Smart TVs Running Google TV Will Have a 'Basic' Option (pcmag.com) 173
An anonymous reader shares a report: If you go out and purchase a new TV today, it's going to have smart TV features allowing access to streaming services and the internet. However, if that new TV is running on the Google TV platform, it's possible to easily disable all the smart features during setup. The option to make your TV dumb was spotted by 9To5Google. During the setup of a TV running Google's smart TV platform, multiple features are offered including the ability to run apps, receive content recommendations, and enable Google Assistant. That's alongside the core options you'd expect from a TV: the ability to watch live broadcasts through an aerial and having access to attached devices via its HDMI ports. [...] However, Google decided to offer a more user-friendly way of doing this. As part of the setup process you can select "Set up basic TV." What this does is allow your TV to receive live broadcasts and access the HDMI ports, but nothing else. There's no apps, no Google Assistant, and no content recommendations. You also have the option to go back into the setup process and enable these smart features whenever you like.
Great! (Score:2)
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I use a 43" 4K TV as my computer monitor. Every time I turn it on, I have to spend a minute waiting for the "smartness" to timeout before getting any work done.
I would love to have a TV that comes on in dumb mode and immediately displays whatever is on the active HDMI port.
What TV brand will have this feature? When will it be available?
Re:Great! (Score:4, Interesting)
How does that work for you? The key difference between TVs and monitors is usually chroma subsampling. Meaning: You cannot get sharp edges when using a TV. You normally don't care about that when watching movies or playing games (things you normally use TV for), but anything with fine details (such as, say, a website) gets blurry. Unless you scale up to huge font sizes.
Re:Great! (Score:5, Interesting)
How does that work for you?
It works very well. My screen space is equivalent to 8 letter-sized/A4 pages. I can have plenty of editors, terminals, and webpages open and visible.
I sit with my nose about 36 inches from the screen, so eyestrain is minimal.
My previous monitor was a 27-inch @ 2560x1440. This is 43-inch @ 3840x2160, so it is a big improvement. I don't notice any blurriness at all.
This is not only the best monitor I have ever used but also one of the cheapest. I paid $249 at Costco.
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To me, it not only clearly had this TV look, but even in low lag mode, the mouse pointer had such a lag that it was unbearably mushy. Completely impossible to play any non-CoD-sluggish shooter on it. Like back in the days with 200-300ms network lag with visual compensation, you'd always lose and not know why.
There are plenty of people connecting a PS5 to a TV and having no issues. There are plenty of TVs where you can turn off all the video processing and get low latency inputs.
Re: Great! (Score:3)
"To me, it not only clearly had this TV look, but even in low lag mode"
The TV should have a "gaming mode" that turns off most of the preprocessing and causes it to act as a dumb monitor.
If this TV didn't have this option, or the lag is bad even in "gaming mode", then I suspect he had a crappy/cheap TV.
Re: Great! (Score:2)
"preprocessing"
Post-processing
Re:Great! (Score:5, Informative)
> The key difference between TVs and monitors is usually chroma subsampling.
Televisions don't have good response times, so if you care about serious gaming, you want a monitor. Televisions also suck ass at high refresh rates, so if you are going for 90 hertz or higher, pick a monitor and don't even think about a television no matter *what* its specs claim. There's also a brightness issue; a television normally is a bit more stressful to look at for long periods of time, but this is often mitigated just by looking away, etc., and is not as important a consideration.
But response times and refresh rates are, in 2021, a great reason to use a monitor as a monitor, instead of a television as a monitor.
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Some TVs are supporting 120Hz now. A 120Hz OLED is going to have superior response times to an LCD monitor too.
LG in particular support 120Hz and Freesync/Gsync. The current generation of consoles support high refresh rates and Freesync as well.
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> Some TVs are supporting 120Hz now.
Many more claim to support it but do not. Meanwhile, you can get a 144 or 165 hertz monitor, and I think even faster is technically available. If a television claims to be 120 hertz, be sure that this is actually real and not marketing. For instance, a Motion Rate of 120 on a Samsung means a real framerate of 60, and they are claiming an extrapolated value. Similarly a 120Hz CMI means a framerate of 60 as well.
But yes, there are some top end televisions that actual
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Thing is the only games you can really plat at 144 or 165 Hz, or even 120Hz at 4k, are eSports titles. If you want to play modern AAA games then even a monster 3090 based rig will not push that many pixels on max settings anyway.
