I think I'll never buy a smart TV what an ultimate ahole move to put ads in there. It's like the Kindles where you have to read these ads before you can open your book (of course you can pay a 1-time fee). Like buying a movie on YouTube and having to watch ads in it or can't see full res unless you're on an allowed device. If UBO actually stops working on Chrome I'll either leave or use pihole.
My cheap android phone installs games by itself eg. candy crush ugh. My own fault I get it buy a $2K phone instead of $160
Most non-smart 4K screens are more expensive than 4k-smart tv screens though. Really weird, because there's less stuff in it. I just want a nice 50" 4k screen with hdmi and display ports. I don't use all the other junk anyway, since i watch tv via a computer and sounds goes to a surround set.
I've had a little insight into this world. To make the BOM costs work at the retail prices they charge for things like common set-top streaming boxes (e.g. Roku) and, now, TVs themselves since they incorporate the same stuff, they have to be selling data. Otherwise they're selling at a loss, once you factor in middleman margins and such.
You can try to compete by charging a reasonable amount for your hardware and software, but you'll be competing against economy of scale and wrestling for shelf-space with products that are (don't forget retail percentage mark-up) at least 30% cheaper than yours, which means your units don't move, which means you don't get (or keep) shelf space, and hello death spiral. Also if you somehow manage to make it despite that, as soon as an MBA gets in charge you'll just switch to selling data, too.
I only didn’t mention that because I’m not sure how much spying they do. I’d bet it’s a lot less, but probably still too much.
But yes, that’s what I have, two of them in fact. Tried a Shield, sucked, should have just gone straight for Apple TV instead of trying to pinch pennies.
A follow up question is, what does the transaction look like. Bulk DB dump or JSON files per person, spreadsheet, that would be interesting like race, interests, budget...
Looking at Vizio's financial records[0], the numbers make it clear.
They seperate everything into 2 distinct businesses, Device and Platform+.
Device represents their hardware business of selling physical TVs and soundbars. Platform+ covers all of their other "software-related" business, mainly consisting of ad delivery and selling user data to third parties.
2019:
- Device Net Revenue = $1.7 billion
- Device Gross Profit = $125 million
- Platform+ Net Revenue = $63 million
- Platform+ Gross Profit = $40 million
2023:
- Device Net Revenue = $1.0 billion
- Device Gross Profit = -($8.6 million)
- Platform+ Net Revenue = $598 million
- Platform+ Gross Profit = $364 million
So over the course of just 4 years:
- hardware revenue is down 40% and is actually losing money (confirms they are indeed selling the TVs at a loss)
- Ad/user data revenue, however, is up almost ten-fold (+949%)
- total gross profits of the two combined are up over 54%
No, not weird. The extra stuff is there to show you ads and/or track your behavior, which generates a stream of revenue for the TV maker. W/o the extra stuff, the only revenue comes from the one-time purchase.
Is there an equivalent of DDWRT/OpenWRT but for TVs?
Most often those are some embedded linux board running some Android fork, shouldn't there be some TV models on the market that are a good hardware/price deal with firmware that can be replaced?
Even something that just permanently shows HDMI input with no popup overlays would be good, but AOSP + VLC/Jellyfin would be even nicer.
> Is there an equivalent of DDWRT/OpenWRT but for TVs?
Get a used mini-pc, install Linux on it, and don't allow the TV to connect to any networks. This is a 50-75 dollar solution. Good if you are on a budget and are not interested in any wiz-bang features like HDR.
There are a few TV-dedicated Linux systems out there, like libreElEC.
Or get a more powerful system with a AMD GPU and install Bazzite on it. That way you get something like "SteamOS for your TV". Pairs nicely with controllers like 8BitDo.
It would be nice to have TVs as open as PCs, but the manufacturers and media companies are ran by dirtbags and would rather have victims then customers.
As someone who tried that route I'd strongly recommend against it for anyone who isn't core HN audience or just loves tinkering. You're much better off with an Apple TV or an Nvidia Shield unless you really want the "beefy gaming media center".
I walked the mini-PC/RPi road and they came up short every time even for me, let alone the rest of the family. Even when I put in place the perfectly optimized initial setup I was still left with a bad compromise of performance, power consumption, noise, boot time, ergonomics, and the constant trickle of things breaking down or needing tweaking because of some update.
When trying to watch a movie with the family the last thing I want is to troubleshoot random issues.
I just use an old macbook air with a bluetooth keyboard that also has a touchpad. The thing is in sleep mode when not needed, so it wakes up fast and does not need a lot of energy. With that setup I can access whatever media I want, have a solid adblocker and a browser with a real keyboard.
