide for the
| Nespresso Zenius says -
|
| _This coffee machine is equipped with M2M (Machine to
| Machine) techology which may be activated in due time
| with your agreement. Thanks to a SIM card already
| integrated in the machine, such network connections will
| offer new services (subject to further terms and
| conditions) to its customers and improve the after sales
| process by automatically communicating machine
| troubleshooting / diagnostics to our Customer
| Relationship Centre (depending on country requirements
| and specificities)._
|
| https://www.nespresso.com/shared_res/manuals/zenius/www_Z
| eni...
| oblio wrote:
| I imagine that can be disabled physically?
| blep_ wrote:
| Everything can be disabled physically.
| dexterdog wrote:
| Except an escalator
| YurgenJurgensen wrote:
| I also imagine that naive attempts to disable it would be
| interpreted as a way of defeating some kind of always-
| online DRM on the coffee pods.
|
| And if coffee pods don't come with always-online DRM yet,
| I'm honestly surprised at Nespresso's lack of dedication
| to this dystopia.
| hilbert42 wrote:
| If that's the case then it cannot be used in any
| place/location where there is no signal.
|
| If so, then there would be hell to pay the first time if
| happened. If it works sans connection, then do what I've
| said elsewwhere and that's to cut or short out the
| antenna lead.
|
| Removing the SIM may be deemed provocative by the
| manufacturer, if there's no signal reception then that's
| a different matter (the user can't be blamed).
| freedomben wrote:
| doubtful. I'm sure it will refuse to work if it can't
| talk to home base, and that home base will have some sort
| of certificate pinning so only their servers can
| authorize it do make the coffee.
| fghsqwads wrote:
| Now I want a used one just to rip open and find the SIM
| card.
|
| I wonder if I can use it for mobile data.
| peterfarkas wrote:
| What a time to be alive. This should be disclosed on the
| front page of the manual and not hidden in the
| smallprint. And it should come with instructions on how
| to disable it with a physical switch.
| hilbert42 wrote:
| _" ...they'll embed 5G chips and do it over cell without
| involving your consent,"_
|
| There'd be hell to pay if they ever did that. Moreover,
| it'd be impossible to keep the fact quiet if deployed at
| any reasonable scale.
|
| A much bigger looming threat is the possible closure of
| terrestrial Free-to-Air TV broadcasting (it was an early
| agenda item to be discussed at the 2028 WARC/WRC (World
| Administrative Radio Conference) but was dropped early on.
|
| That it ever got there in the first instance is a very big
| worry, it shows that people in high places have been or are
| considering such a move).
| philsnow wrote:
| I think the most likely next steps is integrating with
| Amazon Sidewalk instead of 5G. I don't know what the
| relative availability of 5G signal vs Sidewalk signal is,
| but I'm pretty sure Amazon has a dashboard tracking the
| latter.
| Macha wrote:
| No, this appears to be a HN urban legend. It's always asked
| in these threads and the closest thing that anyone has been
| able to provide is one person asking one time on the samsung
| forums why there tv was connected to the neighbour's wifi
| (openly in the TV's own menu). So either there's a giant
| conspiracy which literally nobody else in the world has
| noticed or attempted to reproduce, or her
| kids/neighbour/whoever just connected it to the first network
| that'd work.
| Lammy wrote:
| It's possible, and that's all that matters IMO
| fshbbdssbbgdd wrote:
| If "possible" is all that matters then you have to
| include stuff like "I'm on a special list where if I
| order a monitor from Amazon, they'll send me a version
| with a secret chip on the inside of the case that
| broadcasts my secret TV viewing habits to the NSA."
| lostlogin wrote:
| It's too hard on the Unifi line, but Ubiquiti Edgerouters
| allow some neat rules. Eg if on port 53 and not coming from
| the Pihole, send back to Pihole.
|
| The Samsung was very chatty, but didn't connect to an
| unsecured wifi network I had setup for testing.
|
| It's gone now and an equally chatty Sony is in its place -
| with not network access.
| was_a_dev wrote:
| Fair enough - I think it is most likely something I read
| via HN
| Macha wrote:
| Yeah, HN seems to be the primary community responsible
| for the belief that this is commonplace.
| lostlogin wrote:
| Maybe, but the shitty behaviour of big tech companies
| makes such things very easy to believe.
| lelandfe wrote:
| I looked into this last year and couldn't find much. I found
| a few forum posts of people claiming their TV connected to a
| public WiFi but none of them seemed particularly reputable.
| lr1970 wrote:
| There is Amazon SideWalk [0] that could potentially allow
| devices join mesh WiFi behind your back.
|
| [0] https://www.amazon.com/Amazon-Sidewalk/
| nickthenerd wrote:
| Yes. I was looking for this comment before saying the same.
| This is the biggest selling point of Sidewalk to
| appliance/product companies. All the usage data, ad data,
| analytics, even remote control of devices can now happen
| even if your devices are completely disconnected from your
| home WiFi. If your neighbor has an Amazon Echo... now its
| basically connected to the internet. Even if you don't have
| neighbors, there could be a LoRa gateway a mile away on a
| cell tower, and its now connected.
| freedomben wrote:
| Yep, make no mistake this is absolutely going to happen.
| iijj wrote:
| I have a 3 month old Samsung TV with recent firmware. I am
| trying to use it as a dumb offline TV connected to an Apple
| TV (which is, of course, online). Short version is it does
| not automatically connect to networks without user input, but
| it prompts people all the time and inevitably ended up back
| on the network.
|
| It won't forget network passwords without a full reset. So if
| you connect to download firmware then disable the connection,
| it is one click away from someone re-enabling it. If there's
| an unsecured network available, you're only 2-3 clicks away
| from joining that.
|
| With other people in the house using it, the only way to
| reliably keep it off the internet is to connect it to a
| network, allow it to verify the connection works, then block
| it from making any more outgoing connections at the router
| level. It seems to be ok with this situation and doesn't
| complain too much.
|
| My original plan was to setup HDMI CEC and lock away the
| Samsung Remote to prevent people from getting into trouble.
| But when the TV is turned on vi HDMI CEC, half the time it
| wants to immediately run the OLED refresh cycle, and will
| automatically shut off and start doing that unless you
| actively prevent it from doing so with the remote. This is
| annoying because they have a setting to run the OLED refresh
| at night when not in use. It's almost like they sabotaged
| this use case on purpose to force people to interact with the
| Samsung UI.
|
| I should have bought a projector, assuming one can still get
| projectors that aren't similarly infected.
| freedomben wrote:
| My Samsung tries to be smart too and ends up wrecking
| everything. I have a Steam Deck and a Linux laptop that I
| want to connect via HDMI, but the TV tries to do some sort
| of detection thing but doesn't wait long enough and does
| some sort of power cycle on it. The net result is that the
| laptop will switch from HDMI on to HDMI off and back every
| few seconds, and the TV will never connect. It's
| aggravating because it's such a stupid simple bug, but I
| have zero control over the TV.