I wonder how much difference >120Hz makes. I have a feeling it's diminishing returns but I could be wrong. I think Linus Tech Tips tested it but their experiments are not very scientific.
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Some TVs are supporting 120Hz now.
What are you trying to convince us of? That a TV is now finally as good as a computer monitor from 10 years ago?
A 120Hz OLED is going to have superior response times to an LCD monitor too.
No they don't, the technology may be capable of it, but they aren't driven to do so. A high end LCD's response time is around 500us. An OLED may be around 250us a difference which is negligable. In the meantime that OLED TV typically has an input lag of 25ms+, 15ms if you spend a fuckton of money, and updates the screen every 8ms, were as a typical gaming LCD is far cheaper has an input lag of 10m
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I'd love to see this LCD with a real response time if sub 1ms. Even with overdrive, which looks horrible...
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None of that is inherently true.
Many TVs offer a minimal processing mode which has both no unnecessary latency, and no motion compensation or blurring, and have 120Hz refresh.
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>None of that is inherently true.
Read about "effective refresh rates" and other marketing techniques used by television manufacturers to lie about refresh rates above 60 hertz:
https://www.cnet.com/news/ultr... [cnet.com]
You can see a huge list of televisions with semifradulent claims about framerate here. By contrast, a 144 hertz monitor from any company I've seen at retail will actually do 144 hertz. The 120 hertz claimed by televisions is usually a lie.
For response times, don't make the mistake of comparing the
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> Isnt it still up for debate how much the human eye can detect over 30fps?
No. Go set a game to run at 30 fps and then set it to run at 90 fps (or 60 if your monitor caps there), and it will be obvious to you.
Your feelings about high fps movies (the "soap opera effect") are about how you prefer to view movies through long conditioning. It's precisely BECAUSE you perceive the differences in framerate that you have this preference. If movies had always been some kind of 240 hertz experience (actually hi
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Honestly I did not particularly like the 3D HFR versions of The Hobbit
Then you clearly perceived a difference over 30fps. 48fps is in an uncanny valley sort of situation. Film-like video shot at 24fps lets your brain fill in the motion and it feels "natural" if you've grown up with it your whole life. 60fps (fields per second, 60i) looks "too real" and most people haven't seen real 120fps content. Most of what passes for 120fps is a 24p movie being upsampled by a TV's motion processor and looks terrible/fake. Even if you had real 120fps content, it won't be as lifelike (
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Televisions don't have good response times, so if you care about serious gaming, you want a monitor. Televisions also suck ass at high refresh rates, so if you are going for 90 hertz or higher, pick a monitor and don't even think about a television no matter *what* its specs claim. There's also a brightness issue; a television normally is a bit more stressful to look at for long periods of time, but this is often mitigated just by looking away, etc., and is not as important a consideration.
But response times and refresh rates are, in 2021, a great reason to use a monitor as a monitor, instead of a television as a monitor.
For new and future model TVs 120hz and greater native is increasingly common. Drivers are higher rates allow 24fps standard for motion pictures to be displayed in integer multiples of native frequency rather than crummy pulldown schemes and latest consoles support HDMI 2.1 only modes.
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I mean I have terminals open but also Final Fantasy XIV.
While game mode is a good thing, it still doesn't allow a television to support very low latencies as monitors routinely do.
I have sharp edge and I suspect your info is old (Score:2)
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This hasn't been true for a long time. HDMI 2.0 offers 4k with 4:4:4 chroma subsampling and I've never seen a TV that didn't actually display it properly.
If the picture looks crappy it's probably because you have sharpening enabled for that input, or have not enabled "direct" mode or whatever your model calls disabling overscan.
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I know for me it works just fine, and has for many years. I started with a 40 inch Sony 1080P TV, which was more expensive, but had a damn fine image that could be tuned to color match my local print shop for my semi-pro / hobby photography prints.
I then "upgraded" to a Phillips el-cheapo shitbox 4K 50 inch. Images are still sharp, latency is acceptable, but the color gamut is pretty crap. The contrast can be tuned pretty accurately though. So that's nice. Basically you get what you pay for. It's cheap, it
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How does that work for you? The key difference between TVs and monitors is usually chroma subsampling. Meaning: You cannot get sharp edges when using a TV. You normally don't care about that when watching movies or playing games (things you normally use TV for), but anything with fine details (such as, say, a website) gets blurry. Unless you scale up to huge font sizes.
