what I meant is that if you leave the tv on a different input than the one that has the built-in media player, does the tv can still show you ads and track you ?
Is it impossible now to completely avoid the built-in OS ?
If you plug the Smart TV to the Internet, the TV will dastardly display ads, sometimes over HDMI, sometimes over composite video, and mostly through the TV apps.
Keeping the Internet away from the TV and you should be entirely just fine and ad-free.
You're saying that some TVs will display ads when, for example, I'm using my Switch connected to an HDMI port? What kind of dystopia is this? Do you have an example of this happening?
Not an exact fit but this sort of thing does happen https://www.cnet.com/tech/home-entertainment/samsung-smart-t... . Basically any ad-tech nightmare you can think of already exists... targeted advertising, telemetry reporting, replacing ads in content with different ones, etc...
Currently smart TV's rely on home internet connectivity, but the current big fear is that they will start using things like Amazon Sidewalk or other 3rd party WiFi providers automatically, or even have manufacturers start embedding 4G LTE or 5G connectivity into the TV's itself so you can't isolate them without taking the thing apart and cutting out the antenna (and hoping there isn't a kill-switch if it can't call home).
This has been going on for a long time - part of the reason "dumb" monitors such as digital signage displays are so much more expensive than smart TV's is that they aren't subsidised by ads and telemetry.
I've been asking myself that question for quite a while, now. It's got totalitarian states, theocracies, personality cults, total surveillance, random ostracism, flying killer robots, increasingly unstable weather, increasingly unstable economies, the return of the nuclear threat, bitter internal political divisions, and probably more.
In this article, the author is complaining about ads inside the tv's interface and at the end he says that he will continue to use his Apple tv instead.
I don't think it means that the tv is showing ads over his Apple tv signal.
What I really want is a dumb panel with no TV receiver; this makes it a monitor, and not subject to Ireland’s TV licensing law. There are commercial panels, but the power draw on the ones I’ve seen is higher than a regular 40 inch TV. Plus, finding one that’s available in Ireland.. well, it’s a smallish island with a population of 5 million, and it’s not a common purchase.
I probably need to re-evaluate the pricing on 40 inch computer monitors, if I can find a non-4K one.
I use a 42.5" LG 43UD79 4k monitor as a computer screen. It's fine for work/text and non-AAA gaming. For photorealism/movies the blacks or vividness of colours is not as dramatic as TVs so I don't use it much for that.
Why is a non-4k one preferred? I notice it's discontinued now and there are newer LG 43" monitors (with maybe better blacks/saturation).
I've been using a 40 inch 4k Iiyama monitor for 6 or 7 years, and it's been great as a TV. I've told the TV license people that I don't have a TV, and they leave me alone. Well worth the cost upfront, as I haven't had to pay a stupid licence fee for years.
The law basically says a panel with the capacity to receive a TV signal via integrated receiver is a TV. That means you owe a fee for the privilege of owning such a device. Simply removing the receiver circuit is not valid, since it can be repaired.
"You can be fined up to €1,000 (or €2,000 for subsequent offences) if you do not have a TV licence when you need one."
"An Post keeps a database of every premises which should have a TV licence. The database is regularly updated."
"A TV inspector could visit your premises to check if you have a TV."
"If you have been fined and you breach court orders directing you to pay their television licence, you can be imprisoned."
Wow, that is just ridiculous, insane really. Particularly when you consider that lower income households could definitely use the €160.
I've always said it, there's a huge difference between what you read about a place or experience as a tourist and actually living there. I see this in comments from Europeans who have never lived in the US.
Not sure about Ireland, but in the UK, the TV license funds the BBC. Until the Tories made that DG a political appointment and the political coverage went to shit, I found that quite fair.
I've also spent the bulk of my life neither paying the fee nor owning a telly.
The cost is comparable to Netflix and cheaper than buying a console game every second month. Not to moralise, but are you arguing it's a fundamental right to stare at the gogglebox? I'm progressive but that's a step too far for me.
In Ireland it funds RTE TV/radio. I don't consume the television and radio media that RTE produces, and thus consider the fee a grab for money they're not owed.
https://www.rte.ie/news/2022/0711/1309666-media-commission/ (I get the irony of linking to rte.ie for a news story) indicates that the fee may be changed to be a wider funding of the arts and media in Ireland. That would make me consider changing my mind and stance, but at that point I'd rather see a % based take-off of my income so that less affluent households are affected to a lesser degree.
> but are you arguing it's a fundamental right to stare at the gogglebox?
It's interesting to me how people can rationalize the government coming into their homes from every possible angle. The idea that a government agent can --according to the law-- come into your home to determine if you have a TV is nothing less than dystopian to me.
Funding the BBC? Have a separate tax people can vote on to fund the BBC. If they think it has value they can vote every n years to keep it funded.
