7 ms·

I’m dead serious I’d pay an $80 to $100 premium for a dumb TV I’d even consider replacing a couple Smart TVs are just terrible

izacus 4y ago
The premium for a dumb TV screen is about 500-1000$ though. Are you ready to pay that? Because manufacturers will earn more than your 100$ with ads and all other smart features on you if they don't let you buy a dumb screen.
- yywwbbn 4y ago
  > Because manufacturers will earn more than your 100$ with ads and all other Is there any evidence that this is the case?
  - tpxl 4y ago
    [0] indicates they earn some 10-20$/year for vizio and 40$/month ([sic], article probably meant year) for Roku from advertising. With a lifetime of a TV at about 5 years this puts you in 100-200$ extra territory. [0] https://www.theverge.com/2021/11/10/22773073/vizio-acr-advertising-inscape-data-privacy-q3-2021 https://www.theverge.com/2021/11/10/22773073/vizio-acr-adver...
    - rhn_mk1 4y ago
      How much cost do the extra electronics impose?
      - maccard 4y ago
        Very close to 0.
  - BlueTemplar 4y ago
    TFA provides the evidence that they profit more from this that from what they get from the hardware itself. So more than $400 over the tv's lifetime these days ?
- nmeagent 4y ago
  Yes. At this point I will pay a potentially very large premium solely to give the proverbial middle finger to surveillance capitalism.
- panax 4y ago
  This one only costs $370, cheaper than comparable 'smart' TVs https://www.walmart.com/ip/Sceptre-55-Class-4K-UHD-LED-TV-HDR-U550CV-U/46784939 https://www.walmart.com/ip/Sceptre-55-Class-4K-UHD-LED-TV-HD...
  - basch 4y ago
    This only works if you consider the panel a commodity that is interchangeable. TVs are so so different from model to model. The quality of the picture is much lower than high end budget tvs like the Hisense 55U6G. If youre buying a TV primary for the panel, to watch video, being "dumb" isnt going to take preference for me over the better panel.
rbanffy 4y ago
The other day I was reading the HDMI spec. I realised, in almost full horror, it’s stupidly streaming pixels instead of image deltas. When every TV has memory enough for several full frame images, this is just crazy.
- tinus_hn 4y ago
  Sounds clever but it’s pointless because you have to guarantee that you have enough bandwidth for the worst case, in your scheme when every pixel is changing every frame, anyway.
  - rbanffy 4y ago
    Sure, but if you are not on the worst case (as in a desktop or anything where you don’t need every pixel changing on every frame) you can get higher spatial and temporal resolutions than you’d get from the dumb pipe as designed.
  - andrewf 4y ago
    Agreed; it's the "constant work" principle https://aws.amazon.com/builders-library/reliability-and-constant-work/ https://aws.amazon.com/builders-library/reliability-and-cons...
- bXVsbGVy 4y ago
  Encoding would add latency and it is not free. A single frame in 4k UHD 10-bits takes more than 10Mb (1/3 of the L3 cache on modern CPUS).
  - IYasha 4y ago
    And you are already paying enough because of HDCP.
- Filligree 4y ago
  You're thinking of bandwidth savings? Rethink that. If HDMI were delta-compressed, then what happens if you exceed the bandwidth limit for several frames in a row? To be reliable, it needs to have as much bandwidth allocated as is needed for bitmap streaming. And in that case, why not just stream the bitmaps...
lloeki 4y ago
I've switched to buy computer monitors since I realised I don't watch TV anymore. Even if I did there are more than one way to watch TV on non-TV devices over here (some free, some paid, some both, e.g the quite awesome molotov.tv, which gives a TV experience quite better than any smart TV)
bonzini 4y ago
Buy digital signage/conference room screens. https://www.viewsonic.com/us/products/shop/digital-displays.html https://www.viewsonic.com/us/products/shop/digital-displays....
windowsworkstoo 4y ago
Don’t know your exact specs or the premium you pay over consumer level but I buy/install commercial display panels and when I need a new TV or such, I just grab one of them. No extra stuff, fast input switching etc etc

izacus 4y ago

The premium for a dumb TV screen is about 500-1000$ though. Are you ready to pay that? Because manufacturers will earn more than your 100$ with ads and all other smart features on you if they don't let you buy a dumb screen.