This is no longer the case. Even my TV does 4:4:4 and its just a low end 2017 Sony.
Today popular brands of TV (Sony, Samsung, LG for sure) support 4:4:4 on ports that allow 4k input. Sometimes you have to manually change the input setting in the TV for the port to something labeled enhanced, UHD or PC to get it to work or there is a designated port. For most it should no longer be a problem.
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Today popular brands of TV (Sony, Samsung, LG for sure) support 4:4:4 on ports that allow 4k input. Sometimes you have to manually change the input setting in the TV for the port to something labeled enhanced, UHD or PC to get it to work or there is a designated port. For most it should no longer be a problem.
Thanks (for others as well) for pointing this out. I actually have an few years old 55" LG in my living room hooked up to a PC. I had just hooked it up as "generic" HDMI. Switching the input type speci
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I turn it on and whatever HDMI port is active is shown.
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I'm old enough to remember that when turning on a TV in the 1970's you had to wait around 30 seconds for the tube to warm up before the picture appeared. How far we've come... lol.
Re:Great! (Score:5, Informative)
I'm old enough to remember that when turning on a TV in the 1970's you had to wait around 30 seconds for the tube to warm up before the picture appeared. How far we've come... lol.
And now you have to wait 30 seconds for the software in the tv to get its act together before you can use the tv. Yes, how far we've come.
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Now I miss turning off an old TV and watching the picture collapse into a vertical line, which rolls up into a dot, which fades out.
Now I'm remembering low-res, black and white, three channels, tracking issues, VCRs, and suddenly I'm not so nostalgic.
Re: Great! (Score:2)
Don't forget the high piched whine from the flyback transformer, the static/snaps/crackles around the tube, and if you are really lucky, your sister takes a big permanent magnet to the face of the tube, gets excited over the trippy rainbow images she sees, and now you have 2 permanent discolored spots because the magnet bent the shadow mask out of shape and degauzing can't fix it.
Re: Great! (Score:2)
about that set..,once we had a very close lightning strike, and we heard a loud snap from the TV. The whole picture took on a sickly green hue, in addition to those spots, but somehow the set managed to keep running for a couple more months before dying out completely.
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We had a 13" black-and-white in the kitchen up until 1984 that ran on vacuum tubes (not just the CRT, but everything). You waited 30 seconds for all of the tubes to warm up before it would do anything. At least the 19" color TV (a newer "solid-state" model) in the living room would give you audio while you were waiting on the CRT.
Re: Great! (Score:2)
Sounds a lot like a GE Portacolor, which amazingly enough, was manufactured as an all tube set all the way to the start of the 80s (IIRC)
There was the Portacolor 2 as well which was 'solid state'.
Re: Great! (Score:2)
Hmmm.. a quick Wikipedia check says the all tube Portacolor was manufactured up to 1978.
That's still very odd in a time when digital (controlled) tuners and infrared remotes were appearing in more and more sets.
Re: Great! (Score:2)
"At least the 19" color TV (a newer "solid-state" model) in the living room would give you audio while you were waiting on the CRT"
During the late 60s and 70s, there were 'hybrid' sets that used both vaccum tubes and transistors. The transistors would be used for the audio, and the vacuum tubes used for the higher power video circutry.
I doubt this made much difference in picture wait time as the CRT still has to warm up regardless.
Re: Great! (Score:2)
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My current TV is a 32" Samsung dumb LCD TV. It can go up to 1080i (which is as high as Australian OTA networks go) and it turns on fast with one press of the on button. No camera, no microphone, no "apps", no crap I don't need or want.
Essentially the TV's only purpose is to let me watch the output of my Topfield digital recorder (either live TV or things I recorded) and for that job its better than one of those new-fangled "smart TVs" and the picture quality is good enough that I don't care about some fancy
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Holy crap, interlaced video is still alive in 2021? Yikes!
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Yea this is actually a killer feature for me. I'll need someone who is into this to actually check this out, to make sure it isn't secretly reporting everything on some backchannel, but honestly, with google, that sounds really unlikely. Sounds very desirable.