| exmicrosoldier wrote:
| My Sony smart tv was great for 3 years because I never
| connected it to the internet, but ever since I did, it
| hangs, takes 2 minutes to allow switching inputs, and in
| general just sucks.
|
| I will not make the mistake of ever connecting one of
| these to the internet again, and if I have to buy a Giant
| monitor for 2k, so be it.
|
| I'm 90% sure that the flash drive on the TV wore out and
| they want me to replace what is otherwise great working
| hardware for features I don't even want anymore.
| iijj wrote:
| Yeah, it is terrible. They have settings to modify
| resolution/refresh/latency mode, but those settings are
| always overridden if the TV's auto detection thinks it
| knows better.
|
| About a third of the time it will insist my Xbox is a
| 1440p/60Hz input, and I can do nothing about it except
| reboot all the things.
| freedomben wrote:
| Ugh, it's so utterly terrible. I really wonder, what kind
| of engineers are building/designing these things? Do they
| not even use their own products, or if they do they never
| plug external devices in?
| stephenboyd wrote:
| That is also the advice given in the article.
|
| Unfortunately it follows that with "occasionally connect the TV
| to the internet for a minute to see if it needs any firmware
| updates" which is pointless if the TV is already working
| properly.
| KerrAvon wrote:
| Yes, this. I bought an LG OLED C2 recently, plugged in an Apple
| TV, have not connected the TV itself to the internet. Works
| absolutely fine; bonus is that the apparently annoying voice
| control option is disabled. You don't need firmware updates
| unless there's a specific bug that you need fixed, and you can
| update by USB stick if you do need a fix.
| benreic wrote:
| I also got a C2 and briefly connected it via WiFi before I
| had the Apple TV. After hooking up the Apple TV I turned WiFi
| and thought I was all set, but it keeps turning WiFi on by
| itself and checking for updates which is really annoying.
| Might do a factory reset to clear out the WiFi password.
| jeremy_wiebe wrote:
| Just change the wifi password. :-)
| philsnow wrote:
| Change your wifi password, give the new password to your TV
| and make sure it connects, then change the wifi password
| (either to another new password or to the old one) and
| don't give the new new password to the TV. They generally
| don't remember and try previous passwords.
| polio wrote:
| I see a lot of people buying the C2. Is this the undisputed
| winner for a new 4K television? I am vaguely in the TV market
| but am mildly intimidated by the variety.
| Zizizizz wrote:
| I have one (coming from a 32 inch cheap Samsung 1080p from
| 8 years ago) and it's pretty insane how good it looks. I
| have to leave it in Filmmaker mode for movies as it's too
| good at interpolating frames on shows and colour correcting
| things to make it look like raw acting footage. But have
| perfect blacks in games is incredible, the amount of times
| I stopped to just look at the surroundings in shadow of the
| tomb raider was too many to count. The refresh rate also
| supports 120fps for shooters so it's buttery smooth in
| comparison to what I used to have. Putting nextdns as my
| DNS resolver blocks the ads on it and having the built in
| Chromecast support for Netflix and YouTube is pretty handy
| as well.
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| Yep. Extra bonus for LG since it uses webOS ( and that thing
| is great ). If you are concerned about TV connecting to
| something it shouldn't, you can setup a honeypot ( I think
| Unify still supports that ) and see what it tries to do. I
| never connected mine and didn't notice any attempts ( but it
| is an older OLED model ).
| slig wrote:
| Bought one recently as well. I connected mine because it's
| easier for everyone in the house, but I used a trick to hide
| most of the crapware: change the country to "Other" [1]
|
| [1]: https://old.reddit.com/r/LGOLED/comments/vhbqru/remove_t
| rend...
| frereubu wrote:
| I did the same with a projector and an old Mac Mini. Upgraded
| the internal hard drive to a small SSD and hung an 8TB spinning
| HD off the back with an attached Blu-Ray drive. Has the benefit
| that you can do things like rip / play Blu-Ray discs, choose to
| use Netflix / Amazon Prime / Apple TV / Eurosport / whatever
| you want. Only downside is that the Mac Mini is so old now (>
| 10 years) that it doesn't get OS updates. But I'm not sure I
| care about that too much as long as it works, because I have no
| personal data on it.
| funkdified wrote:
| This is 100% the way. Did the same thing with my new Samsung.
| It's been a very clean experience.
| kube-system wrote:
| > Another bonus is my TV UI hasn't changed despite changing and
| upgrading TV brands.
|
| One of the recent updates to my TV's software introduced bugs
| to a feature I use a lot. It is very infuriating, and it's one
| of the reasons I refuse to buy an expensive TV. Even if the
| hardware is good, I'm one software update away from a piece of
| garbage.
| MrMember wrote:
| An "update" to my TV made it so if it's on an input channel
| with no detected input for 10 seconds it will automatically
| switch back to the "smart" TV channel. Now if for some reason
| an input source isn't working correctly and I'm trying to
| figure out why I have to keep switching back to the correct
| input channel. Which of course lags for like ten seconds
| whenever it switches.
|
| I'm never buying another "smart" TV.
| freedomben wrote:
| Heh, this happened to me with my Samsung TV. Never again.
| datadeft wrote:
| If your tv is not going to an open AP mode it is sufficient.
| Some smart devices had open APs or weak security and it was
| possible to exploit it.
| m463 wrote:
| my lg soundbar creates an access point to talk to the
| subwoofer, it is annoying. I wish I could just run an optical
| digital cable or something.
| colordrops wrote:
| Synology or Kodi is going to be better than Apple TV for
| privacy, but usability takes a hit.
| jjoonathan wrote:
| My TCL TV bootloops if it goes more than 3 months without
| downloading fresh ads. If you contact support, they walk you
| through connecting to the network.
| TheLoafOfBread wrote:
| Can't connect to network. I don't have internet. Sorry.
| Returning TV back because it does not work.
| jjoonathan wrote:
| "Sorry, out of warranty."
| carlivar wrote:
| This reminds me of my friend in the 2000's that would say
| "I don't have email" when stores asked for his email
| address. Even at the time, quite unusual unless you were
| over 70 years old.
| lostlogin wrote:
| Apples 'hide my email' is gold for this crap.
|
| It's less cringy than 'oh, it's
| <the_store_name@<my_domain>.com'
| dwighttk wrote:
| huh, my TCL is fine disconnected... The only irritating this
| as a flashing light around the power-button/ir-reciever that
| comes on when it can't connect to a network, but I've stopped
| noticing it.
| philistine wrote:
| Is it a RokuOS or Google TV?