yywwbbn 4y ago
> Because manufacturers will earn more than your 100$ with ads and all other Is there any evidence that this is the case?
- tpxl 4y ago
  [0] indicates they earn some 10-20$/year for vizio and 40$/month ([sic], article probably meant year) for Roku from advertising. With a lifetime of a TV at about 5 years this puts you in 100-200$ extra territory. [0] https://www.theverge.com/2021/11/10/22773073/vizio-acr-advertising-inscape-data-privacy-q3-2021 https://www.theverge.com/2021/11/10/22773073/vizio-acr-adver...
  - rhn_mk1 4y ago
    How much cost do the extra electronics impose?
    - maccard 4y ago
      Very close to 0.
- BlueTemplar 4y ago
  TFA provides the evidence that they profit more from this that from what they get from the hardware itself. So more than $400 over the tv's lifetime these days ?
nmeagent 4y ago
Yes. At this point I will pay a potentially very large premium solely to give the proverbial middle finger to surveillance capitalism.
panax 4y ago
This one only costs $370, cheaper than comparable 'smart' TVs https://www.walmart.com/ip/Sceptre-55-Class-4K-UHD-LED-TV-HDR-U550CV-U/46784939 https://www.walmart.com/ip/Sceptre-55-Class-4K-UHD-LED-TV-HD...
- basch 4y ago
  This only works if you consider the panel a commodity that is interchangeable. TVs are so so different from model to model. The quality of the picture is much lower than high end budget tvs like the Hisense 55U6G. If youre buying a TV primary for the panel, to watch video, being "dumb" isnt going to take preference for me over the better panel.

rbanffy 4y ago

The other day I was reading the HDMI spec. I realised, in almost full horror, it’s stupidly streaming pixels instead of image deltas. When every TV has memory enough for several full frame images, this is just crazy.

tinus_hn 4y ago
Sounds clever but it’s pointless because you have to guarantee that you have enough bandwidth for the worst case, in your scheme when every pixel is changing every frame, anyway.
- rbanffy 4y ago
  Sure, but if you are not on the worst case (as in a desktop or anything where you don’t need every pixel changing on every frame) you can get higher spatial and temporal resolutions than you’d get from the dumb pipe as designed.
- andrewf 4y ago
  Agreed; it's the "constant work" principle https://aws.amazon.com/builders-library/reliability-and-constant-work/ https://aws.amazon.com/builders-library/reliability-and-cons...
bXVsbGVy 4y ago
Encoding would add latency and it is not free. A single frame in 4k UHD 10-bits takes more than 10Mb (1/3 of the L3 cache on modern CPUS).
- IYasha 4y ago
  And you are already paying enough because of HDCP.
Filligree 4y ago
You're thinking of bandwidth savings? Rethink that. If HDMI were delta-compressed, then what happens if you exceed the bandwidth limit for several frames in a row? To be reliable, it needs to have as much bandwidth allocated as is needed for bitmap streaming. And in that case, why not just stream the bitmaps...

lloeki 4y ago

I've switched to buy computer monitors since I realised I don't watch TV anymore. Even if I did there are more than one way to watch TV on non-TV devices over here (some free, some paid, some both, e.g the quite awesome molotov.tv, which gives a TV experience quite better than any smart TV)

bonzini 4y ago

Buy digital signage/conference room screens. https://www.viewsonic.com/us/products/shop/digital-displays.html https://www.viewsonic.com/us/products/shop/digital-displays....

windowsworkstoo 4y ago

Don’t know your exact specs or the premium you pay over consumer level but I buy/install commercial display panels and when I need a new TV or such, I just grab one of them. No extra stuff, fast input switching etc etc