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Agreed. While it is nice to use my phone as a remote control, it only seems to work if the TV is on.
Once I turn on my LG, I immediately switch over to my Nvidia Shield.
Probably the only "smart" feature I use is the one that switches inputs when my PS4 turns on (but I can easily lose that in exchange for turning off all the smart features and menus.).
I am hoping this feature also makes it's way to fire tvs.
As someone who already lost one TV because the smart part broke so it wouldn't boot, I wonder if disab
Re: Great! (Score:2)
Likely it just causes an alternate boot script to be run that does not automatically load all of the smart/crapware.
The little embedded Linux computer inside is still fully operational, but without the 'smart apps' loaded.
TV manufactures are not going to spend money adding extra special 'disconnect chips'.
Re: Great! (Score:5, Insightful)
Pfft, you think that turning the other features off actually stops the tracking.
Re: Great! (Score:5, Informative)
Re: Great! (Score:4, Insightful)
Not plugging the network cable will stop it. Come to think of it, I have never wired any of my TVs to the net - it is just a display screen.
Not only do current smart TVs come with WiFi and try to connect to any network it can, but many are starting to ship with cellular modems. Add “build a faraday cage around it” or “open it up and perform a delicate unfuckerectomy” to not plugging in the network cable. In the US, the way current laws are trending, manufacturers will try to make either a criminal act.
Re: Great! (Score:4, Insightful)
Do you have a reliable source for that claim? What would the normal use case be for that kind of feature?
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Phoning home. Literally.
Re: Great! (Score:5, Insightful)
That's not a satisfying explanation at all. It assumes that there is enough revenue to warrant the engineering cost, the manufacturing cost, and the service cost. This would let the TV manufacturer get more details from... people too poor to have Internet service at home? People so concerned about their privacy that they don't go up the TV to their network? How many such people are there? Balance the expected revenue from getting their data against the cost to put a modem in every TV, and the cost of wireless service for them.
That's why I asked for a reliable source.
Re: Great! (Score:5, Informative)
What do you watch then?
Anything I want.
I can't answer for the OP but my TV has never been connected to the Internet either. Anything I want to watch is sent to it over the HDMI connection by my computer, which uses Linux so I've got way more control over what applications and updates are installed than I would if I relied on all the crapware installed on a smart TV.
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Televisions have HDMI ports for a reason.
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Yes, and since V.4 in 2009:
HDMI Ethernet Channel adds high-speed networking to an HDMI link, allowing users to take full advantage of their IP-enabled devices without a separate Ethernet cable; a very important advantage with so many devices now connecting to the internet.This requires the use of the High Speed HDMI Cable with Ethernet.
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He said it's just a display screen, meaning he prefers to keep his media content processing separate from his TV.
I wager you are in the same boat, if you are saving streamed content and Smart TVs don't really do that.
TVs are big devices that can have a long lifetime. The embedded 'smart' system tends to get outdated long before the display would wear out. A lot more flexibility opens up by keeping the 'computing' out of the TV.
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And even then, a cellular modem is pretty cheap, if you can handle intermittent connectivity.
Re: Great! (Score:2)
"when you unplug and disconnect your hotel TV"
Hotel TV sets will often cause a security alarm to go off if you unplug the coaxial cable. This kind of system has been in use for decades.
Re: Great! (Score:2)
Wouldn't be surprised if the "intellience comminity" aren't actually all buddies behind the scenes. I mean they are all so alike, they could be loving brothers.
No data collected option? (Score:3)
Does it have an option to NOT send my data to Google?
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Don't let it online.
Re: No data collected option? (Score:2)
Are you speculating, ignorant or full of shit? There are no TVs with cellular modems to phone home. Not a single one.
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Which ones? Ugh.
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Which ones, specifically?
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Don't let it online.
Some are already equipped with cellular modems.
I just asked a friend who works on Android TV, working with many different TV manufacturers. He's not only never seen such a thing, he's never heard any manufacturer even talk about it. AFAICT, you just made this up.
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It's had that since day 1. If you decline the EULA it doesn't send anything to Google.
Well, at least in GDPR countries, I don't know about the US... Here it is illegal to collect that stuff without getting affirmative opt-in permission.
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What about the subsidies? (Score:5, Interesting)
They might not be amused if they can be hidden as part of the initial setup.