|
| My Roku one has none of those problems.
| dwighttk wrote:
| Roku
| KeplerBoy wrote:
| Phew, wondering if that's intentional.
| dc3k wrote:
| I did this with my A80J last year. During initial setup there
| is the option to disable all of the smart TV features. It's
| quite nice. Firmware updates can also be applied via USB stick,
| so it never needs to connect.
| than3 wrote:
| You may want to get yourself an SDR kit and check that for
| yourself.
|
| They typically broadcast on 43-33 cm band, (700-900mhz), and
| 2.4/5 ghz.
|
| You'd also be wrong about Apple's privacy protection.
| intelVISA wrote:
| Unfortunately SDR is a bit of a pandora's box... once you see
| how much data is covertly exfiltrated it's quite unnerving.
| than3 wrote:
| Well there is that and I've never been one to bury my head
| in the sand.
|
| I've always found its better to know than not know, since
| you can only control what you know about.
| ipqk wrote:
| You can't just say someone is wrong without explaining why.
| than3 wrote:
| > You can't just say someone is wrong without explaining
| why.
|
| I can and I did.
|
| It is not my job to educate or preach. They did not ask for
| it.
|
| If they want to learn the why's they can do their own
| research which will be more impactful than any words I say.
| Its not hard to find credible sources that describe these
| things.
|
| Doing what you said is just coddling them like they are a
| child when they are a grown adult. It is unasked, insulting
| and rude.
|
| They can make their own decisions and do their own research
| if they want.
|
| Any in-depth study into apple's telemetry and data
| collection practices pretty much covers what they need to
| know to correct the incorrect.
|
| Marketing is generally not credible.
|
| Edit: Well this rating certainly demonstrates how many
| helpless children read these posts and then because they
| don't like it they flag to squelch others.
|
| Sad state of affairs really when you get punished for being
| rational, respectful, and adult. Eventually the kind of
| thinking you promote will lead to the deaths of most
| everyone given enough time and scope. Its a grand showing
| of true stupidity.
| all2 wrote:
| You're being a dick. If you didn't realize that, that's
| what is going on here.
|
| To follow up on GGP(?), if I was going to look into the
| Apple privacy protection stuff, where would I start? Are
| there search terms, or specific sites or individuals you
| can point me to?
| than3 wrote:
| > You're being a dick.
|
| I'm being mature, and there is an important distinction
| though not mutually exclusive.
|
| If OP wanted to know more they could ask, and they didn't
| so I was right in my initial assessment regardless of how
| others feel.
|
| I would start with google keywords: "apple telemetry
| -site:apple.com" are a good place to start.
|
| From memory some of the important highlights were in
| 2016, there was an issue with the fast-fail network code
| in macOS and other devices where applications would not
| launch locally. Apple was forced to briefly disclose the
| cause of the outage, which amounted to a telemetry server
| update, a check-in at each application launch and other
| actions was required and could allow apple to decide what
| you can and can't run in realtime without your knowledge;
| there were several news articles about it at the time.
|
| There is the more recent articles about client-side
| scanning, which they rolled back but they largely by
| default upload everything to their cloud and do it there.
| This is good for catching predators, bad if one of those
| hashes they match against (which are not unique, one hash
| matches many potential files, an inherent property of
| modular arithmetic) cause a false positive, or if those
| hashes match material that is not illegal, but seek to
| censor. They don't disclose what they match specifically
| so you'll never know, nor will you be able to dispute or
| correct any mistakes.
|
| There have been several blog posts by System
| Administrators about the AppleTV and other Apple devices
| probing/mapping their internal networks over the years,
| and sending data up to the cloud. Its largely been
| encrypted so we don't know what it is they are sending
| but its a lot according to netflow and wireshark. If one
| were to find out, and publishing it, it would serve as
| proof of violating the DMCA. So it is unlikely this will
| ever come to light from anyone domestically in the US.
|
| SDR opens a whole new avenue to approach auditing Apple
| devices that broadcast that data over the em spectrum,
| its also important since anyone with an antenna can pick
| that information up.
|
| Additionally, they don't disclose how long or what
| specific information they do collect about you, who they
| share it with, and even when you tell them to not collect
| info, they still do it.
|
| The higher the amount, and time, that you store
| information, the more likely it is going to be stolen.
| freedomben wrote:
| > _Sad state of affairs really when you get punished for
| being rational, respectful, and adult._
|
| Do you honestly think your comment was "respectful"?
|
| Hacker News is all about rationality and respect, and a
| big part of that is backing up your opinions/assertions
| with evidence. Challenging people for unsubstantiated
| claims is a staple here. If you want to be able to say
| something like "You'd also be wrong about Apple's privacy
| protection," expect to be challenged.
|
| You are correct about Apple's privacy, but it is far from
| a well-known self-evident fact (in fact to most people
| it's widely considered that Apple is the darling of
| privacy), so being challenged on it is (IMHO) reasonable
| and even expected. Obviously you don't have to back it
| up, but the result of that is going to be downvotes.
| Also, any criticism of Apple on HN is risking downvotes
| too. It's not rational, but it is reality.
| than3 wrote:
| > Do you honestly think your comment was "respectful".
|
| Yes, it very much was.
|
| I didn't waste their time, I didn't preach, I didn't
| lecture on something they did not ask or want to hear. I
| simply said they were mistaken. It was civil
| conversation, not disparaging in any way.
|
| If they were receptive to learn more, they would have
| followed up, and could have asked, and they did not. That
| was the choice they made.
|
| You really can't be more respectful of their time,
| attention, or choice.
|
| You are right about challenging with argumentation and
| building support for persuasion, but that challenge was
| never accepted. There is an order to these things.
|
| You can't communicate by talking 'at' people, both
| parties need to engage.
|
| > Apple on HN is risking downvotes too...
|
| Honestly just breathing on HN with an unpopular, but
| right opinion, risks down-votes. I've already spoken to
| Daang about the structural issues, not that anything will
| come of it.
| xattt wrote:
| If this is the way that new TVs will be used, Ethernet-over-
| HDMI will see a comeback from the dead like nobody's business!
| dymk wrote:
| I doubt Apple would be allowing unfettered ethernet access
| through the apple TV, privacy is kind of their shtick
| lfkdev wrote:
| I think a Pi4 with Kodi etc. is still way better for privacy.
| snapetom wrote:
| Agree with this. If Apple ever really turns to the Dark Side,
| many here would be screwed.
| gpanders wrote:
| Probably true, but the Pi4 is not up to the task of
| transcoding 4k video.
| whalesalad wrote:
| This is the pro gamer move. I have a new LG C2 OLED and I love
| it. It has no idea that the internet exists. I use an Apple TV
| as well.
| threeseed wrote:
| I have an LG C2 OLED and had it connected to the internet.