> with a bluetooth keyboard that also has a touchpad
Different strokes for different folks, having to use a keyboard to control my TV is for me one of those usability compromises I preferred to avoid. It's probably related to how I use the TV, things like browsing the web were never on the list of requirements. I'll have a phone, tablet, or laptop at hand for that.
I've had a MSI Trident functioning as a gaming/HTPC computer for years and the family loves it. They know how to browse the various streaming services and use Steam and Kodi.
This is diverging quite a bit from "a smart TV replacement". Especially if Steam is a requirement.
The gaming PC you have there is probably exactly the combination you want. But for most others it's the compromise to avoid I mentioned above. It delivers the console and TV/media center experience but with the full PC power consumption, noise, boot times, maintenance effort, and inconvenient controls.
The cheapest Trident I can find on eBay costs more (by 2-5x) than an Xbox and an Apple TV together. And these 2 deliver their respective experiences with far fewer compromises.
> They know how to browse the various streaming services
Knowing how to use it is just the bare minimum requirement. With an Apple TV for example you can do the same with almost instant startup time, 0 noise, 0 maintenance, ~1-2W streaming, and a small remote control. And probably has less ads than the average Windows computer :). I found the "right tool for the job" more appropriate for my use case but that might not work for everyone or all the time.
Things just happened that lead to that optimised state of using one device for alll (The MSI). Nevertheless the main question was about a nice 4k screen. :)
Because just like virtually everything in the embedded SoC ecosystem outside of the RPi competitor SBC crowd, the TV embedded board likely has a chip with little or no doc (with or without NDA), and unlike a Pi-ish SCB there's probably not even an unsupported, outdated kernel linked with a ton of opaque proprietary blobs hidden on an obscure Chinese language web site to try out.
Maybe there are smart TVs out there with a SoC that's been reverse engineered enough to do something with. If there is, that should be shouted from the rafters. But I kinda doubt it.
One difference between Monitors and TV used to be that Monitors used RGB Subpixel-Layout and TVs used BGR. (i.e. TV panels are upside down)
Configuring subpixel-layout per monitor is something that most OS won't allow.
So if you use several monitors, you usually have to mount the BGR-ones upside down. (Otherwise fonts will be blurry...)
For some time now there are really cheap 4K Monitors with BGR-layout available. If you mount those upside down you're fine... (I use LG 4K Monitors mounted upside down in combination with other screens)
Subpixel hinting isn't that useful at high DPIs though. Apple has ditched it entirely in macOS, regardless of monitor DPI, and gone back to standard anti-aliasing.
Bare in mind I went down this hole years ago, so these could be solved problems, but in my experience Monitors speak a set of more useful modes (Resolution and refresh rate combos) and tv's often need to be trammed in a bit, the default screen position not being properly centered in all cases.
Yeah exactly, as also others point out in the thread, if you want "TV-sized monitor" you will pay more than for a TV, and probably get worse panel, lower brightness, etc. Hence it would be useful to buy "smart" TV and turn it into a monitor instead.
Would be fun if some could hack those os'es indeed.
It could make a nice CrowdSupply project, except for the cheap distribution of the huge packages. Sounds not that hard though: Just get some nice 50" 4k smart tv's and remove all the junk. Cool features like DP daisy chain or something and one could have a nice project. But i'm guessing there is (too) much money to be made in user info and ads. :(
I have a 'smart tv'. I don't allow it to connect to any network.
The only really annoying thing about it is that noises from tv shows or the house sometimes triggers the voice recognition, which fails, and then you have to click through the error message.
I just have never connected my Samsung TV to the Internet. My streaming all goes through my Roku. When the TV turns on it displays a splash screen asking me to connect to the network, which disappears after about 15 seconds and never comes back until I turn the TV back on.
I know there are TVs far more obnoxious than this, but I have no complaints and the Internet doesn't know a thing about my TV.
If you use an Android device, you have the potential to live an ad-free life:
- Use Firefox with Ublock Origin and BypassPaywallsClean to avoid ads and Paywalls.
- Use ReVanced to patch your YouTube APK to disable ads, add SponsorBlock to avoid in-video ads, etc. ReVanced can also patch all major social media apps to remove all ads.
- Use OSS apps to avoid ads or get extra functionality. I use OuterTune for free music, Aliucord/Revenge for a better Discord client, etc.
My cheap android phone installs games by itself eg. candy crush ugh. My own fault I get it buy a $2K phone instead of $160