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I read a while back that smart TVs were cheaper to sell than dumb TVs because of subsidies. Netflix and others pay to have their apps pre-loaded and in some cases have dedicated buttons with their logos on the remote. They might not be amused if they can be hidden as part of the initial setup.
Let's be honest. None of them actually care, because they already know the average behavior of 99% of buyers.
Streaming is a helluva drug.
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No, the app preloads are basically nothing. But the branded buttons is a big deal and likely will not have an effect - even in basic mode Netflix button will start Netflix. Netflix paid for a button on a remote which is
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They might not be amused if they can be hidden as part of the initial setup.
Given how the top couple manage to be their own button on the remote control, Unless the setup involves throwing the remote away it’s going to be physically in your face no matter what. Besides, these smart TVs drop support for anything like a hot potato, customers are “lucky” if those apps keep working for more than a few months before breaking and never get an update.
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I expect the take-up will be something like 99% anyway, so it won't really affect the subsidised cost. Most people actually want smart features like Netflix and YouTube, that's why every TV has them now. Not having them is kinda like buying a TV without a remote control for most consumers.
You have to remember that most consumers don't think about privacy, and never read EULAs. The majority probably aren't even aware that Netflix and Google et al. use their data that way.
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Start smart but become dumb (Score:5, Interesting)
After some months (less than a year) the TV updated itself and some of these apps were withdrawn. Over time other ones simply stopped as the content providers that the TV would connect to terminated their service. More push-updates followed and now the TV is practically useless for anything except being a dumb screen.
While these services were promoted in the sales process, they were not in the small print. So there was no obligation for the vendor to continue providing them. I doubt this has changed at all in the past couple of years.
With that experience, it seems to me there is little point TV manufacturers going to the trouble of adding Android or any other TV o/s. It is better to buy an add-on box for any "smart" uses. Not only are they more performant, but if they break it is an easy matter to replace them.
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The last smart TV we bought was a Samsung. It came with loads of "apps" for watching various content. However, it also came with push-updates.
After some months (less than a year) the TV updated itself and some of these apps were withdrawn. Over time other ones simply stopped as the content providers that the TV would connect to terminated their service. More push-updates followed and now the TV is practically useless for anything except being a dumb screen.
While these services were promoted in the sales process, they were not in the small print. So there was no obligation for the vendor to continue providing them. I doubt this has changed at all in the past couple of years.
With that experience, it seems to me there is little point TV manufacturers going to the trouble of adding Android or any other TV o/s. It is better to buy an add-on box for any "smart" uses. Not only are they more performant, but if they break it is an easy matter to replace them.
I bought a "cheap" smart tv. $280 for a 55 inch 4k roku to replace the dumb 43 inch 1080P TV I had that suddenly "died". I've gone through a couple iterations of smart boxes plugged into an HDMI port (I started with a modded XBox and a tube TV)
One of the criteria I have is the ability to install Kodi, since my NAS is filled with content, and doesn't have Plex or anything to transcode anything.
I'm still using the nexus google-tv box I bought for about $50 a bunch of years ago, but it is showing some
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I bought a "cheap" smart tv. $280 for a 55 inch 4k roku to replace the dumb 43 inch 1080P TV I had that suddenly "died". I've gone through a couple iterations of smart boxes plugged into an HDMI port (I started with a modded XBox and a tube TV)
One of the criteria I have is the ability to install Kodi, since my NAS is filled with content, and doesn't have Plex or anything to transcode anything.
For Kodi currently best and cheapest option I know of is odroid C4 running coreelec.
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That's really the fault of the services, not of Samsung.
The decent ones maintain support for a very long time. I have an Panasonic plasma from 2012 that has YouTube and Netflix apps that both still work just fine. The only reason I don't use them much is because I have an Android TV box that supports ad/sponsor blocking.
Samsung doesn't make most of the apps, they are third party. Often the makers go bust (because many of them are startups) or they just abandon platforms that don't make enough money. One sol
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Not really. The shift from H.264 to H.265 was made with the shift from 1080p to 4k, so if your TV was only 1080p there wasn't really any benefit to H.265 except for using less bandwidth. That's why even my relatively old Panasonic with it's basic H.264 decoder (needed for HD television broadcasts too) can still play 1080p YouTube videos no problem. Of course my newer Nvidia Shield streams the same videos in VP9 at half the bitrate.