|
| It spams me with in-screen notifications at least once a week
| with either Privacy Policy updates or advertising new apps or
| TV shows.
|
| Great TV but definitely need to leave it unconnected.
| foogazi wrote:
| My LG did that then I just blocked it on the wifi router
| Zizizizz wrote:
| If you use nextdns or pihole you can block those. I do so
| the home screen has no top 2/3 of TV suggestions, just my
| installed apps at the bottom and the hi Def paintings from
| the gallery app showing above them.
| snerbles wrote:
| Eventually these devices will use DoH (DNS over HTTPS) to
| evade local ad and tracker blocking.
| kneebonian wrote:
| I just plugged a desktop into my big ole TV and then get a
| wireless mouse and keyboard. Run Linux on that thing and I
| control all of it, bonus points is that everyone knows how to
| use it when they come over to my house.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| Ethernet was added to HDMI
|
| https://thehometheaterdiy.com/hdmi-with-ethernet/
| johnea wrote:
| "Or, buy 4K a monitor..."
|
| It's 1/4 the area, minus all features, AND the same price!?
| 8-/
|
| It's a great option, for dell shareholders...
| dpifke wrote:
| We saw your comment the first time. No need to keep cutting
| and pasting the same reply to different threads.
| js2 wrote:
| Pins 14 and 19, but HEC was never really adopted and those
| pins are today used for ARC/eARC instead.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HDMI#HDMI_Ethernet_and_Audio_R.
| ..
| flangola7 wrote:
| But why. HDMI is a video transmission format.
| syntheticnature wrote:
| To reduce the number of cables, in theory, though as noted
| it's not really implemented.
| tedunangst wrote:
| It's a multimedia interface.
| detaro wrote:
| And is implemented absolutely nowhere.
| retrac wrote:
| > make it smart via an Apple TV
|
| I repurpose the old laptops that I seem to accumulate for this.
| Just about anything made in the last 10 years can handle at
| least 1080p video, and will have an HDMI output. I add a small
| wireless keyboard and use my regular desktop environment. But
| you can add a remote and use one of the open source media
| centre suites.
|
| I do wish more TVs had a monitor-like sleep mode and accepted
| the command for it over HDMI. And were actually low power when
| they sleep. That seems to be pretty spotty.
| MayeulC wrote:
| Good idea for the laptop. You could use a smart plug (one
| that runs esphome, for instance, athom.tech sells pre-flashed
| ones) to wake the TV as well. And maybe the computer too.
| nofinator wrote:
| We do the same and it works well. We prefer a handheld
| keyboard/mouse to control it. We've tried several and the
| Lenovo N5902 [1] is our favorite by far.
|
| It's also useful to have the Unified Remote server [2]
| running on the media computer so you can control it from your
| phone when you need to.
|
| [1] https://www.newegg.com/p/09N-00A7-00001
|
| [2] https://www.unifiedremote.com/
| rocmcd wrote:
| For anyone in the market for a remote, I have one of
| these[1] and it's pretty awesome. I'll have to check out
| the Lenovo as well.
|
| [1] https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07WJGSXT8
| NikolaNovak wrote:
| Thumbs up for the Lenovo keyboard/mouse combo. I preferred
| the trackball one, but the "trackpad"-y one works well too.
| It feels good in hand, it's nicely sized, fits easily in
| the drawer of nightstand table, and works well :).
|
| (not sure if it's discontinued btw; I struggled to find it
| in Canada last few years; but there are seemingly-identical
| unbranded alternatives usually available on amazon, e.g.
| https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B08H8LH7GP/ )
| dlmilli wrote:
| [dead]
| dimenoz wrote:
| Same here. I try to find 3-4 year old laptops with decent
| graphics cards. It has served well as family gaming pc
| (casual and retro games) and with attached external drive we
| can watch family videos, photos etc. Not to mention ad-
| blocking. Every time I'm at someone's house and have to use a
| phone to stream things on the TV or to use those point-n-
| click remotes to type things I lose patience now :)
| johnea wrote:
| "Or, buy 4K a monitor..."
|
| It's 1/4 the area, minus all features, AND the same price!? 8-/
|
| It's a great option, for dell shareholders...
| samgranieri wrote:
| this 100%. When I had my TV installed I explicitly told the
| geeksquad guys who mounted it on the wall to not connect it to
| the internet because I'm driving it with an apple TV
| johnea wrote:
| "Or, buy 4K a monitor..."
|
| It's 1/4 the area, minus all features, AND the same price!? 8-/
|
| It's a great option, for dell shareholders...
| KaiserPro wrote:
| NEC multisync displays
|
| bright, designed to last for ages, built like a brick shithouse,
| plenty on ebay.
|
| They also come in huge sizes, for those that want such things.
| vehemenz wrote:
| As others have said, it's probably easiest to resign yourself to
| reality. Buy a newer TV with a good panel, which will be a
| "smart" TV, and make sure to never connect it to the Internet.
| You can get a smart remote from there to overcome some of the
| quirks.
| tonymet wrote:
| this is screaming for an open source tool and/or firmware to
| "dumb down" smart TVs.
|
| On Google TV it could apply app & service configuration settings
| to turn off networking, recommendations, home screen content and
| just enable the input-switcher . Since it is Android based, there
| are lots of tools using ADB, debug tools, device policy etc that
| could work.
| lucasyvas wrote:
| I think there are other options for commercial TV displays you
| see in stores as well. If memory serves, Jeff Geerling did a
| YouTube video on this.
| pupdogg wrote:
| I've designed and built many such TVs for the
| commercial/industrial vertical. I am currently working on
| developing such a TV for the consumer market and launching it
| under the name DUMBO.TV
|
| Let me know your thoughts. Reference pix of 70" industrial
| display using Samsung LCD panel and in-house LCD controller with
| physical OSD menu buttons along with IR/RS232 control capability:
| https://imgur.com/a/k6zrH3s
| [deleted]
| whalesalad wrote:
| Where is that overhead factory shot? I am in Detroit so it
| immediately made me think of a vehicle assembly line.
| pupdogg wrote:
| Small world! Sterling Heights here. Automotive manufacturing
| plants is a big vertical for us.
| csours wrote:
| Well, it's definitely in a GM body shop, but I don't know
| which one. Maybe Ft Wayne?
| lostlogin wrote:
| If you survive the lawsuit from Disney, I'm in.
|
| I'd prefer a much smaller tv (32-40") but I'm weird like that.
|
| All I'd want is an input for an Apple TV and maybe 2 more hdmi
| plugs. Doesn't even need a remote.
|
| Good luck.
| QIYGT wrote:
| > input for an Apple TV and maybe 2 more hdmi plugs
|
| Add more input ports than you think anybody could ever want,
| and I'm in.
| pupdogg wrote:
| Did AppleTV output change or is it still HDMI?