I feel quite strongly that both liberals and conservatives have lost their ways. Freedom should be a top class unassailable right that rules all decisions. I am not taking about no government and complete mayhem. What I am talking about is government becoming a brutal beast that swallows it all and controls it all.
I'll give you an example of this. We live by a lake. I can walk there. It's beautiful. I love walking around the lake. However, I cannot dip my toes in the water. I cannot walk along the shore in water up to my ankles. It is illegal. I could be fined a non-trivial amount for this. No, this is not a source of drinking water at all. There are people fishing and kayaking in the lake. There are a couple of zones designated for swimming (only when allowed and lifeguards are present). Getting your feet wet, either sitting at the edge of the water or walking, not permitted.
Every time I go there I think "Land of the Free" (a common US phrase and part of the national anthem) in a sarcastic tone. It's ridiculous that we have allowed things to get this far. And this is a simple example. We need less government, not more.
I suppose technically a panel with HDMI input counts anyway these days, because external receivers put out HDMI, but I don’t know if the prosecution of the law has caught up to that.
I don't live in Ireland, but from what I've read: you need to pay annually for a license if you have anything capable of receiving TV, even if you don't use it.
I haven’t bought a TV in about 7 years. What’s the state of the union with TV quality these days? If I compare TVs with the same display technology, what do I get from a brand name? Is the screen somehow better? Or is it just the enclosure that’s more attractive? Or is it just better warranty/durability?
Someone in the comments on youtube says: "They actually do more than pay the bills with those buttons on the remote. I've heard that at least Netflix and Disney+ will outright not allow their apps to be pre-installed onto a TV if there is not a dedicated button for the app on the remote. So if Sony wants to include Netflix, Disney+, or other major streaming services on their internal OS, they usually have to include that button on their remote."
They're usually smart about it, where they say "IF you include Disney+ AND any other streaming service whatsoever has a button, Disney+ must have a button, too"
> If I compare TVs with the same display technology, what do I get from a brand name?
For my last major TV purchase, rtings.com was the most useful resource I could find for understanding the differences between options at the size I was looking for. They also have good roundups of the best overall TV brands¹, as well as regular roundups of the best options in several categories (size, primary use, etc.).
Rtings is also great for monitors. There's so much difference in quality and performance between visually similar display models and these are usually impossible to determine from official specs. I couldn't imagine having to buy a display without these detailed tests.
Interesting concept!
My experience is that it doesn't matter how smart a TV is when you buy it, it eventually become dumber than most, mostly because hardware upgrades in TVs is not a concept and lack of software upgrade.
For this reason you will most likely buy tiny Android TV boxes, which will be cheap and replaceble.
I would not recommend grabbing a random cheap android box off of eBay or wherever, as they sometimes have spyware pre-installed or run outdated versions of Android and are vulnerable to compromise.
I have a Vero 4K+ which I don't get much use out of (don't seem to find much time these days for movies/tv) but is a reasonably nice ARM64 device running a derivative of Debian Linux with OSMC on top... you can get in under the hood using SSH and mess around if you like, although it may break the warranty. My only complaint is I haven't had much luck using it for Amazon Prime video playback (needs a 3rd party community add-on, and something along the chain is causing weird stuttering issues... suspect a DRM issue), but I haven't spent too much effort on that. For SMB file playback and so on it works quite nicely.
Last time I looked into this trying to get PiHole working on my TV, I found an article that said some TVs give you the option to override the DNS but on the code side it just completely ignored the manual DNS change.
Depending how much control you have over your network, you can defeat this. I have my OpenWrt router configured to block all port 53 traffic unless it comes from the PiHole or router itself. You could also do redirects with masqing I suppose.
Fails if they’re using DoH, but older gear isn’t going to have that functionality built in yet.
I have never seen a Sceptre for sale anywhere, they are always out of stock. Are they actually produced anymore or do they just go out of stock as soon as a new batch comes through?
They're acceptable. You get what you pay for. I have two of their 4K monitors on my desk (though only one is currently hooked up to my desktop; the other just runs my PS4 at the moment), and aside from some flickering sometimes when they first power on / wake up they work well enough. A prior job of mine involved setting up a bunch of Sceptre 4K TVs for dashboards / metrics displays / leaderboards on a warehouse floor (as well as for the warehouse's conference room) and they were adequate. I had one at home that burned out from being on 24/7 for a couple years in my living room; it's in storage until I get around to troubleshooting it, but they're cheap enough that I might very well buy a second one.
Long story short: they ain't LGs, but they're surprisingly acceptable for the price.
Sceptre Model U65 is a 4K UHD, 65” 3840x2860 that supports Mobile High-Definition Link (MHL) upscaling, HDMI 2.0, HDCP v2.2.
Best part?
No Ethernet plug nor WiFi.
It’s nearly $649 USD (or still almost $10/screen-inch).