Don't get me wrong, I have the Shield connected to that TV and use it rather
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i had to ditch my FireTV first gen and switch to the gen3 when Hulu started screwing up on playback. Sync would sometimes get off and playback would glitch, I often had to reboot the device regularly. I was told that hulu started streaming in newer codecs. It was a shame because gen1 actually supported microSD that allowed for more storage. The hardware specs of gen1 just were not enough to drive the playback. Gen1 only supported:
Re: Start smart but become dumb (Score:2)
"After some months (less than a year) the TV updated itself and some of these apps were withdrawn. Over time other ones simply stopped as the content providers that the TV would connect to terminated their service"
And another post says that some remotes have dedicated Netflix, Hulu..etc buttons.
Imagine staring at those now non functional buttons, and you get the thought in your mind that "hmmm, my TV feels a bit old and outdated", which presists because of those buttons. You may not be fully aware of those
Google is banned from my TV (Score:2)
Sorry, I don't need my TV spying on me. I'll take LG's Linux over Google's Linux, thank you very much.
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Is there any evidence that Google spies on non-logged-in, no-service-using users of Google TV?
Do you have any proof that creators of whatever you prefer aren't?
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There is evidence that Google's corporate philosophy is "privacy is over, get used to it." Google tracks you, google monetizes you, that is what they do. If they have code running on your TV they will certainly use it to track you and monetize you.
The next time I get a TV... (Score:3)
I will want normal over the air TV (Freeview), a streaming app or 2 (Netflix, Disney+ or whatever) and something to plug a game console into.
I specifically want NOT to have a "virtual assistant", recommendations and voice commands. I don't need a web browser on it. That is a classic case of using the wrong tool for the job (like using Excel for a database). The nearest to smarts I want is it to be able to re-tune when more channels appear on Freeview. If I want a smart device, I have plenty of choice in phones, Alexas etc. I don't need one stuck on the wall!
Re:The next time I get a TV... (Score:5, Informative)
If you have a game console you don't need the TV to have any streaming apps. Every console for the last few generations has had apps for almost all the streaming services. If you've got an Xbox or Playstation you'll not only have pretty much every app the smart TVs have, but you'll actually be getting updates to them! Most TV streaming apps stop getting updates within a year or so.
Re: The next time I get a TV... (Score:2)
"Most TV streaming apps stop getting updates within a year or so."
I'm very sure this is by design.
Re: The next time I get a TV... (Score:2)
Get a LED projector and connect it to your phone or any home computer. (Use your phone as a remote.)
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Panasonic and LG TVs offer what you want. They have a lot more features but you can simply ignore or disable them.
I had an LG (that broke after a couple of years so was returned) that had a voice assistant feature, but I never agreed to the EULA for it and declined to switch it on when asked.
Maybe it helps that they need to get opt-in permission in GDPR countries but here everything needs to be disabled by default.
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Some routers such as Asus let you connect devices to the network and then disable their internet access. Might be worth it. Or just stick an old router on it and hope a new round of "not connected to the internet" error messages don't pop up.
Re: Wish Vizio would follow suit (Score:2)
You still in returns time? Return it. It's broken. This is how we fight the madness. Aggressively return these "Smart" TVs until they're too expensive for stores to stock.
So, until the next firmware push....? (Score:2)
Come to think of it, the TV in the basement is for disks. We already belly up to a 31" monitor and component stereo for broadcast through the (old) HDHomeRun on the LAN. Guess monitors are the future.
It is "Basic" until it isn't... (Score:3)
Finally! (Score:2)
I was waiting for such a long time to do some coding on the TV!
10 GOTO 10
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Re: Why are "TV"s still a thing? (Score:2)
Hooking up a Chromecast does not require you to be a "nerd".
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Re: Why are "TV"s still a thing? (Score:2)
Because people just want to kick back, relax, and go channel/content surf with a remote.
They don't want to deal with computers that go bloop after spending a whole day at work in front of a computer that goes bloop.
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Yeah, because when I think of ethics, the first name at the top of that list is Google.
They were probably fired because Google finally did away with the "do no evil" beard and then decided that keeping a bunch of "ethics" people around for the sake of being able to say you have ethics people isn't a really good use of resources, when nobody believes that you have any ethics as an organization anyway.