| girvo wrote:
| Still HDMI!
| lostlogin wrote:
| The my rule when running Ethernet, double or quadruple the
| dose.
| pupdogg wrote:
| Wait, this Disney lawsuit thing is news to me. What's up with
| that? You're right, in the consumer market, there's a much
| higher demand for 32-40" display. Our UHD controller can
| easily handle that and comes with 5x total input ports [ 3x
| HDMI(V1.4a), 1x HDMI(V2.0), 1x DisplayPort(V1.2) ] and can
| run 3840x2160 or 4096x2160 resolutions @ 120Hz.
| dmitrygr wrote:
| I think he meant that DUMBO is a name of a disney character
| lostlogin wrote:
| This - sorry, I was being a smart arse.
| pupdogg wrote:
| Aah, gotcha! Boy, I really overlooked that one. My
| primary goal was to come up with an easy to remember
| name/domain that expressed "DUMB TV" and dumbo.tv was
| available. Oh well, I'll have to rethink that part
| through a little more.
| jedberg wrote:
| The name Dumbo. :)
| [deleted]
| debugnik wrote:
| Edit: Nevermind, apparently they already did claim it.
| kube-system wrote:
| Huge companies often dabble in a lot of stuff that people
| don't immediately associate them with, and hold
| trademarks for those products/services:
|
| https://assets.catawiki.com/image/cw_normal/plain/assets/
| cat...
| fghsqwads wrote:
| Just for fun and as a similar example
|
| https://i.kym-
| cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/002/315/502/f76...
| kube-system wrote:
| There's apparently a ton of them:
|
| https://i.redd.it/aiahnmp5cd151.jpg
|
| https://media.karousell.com/media/photos/products/2021/7/
| 14/...
|
| https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/sN0AAOSwMRZilO98/s-l500.jp
| g
|
| https://s3.amazonaws.com/hopshop-image-store-
| production/1707...
|
| https://946e583539399c301dc7-100ffa5b52865b8ec92e09e9de9f
| 4d0...
| monocasa wrote:
| As has been stated in the thread, Disney has explicitly
| called out television sets on their trademark application
| for the term 'Dumbo'.
| ansible wrote:
| Whoever the TV maker is, do they have better lawyers than
| Disney? No? Better not to try then.
| bagels wrote:
| Disney makes character branded tvs. It is not a
| defensible use of the name.
| [deleted]
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| >Wait, this Disney lawsuit thing is news to me. Disney owns
| a trademark on the name Dumbo
| https://trademarks.justia.com/779/79/dumbo-77979919.html as
| well as copyright on the movie Dumbo of course.
|
| I suppose they might think to argue that someone selling
| televisions with the name Dumbo would be trying to tie
| their product in with the Disney trademarked product. I
| don't think that would be considered too much of a stretch
| so I don't think you would do too well with continuing with
| that name.
| Buttons840 wrote:
| Dumbo is a Disney character, every bit as much of a
| character as Micky Mouse or others, just less popular.
|
| Of course, by the time Disney notices you you'll already
| have succeeded, but you may be forced to change brand. You
| can do it now or later.
| schappim wrote:
| Yeah Disney have the class 9 Trade Mark for Dumbo, and
| specifically call out: "television sets;"[1][2]. IMNAL, but
| change the name.
|
| [1] https://search.ipaustralia.gov.au/trademarks/search/view/
| 115...
|
| [2] https://files.littlebird.com.au/Shared-
| Image-2023-04-08-06-5...
| tetromino_ wrote:
| +1. 32" diagonal, 4 HDMI inputs, and you have another
| customer.
| moonchrome wrote:
| At that size isn't that basically a monitor ?
| m3kw9 wrote:
| Classic TV
| aidenn0 wrote:
| If you have at least an advertised number for input latency in
| the minimum processing (i.e. "game") mode, that would be nice.
| Few panels in general advertise this, but many reviews of home
| TVs will do at least one measurement of it.
|
| A decent consumer LCD panel will be ~12ms@60Hz, with OLED often
| being faster. If it's over 20ms or so, I struggle on some old
| NES games.
| max51 wrote:
| this is the type of monitor I'd buy if the the spec and price
| was somewhat in range with the rest of the market. I love the
| idea of single-purpose device in an square metal case that made
| no compromises for esthetic or to try to fit in a showroom.
|
| It's always frustrating to see manufacturers intentionally make
| their product worse just to look better in a store. I'm sure
| I'm not the only one who cares a lot more about image quality,
| latency, durability, etc. than having a fancy rounded plastic
| case with a laggy netflix integration.
| babypuncher wrote:
| * OLED
|
| * eARC
|
| * Dolby Vision and HDR10+
|
| * VRR, preferably with G-Sync and Freesync Premium
| certification
|
| These are my requirements for a new display, anything that
| meets them in the pipeline? My biggest problem with existing
| "dumb TVs" is that they lack features like these, yet cost more
| than "smart TVs" that do.
| pupdogg wrote:
| Yes, we support OLEDs and QLEDs as is. However, "Dolby Vision
| and HDR10+ * VRR, preferably with G-Sync and Freesync" are
| some new buzz words for me. Are they just marketing buzz
| words or do they actually translate to physical or software
| specs for the controller board/firmware?
| babypuncher wrote:
| VRR is short for variable refresh rate, a feature added
| with HDMI 2.1.It's useful for video games, as it means they
| do not have to deliver frames perfectly in sync with the
| display's fixed refresh rate in order to present a smooth
| experience. I mention G-Sync/Freesync certification,
| because it is all too common for VRR-capable displays to
| only do the bare-minimum to meet the HDMI 2.1 spec
| otherwise.
|
| Dolby Vision and HDR10+ are newer premium HDR formats.
| pupdogg wrote:
| I'll talk this over with our firmware designer. I believe
| most of the things you're asking for come standard as
| part of the HDMI2.1 spec and the latest spec seems to be
| HDMI2.1a. As of right now, we are only compliant up to
| HDMI2.0 due to the nature of our commercial market. They
| prefer reliability over cutting edge. However, I don't
| see updating to the new spec as a major issue. High-end
| FPGAs have really come down in price and have made it
| much easier to accomplish such tasks due to their high
| throughput capabilities.
| kmonsen wrote:
| For gaming consumers you really need 2.1 I believe.
| Bud wrote:
| [dead]
| dontlaugh wrote:
| Recent HDR support requires hardware, software and
| calibration. It looks better.
|
| Variable refresh rate is essential for games, to avoid
| stuttering at least.
| kjsthree wrote:
| Keep us updated. I'd likely pay 2x what I payed for my LG C2
| for a "dumb" version. Even if just to support such a project.
| gigatexal wrote:
| Yeah I just don't let my smart LG OLED tv connect to the web.
| parker_mountain wrote:
| Your LG C2 is a dumb tv - if you dont connect it to the
| internet. You can even buy a $10 IR remote control on amazon
| and use that to switch inputs. Or, in my experience, all of
| my external devices support HDMI CEC and auto switch when i
| use them.
| OneLeggedCat wrote:
| He said, "Even if just to support such a project"
| kjsthree wrote:
| This is essentially what I've done. The TV has never been
| connected to the Internet and my Apple TV drives
| everything. I would still have payed 2x to support a good
| dumb TV project and would love to do so in the future.
| Koshkin wrote:
| But isn't a dumb TV + Apple TV pretty much the same as a
| smart TV? (I know, you avoid dealing with two "smarts,"
| but still...)
| kitsunesoba wrote:
| The Apple TV's hardware is wildly more powerful than that
| bundled in any smart TV. The current ATV 4K is running on
| the last gen flagship Apple SoC with a big passive
| heatsink attached while smart TVs use hardware comparable
| to that of a low-to-midrange Android phone from
| 2012-2014. Even the first gen ATV 4K from 2017 is several
| times more powerful than current smart TVs.
|
| That difference in power is felt quite a lot in the user
| experience.
| Koshkin wrote:
| I am not sure if "powerful" matters in this context
| though. (That is, I expect the chipsets built into TVs to
| be plenty powerful for their intended purpose.)
| kitsunesoba wrote:
| In many cases the SoCs used in TVs are so underpowered
| that they can't render menu screens without frame drops,
| or if they can they lose that ability after a software
| update or two because there's so little margin.
| bee_rider wrote:
| From a security or absolutist point of view, yeah. From a
| customer point of view -- different companies have
| different reputations and market positions. We might all
| disagree about the exact level of faith we have in them,
| but Apple and Vizio or whoever seem to have different
| reputations, for whatever that is worth.
| iscrewyou wrote:
| The irk for smart tvs comes from that fact that they show
| ads and slow down overtime.
|
| With Apple TV, you can nip that in the bud. Yes, Apple TV
| has its own quirks but it's nowhere near as hostile as
| built in "functionality" that these tvs try to provide.
|
| And not say that streaming services have every incentive
| to keep the Apple TV apps improving compared to the tv
| app itself.
|
| It's just an overall better experience.
| waboremo wrote:
| Depends. A Smart TV is a category of TVs being sold. If
| you go into bestbuy asking for a Smart TV, you're not
| going to get a TV + streaming box/stick, just a "Smart
| TV" (although there is some obvious overlap here since TV
| makers have partnered with Fire TV and Roku).
|
| But when it comes to general conversation (and this
| context), yes it's the same. Unless you are actually
| using a niche setup of local streaming and the Apple TV
| box is just a nice interface you keep offline - don't
| know how well that works. For everyone else, they are
| just avoiding overlapping TV services, as relying on
| Apple or Google or Amazon is falling into the same traps.
| doctor_eval wrote:
| The problem with smart TVs is that you can't easily
| disable the offending software if you want to. The
| software is tightly coupled to the hardware. In some
| cases it will aggressively search for opportunities to
| spy on you.
|
| Worst case, Apple jumps the shark... you can just unplug
| it. You at least get to keep the display.
| bombcar wrote:
| The Slamsung smart TV I have is fine, but the UI is
| noticeablely show as shit even with it never connected to
| anything (just going to settings for example) which is part
| and parcel of being "smart" I guess.
|
| 99% of the problem with Smart TVs is because of the
| absolute dog shit UI and the relatively bad HDMI CEC setups
| they have (at least with mine, if HDMI CEC is on, anytime
| the TV accidentally or intentionally gets into any of the
| smart parts, it tells the receiver to go to TV mode, and
| getting it back to one of the HDMI inputs on the receiver
| either involves turning everything off, or turning it back
| repeatedly).
| acchow wrote:
| I would suggest avoiding Samsung for TVs. LG is miles
| ahead.
|
| I also have a Hisense Android TV and would avoid any
| Android TV's.
| mustacheemperor wrote:
| I have an LGCX and if I hadn't connected it to the internet
| I would have missed out on some important software updates
| that significantly improved the display performance.
|
| I guess you can toggle the internet on and off when updates
| are published, but it's not the most convenient solution.
|
| Edit: But you can use a USB! Woohoo, thank you repliers!
| silisili wrote:
| Most, if not all, routers have a one click blacklist
| device option. Pretty easy to just unblock it once a
| month and check for updates?
|
| Alternatively, for something more automated, you could
| just use parental control 'bedtime'. I use it currently
| to keep the kid from watching TV at certain hours. Could
| probably do the inverse and block it except for an hour
| on a particular day, I'd imagine.
| addaon wrote:
| LG (at least for my OLED model) supports firmware updates
| over USB, and posts firmware updates to their website.
| It's a very smooth flow -- my years-old TV has never had
| an internet connection and is up-to-date.
| mustacheemperor wrote:
| Thank you, and babypuncher, for this advice! I avoid
| using the tvos but dislike how a parade of web connected
| ads pop up if I hit the dashboard button by accident.
| Glad I can airgap it again.
| babypuncher wrote:
| You can update the firmware on LG TVs with a USB drive,
| no internet required.
| parker_mountain wrote:
| > I have an LGCX and if I hadn't connected it to the
| internet I would have missed out on some important software
| updates that significantly improved the display
| performance.
|
| Fwiw toggling the internet is an easy fix compared to the
| "dumb tv" way of updating firmware - putting a bin on a
| flash drive.
| bee_rider wrote:
| I'd tend to assume that any data collected would be
| uploaded opportunistically whenever an internet
| connection was available.
| [deleted]
| cfeduke wrote:
| Most likely. I worked at a political company (eww) that
| used this data up to two years after it was generated.
| The historical data is more useful for political markets
| for advertising issues than near real time since campaign
| targeting usually needs to be performed or at least
| planned a few weeks in advance. Near real time is great
| for message tweaking but knowing whether there's a
| receptive demographic is historical.
| jrockway wrote:
| I think you'd have to write a DNS server where you choose
| what to return NXDOMAIN for. So updates.samsung.com,
| sure, let it connect, but spying.samsung.com, block.
| (Obviously, do not allow connections to any IP addresses
| you haven't yet approved, which you approve by manually
| retrieving the DNS entries.) This can be defeated with
| DoH, or by different business units inside the company
| cooperating to use the same domain for different
| purposes, or by doing the TLS negotiation with
| good.samsung.com but setting the Host header to
| evil.samsung.com, etc. The first is too scary to ship
| (you have to keep the DoH's IP address and certificate
| safe forever; I wouldn't sign off on that), and the
| second made me chuckle as I was typing it.
|
| I'll add that "back in my day" a screen could display the
| video signal on its inputs without ever needing a
| software update. But I suppose automatic time zone
| changes are a reasonable reason that code needs to be
| pushed post-manufacture. Then again, who needs a clock on
| their TV?
| bee_rider wrote:
| I have an unfortunately smart TV, which of I've never
| connected to the network. In general
|
| * it is effectively dumb to me, so I don't care about
| feature updates
|
| * it isn't connected to the network, so I don't care
| about security updates
|
| It hadn't occurred to me that there could be TVs out
| there that are so "smart" that they can't even take an
| input without a network connection. Such a device would
| be returned as defective by me, but of course I can see
| somebody deciding that packing it all up into the car is
| too much of a pain.
| [deleted]
| riceart wrote:
| But would you pay 2x for an industrial panel? These panels
| might last longer at brighter drive outdoors and in well lit
| areas but they won't look anywhere near as good as a consumer
| OLED for viewing movies and gaming because of both panel and
| processor. Seems like a different (and wrong for this use
| case) set of priorities. My OLED LG CX is not on the network
| - the UI is - it's fine, I haven't found the LG UI to be too
| laggy which is a pet peeve - certainly not annoying enough to
| throw the amazing panel out.
| atomicfiredoll wrote:
| I would love to keep tabs on this. I'm sure it would interest
| redditors at r/privacy too.
|
| I've often though about going for something like a Sharp/NEC
| Display, because I often use my T.V. as a PC monitor and want
| to be sure it's not phoning home, but the idea of being able to
| slide in a compute module is also generally interesting. One of
| the things that always stops me is the quality and
| responsiveness. It would still be in my living room, so I still
| want a nice picture and features like variable refresh rate for
| devices like a PS5.
| noman-land wrote:
| Please definitely 100% do this. I hope it makes you a
| billionaire.
| Moto7451 wrote:
| So I have had to suffer being given the gift of my neighbor, an
| AV-file, setting up a home theater style setup. Personally I'm
| not super happy with what he did. I have a full size rack meant
| to be filled with electronics I don't want, and hundreds of
| feet of wire to locate said rack to a closet so there is no
| entertainment unit under the TV.
|
| All of this is overkill in my opinion. However... I think this
| is a core market for you. Between the Enthusiasts on Reddit and
| the home theater market there are a lot of people that would
| appreciate a highly tunable screen where they can have their AV
| closet run the show without Samsung, Google, or Roku in the
| way.
|
| One of the most painful parts of my install was getting an HDMI
| Balun that would operate in 4:4:4 color space, provide 7.2 ARC,
| provide CEC, and provide IR... and work reliably. This is a
| tall ask because it's supposed to use CAT6 between the ends.
| The expense of these units was high (300-500) and the
| reliability wasn't great. A lot of the reason for this pain is
| the idea that you can upgrade later without running a new set
| of wires. Ultimately I said screw it and ran an optical HDMI
| cable (and am very happy).
|
| You would really engage with this market if you integrated this
| functionality into your TV so you only needed to run a cable
| and attach the receiver side Balun. I don't know where the pain
| came from but this feels like something that the native TV
| hardware could expose over a cable. Some people have Toslink
| run through their walls as well which would be a good option to
| support as well.
| pupdogg wrote:
| You're right, extenders can be expensive, but they can save
| you a lot of trouble if you choose the right one. My go-to
| choice is Atlona, especially this one:
| https://atlona.com/product/at-ome-ex-wp-kit-lt/. The best
| part is that the destination end is powered by PoE, so you
| get active conversion all the time. We've used these very
| reliably (I would say they are industrial-grade) for the past
| 10 years.
|
| We do have a few LCD controller boards that support IP TV,
| but the downside is that they use 264/MPEG-4 AVC compression
| for transport.
| donohoe wrote:
| I'm all for non-smart TVs and have gone that route through not
| hooking up internet.
|
| That said, I think there is a middle-ground here.
|
| If its within your capacity, I'd consider allowing a USB
| connection. If I were able to attach a USB thumb-drive or an
| external hard-drive (powered though USB connection) and the TV
| provide a basic visual navigation system.
|
| The nearest comparison is something like the current Roku USB
| app, or a more basic version of the Infuse App
| (https://firecore.com/), the library structure is a reflection
| of the file-system. I'll skip the details where a dedicated
| user can set the cover image for a given video by having a
| image filer with the same name as a companion to the MP4 etc...
|
| I know that would be a huge jump, but I'd pay for it.
| Retr0id wrote:
| Wouldn't it be better to have that functionality provided via
| a plug-in TV stick?
| 9dev wrote:
| That's straight back in smart territories, and precisely not
| what I want. Just give me something that shows what it
| receives via HDMI. Give me two inputs I can switch over,
| maybe. That's it.
| tremon wrote:
| And which file formats and filesystems should that USB
| connection support? Should it support next-year's H269
| format? Who will provide firmware updates to add new video
| formats?
|
| That's my main objection to many of these all-in-one systems:
| the built-in technology support will be obsoleted before the
| rest of the system fails due to old age. I much prefer a dumb
| TV with a separate media box/dongle that I can replace with a
| new model every year to paying for a TV with soon-to-be-stale
| features.
| ianai wrote:
| Is like a "null" branding instead of "dumb" for what it's
| worth. A Null TV sounds techy.
| gnicholas wrote:
| Sounds great! What price point are you aiming for? Will this be
| much more expensive than inexpensive Samsungs/Vizios that are
| subsidized by data collection?
| pupdogg wrote:
| I haven't done much market research in that aspect yet but we
| currently sell our industrial 70" display @ around $9-12k/ea
| depending on the configuration (ie type of metal shell
| aluminum/stainless/carbon-steel, ethernet support, protective
| polycarbonate screen in the front to prevent damage from
| industrial machinery). However, I expect the consumer grade
| to be much more cost effective considering the sizes in
| demand would are much smaller (32-40"). Since I have more
| experience in sheet metal design/fabrication for the
| enclosures, I still plan on building these TVs inside a metal
| shell (specifically aluminum) instead of a plastic housing
| like your standard Samsungs/Vizios. I'm open to market
| consensus as to what is the most favorable price point for
| the size.
| corrigible wrote:
| will they retail globally?
| pupdogg wrote:
| We ship globally to our customers right now but I believe
| having a distribution channel for global retail would be
| much wiser. I'm definitely open to it once we get to that
| point.
| d0mine wrote:
| - PrivateTV (only you know what you are watching, or talking in
| front of tv) - yourTV (you own TV. It doesn't own you. You are
| not the product--it is.) - dumbTV (smart choice)
| alistairSH wrote:
| Another "YES PLEASE!" here. In something in the 50" size range.
| Gotta for it on existing furniture in a small-ish family room.
| schappim wrote:
| You're going to want to change that name... Disney... They have
| the class 9 Trade Mark for Dumbo, and call out: "television
| sets;"[1][2].
|
| [1]
| https://search.ipaustralia.gov.au/trademarks/search/view/115...
|
| [2] https://files.littlebird.com.au/Shared-
| Image-2023-04-08-06-5...
| pupdogg wrote:
| Yes, going to take care of that. Thanks for the heads up. I
| really looked that one over...didn't think too much of it as
| the domain was available. It's hard to do anything the easy
| way nowadays!
| TylerE wrote:
| What about something a bit more...positive? PureTV?
| xen2xen1 wrote:
| Taken for a product that bleeps out cuss words IIRC.
| larrywright wrote:
| This sounds a little too close to PureFlix, which is a
| streaming service for family friendly/religious content.
| gpm wrote:
| Or SimplyTV
| TylerE wrote:
| Yeah, that was one of my first thoughts, but I figure
| SimpliSafe probably owns the trademark for household
| electronics.
| ryandrake wrote:
| JusTV
| ufo wrote:
| Perhaps too close to justin.tv (aka Amazon(r))
| tanelpoder wrote:
| Basic.tv
|
| Edit: as in you have to code BASIC to change the channel
| lagrange77 wrote:
| How about IDIOT? Edit: Damn, there is 'IOT' in it.
| lagrange77 wrote:
| PRIMITV
| mholt wrote:
| I would buy a good offline TV called "Primitv" in an
| instant
| taftster wrote:
| Oh, that's just beautiful. You're hired.
| askvictor wrote:
| That's really nice. Though there's a _slight_ chance that
| Amazon's lawyers might come knocking due to the
| similarity of Prime (TV?).
| q7xvh97o2pDhNrh wrote:
| Nice. That is an absurdly good name.
|
| I think it needs just a bit of fool-proofing in a couple
| dimensions though:
|
| (1) Ideally, the brand would also be able to speak to the
| segment of people who aren't going to get the wordplay.
|
| (2) Also, there's the age-old pronunciation question. Is
| it just "Primitive"? Is it "Primi - Tee - Vee"?
|
| It's quite close to being a great brand, though. I wonder
| if it just needs a skillfully-placed lowercase letter, or
| a couple dots, or something -- maybe some sort of subtle
| variation could solve both problems.
| dllthomas wrote:
| The IDIOT TV IDs the viewers with IOT technology :D
| Koshkin wrote:
| But who/what are you calling "idiot" and why? I would
| never think of calling that a plain HDTV set - it is
| still a technological marvel (and also would have all
| kinds of "smarts" built in anyway, just no apps or wifi).
| Godel_unicode wrote:
| Calling the version with no smarts "idiot" seems pretty
| clever to me.
| neandrake wrote:
| Haven't checked availability but OnlyTV would be fitting.
| scrollaway wrote:
| It's a great name for a non-smart tv, to be honest. But
| Disney'll be Disney. Good luck.
| hexnuts wrote:
| Unhooked.Tech is one suggestion. That way if you want to
| expand into other devices / spaces, it is already covered.
| muyuu wrote:
| maybe something like dumb.box ? I think the .box suffix
| might be very appropriate, something like brainless.box or
| whatever, I know it's unconventional though, perhaps .tv is
| better
| hsbauauvhabzb wrote:
| I live self deprecating humour but it negatively affects
| me at work, I imagine dumb.tv or idiot.tv may have
| similar problems. But maybe also you go viral because of
| it, who knows.
| exclusiv wrote:
| Suggestion: STANDARD
| suprjami wrote:
| Terrible. Imagine searching for "standard TV".
| philistine wrote:
| Might I recommend DUMBY?
| wyldfire wrote:
| Probably best to avoid the conflict, per your advice. But if
| they're not really using the mark that way I doubt it's
| enforceable.
| dogma1138 wrote:
| How will you be dealing with movie content? 24fps content is
| quite hard to display without proper processing especially on
| large screens when the telesync judder will be noticeable.
|
| Also HDR support and DRM will be quite problematic.
| pupdogg wrote:
| I'm not too sure about this. I use AppleTV with our
| industrial display playing back HDR content without any
| issues. Here's a 4K video playing via AppleTV on a 16ft x 9ft
| indoor display at our facility: https://imgur.com/a/3O58O8T
| dogma1138 wrote:
| Are you sure you are actually playing HDR content? The
| AppleTV will output 1080 SDR content or even below that
| too...
|
| Do these displays support HDCP? Are they locked at 60 or
| 30hz refresh rates?
|
| There is a reason why computer monitors make really poor
| display devices for multimedia content.
| pupdogg wrote:
| Majority of our customers use our displays for Digital
| Signage so I would assume we would've heard of their
| issues if they couldn't playback their 4k or 8k content.
| Some of them play this content back on videowalls, as
| large as 14x8 configuration, without any issues. I will
| double-check with our firmware designer to be sure. From
| what I know, I believe HDCP is supported by all versions
| of HDMI. Older TVs, specifically the ones without HDMI
| input (i.e. component, vga, rca or coax input), wouldn't
| be able to support this. Majority of our current
| controllers are compliant with HDMI2.0 spec. Someone else
| here asked about HDMI2.1a and I'm going to get an answer
| on that from our firmware designer this weekend.
| riceart wrote:
| HDCP is separate from HDMI. You can be spec compliant
| with HDMI at any version and not support HDCP. That said
| I would be surprised that a display controller in common
| use would not support HDCP.
|
| 4K or 8K content sure, but what about HDR? Especially at
| sizes less than 40" that's more important than res for
| viewing content.
| dogma1138 wrote:
| Signage displays do not need to display protected
| content, they do not need to support standards like
| DolbyVision and they do not need to support three-two
| pull-down to display cinematic content without judder.
|
| HDCP isn't supported on all versions of HDMI it's not
| part of the spec it is a standard that is supported on
| top of w/e display interface you are using.
| csmattryder wrote:
| How much are you expecting this to weigh? Industrial/retail
| signage panels can weigh a tonne, especially at 65-90".
|
| Also, will this be one of Samsung's signage panels (e.g. QBR
| range)? I was always impressed with the nits on those.
| rglullis wrote:
| Is there any chance whatsoever that you can use open source
| software/firmware for it?
|
| I am not in the market for a TV and I am only a hobbyist with a
| tendency to spend more than I should on anything that lets me
| open the hood and tinker with it. If there is any consumer
| electronics company that wants to be the anti-Apple, I'd
| support it in any possible way.
|
| Seriously, I even wonder if there could be some type of
| "Patreon-based" R&D for consumer eletronics. Get a group of
| software and industrial engineers to design and build all sorts
| of different projects, and patreons would get access to early
| prototypes and would be able to "buy" the finished products at
| cost.
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