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Linux-Friendly, Internet-Enabled HDTVs?
mrchaotica writes "I'm in the market for a new HDTV (in the $1200-or-slightly-more range, as I won the extended-service-plan lottery and have a Sears store credit). Several of the TVs I've looked at have various 'Internet TV' features (here are Samsung's and Panasonic's). Some manufacturers appear to be rolling their own, while others are partnering with Yahoo (maybe in an attempt to create a 'standard?'). Moreover, these TVs also tend to run Linux under the hood (although their GPL compliance, such as in Panasonic's case, may leave something to be desired). Finally, it's easy to imagine these TVs being able to support video streaming services (YouTube, Netflix, Amazon, etc.) without a set-top box, but I don't know the extent to which that support actually exists. Here are my questions: 1) Is this 'Internet TV' thing going to be a big deal going forward, or just a gimmick? 2) Which manufacturers are most [open standard|Linux|hacker]-friendly? 3) Which TV models have the best support (or best potential and community backing) for this sort of thing?"
The quality would be so bad at that size, would you even want to watch?
First it was the TV and the Computer. Now it's the TV, Computer and/or the Internet. Convergence doesn't actually happen - they just keep adding items to it.
Is there such a thing as a TV that can run mythfrontend? That would be sweet beyond words.
I see eventually all radio and television programming going to the web or cable or a combination of the two - maybe some other technology all together: TCP/IP and Ethernet is getting ling in the tooth and I don't see too much of a future for it. As far as the spectrum, that will be divided among new devices and current ones. You HAM guys have a real fight coming in a decade or so.
I know Sony makes at least a couple of TVs that use Linux to run the OSDs. That said, I doubt you'll find any manufacturers willing to let you put new software on the TV. Your best bet there is probably some 3rd party box (can you replace the kernel on a RoKu?).
In non-hackability, my TiVo lets me watch YouTube and Netflix as well as some other things, I it probably is the future of TV. YouTube is... gimmicky. It's YouTube, so mostly little videos. There are some documentaries and other things worth watching, but not a lot.
Being able to watch Netflix stuff is fantastic, and looks better than DVD since much of it is real HD. The content isn't there yet (it's rather limited, especially with new releases) but it's very nice. The biggest problem is that you have to have a "queue" which you update on your computers, so you can't add new movies from your TV. This is fixable, but that's how it operates now. I really love using it, it works very well.
I would love to have Netflix on my TV if I didn't have my TiVo to do the job. My TiVo also supports Amazon Unbox which I don't use (due to prices, where I already pay for NetFlix). There are some other video casts available for free on my TiVo (like David Pogue's from the NYT), and they recently added support to automatically get video from an RSS feed if it's in the right format.
This kind of video on demand seems to be the future to me. I already use recording on my TiVo sort of like VOD (since I can watch what I want when I want). These things seem like clear winners to me.
As for widgets, they seem of limited use. Pressing a button to call up a little weather forecast would be OK. Maybe having a little baseball diamond/score block up while I'm watching some other channel would be good. I used to like it when I had a set-top box that would display caller ID info.
Mostly though, widgets seem like a "but we're more than a generic TV" thing, trying to turn a commodity (an LCD panel in a case) into something more. My guess is that mostly no one will care soon.
If you want these features, you can use your TV if it supports them. But you can use a RoKu box to do the same thing, for only $100. Many higher end DVD/Blu-Ray players are starting to offer some of these features. TiVos support them. The XBox 360 supports them.
Basically, you don't need to get them in your TV. Every other box under the sun will soon have them. I wouldn't use this as a deciding factor.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
Save your money on subscriptions.
Just get a no-frills (but decent) HDTV then pick up a PopcornHour Network Media Tank. Plays xvid, DVD ISO, x.264, etc up to 1080p.
Trolling is a art,
I recently had to return 3 Sony LCDs of 2 different varieties because of various manufacturing defects and decided to try Samsung. I had recently got a bonus at work so decided to splurge on an backlight with LEDs to avoid the problems that plagued the Sony models I had. It might be a bit more expensive now to get an LED backed display like the one I ended up getting the UN40B6000 model and I've had 0 problems with it so far. I should mention I'm picky as hell about colors and uneven lighting and I think it was worth the extra few bucks. Another bonus is that it runs far cooler than the other LCDs I have seen and given equal components (read capacitors) should last a lot longer.
I also bought one of those Proscan 40" LCDs they had at Costco for 450 bucks and I use that to watch movies in the computer lounge area. Great deal but I would not waste a Blu-Ray player on it. It does have a transformer buzz thing going on all the time but for 450 bucks you can't complain. The only thing I hate about is that it draws 240 watts continuously because of the poor power system design but I just bought one of those wireless xmas-lights plugs and I turn off the whole power strip, warts and all when I'm not using it.
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
It's a damn TV! Not every bloody piece of technology is supposed to be able to have something to do with Linux. You want internet on your TV? Run a video cable from your computer to your TV and use a wireless keyboard and mouse. There you go. Internet on your TV!
You Linux users get right on my nerves most of the time.
'Is this microwave open standards compliant?'
'Is this toaster open source?'
'Does anybody know where I can get a Linux compatible table lamp?'
'Has anyone tried installing Linux on an alarm clock?'
I tells ya it never ends!
And that was the last Terry Fox run I ever participated in.
just using the PC input most HDTV ship with? That way you get your full blown computer running whatever "[open standard|Linux|hacker]-friendly" system you want.
The technology in this area is changing very quickly, anything you get this week will be superseded quickly. Pick a TV based on the picture quality, power consumption and number of HDMI connections.
Why doesn't that thing have a DVR, in addition to all the streaming.
I looked around for a prebuilt MythTV system and basically haven't found anything.
These TVs already run Linux.
Recently got a Sharp Aquos, which comes with an Ethernet port, and a bunch of widgets that does "stuff" (including getting weather etc.). I'm sure it would be trivial to create a widget for browsing and playing movie files from my home network - but either because Sharp does not use Linux, and/or they don't release the API - that is never likely to happen. The TV is good, but I should have asked questions like mrchaotica here.
Zenith (now owned by LG) also use Linux.
You might want to have a look at these threads on the Samsung 7/8/9 series firmware over at AVS.
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1134497&highlight=linux
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1047445&highlight=linux
The simple reason you won't get a hacker-friendly HDMI-capable TV is that they can't support HDCP (copy protection) on that.
That said, I'm sure a 3rd party firmware will turn out soon enough for some model, if haven't already.
My advice? And it's what I did... get a projector.
You get a bigger screen than a TV (for me, 82" at 9.8ft), and it accepts all sorts of inputs. I have my HDTV box wired up to it by component cables, and a VGA D-SUB coming down for my laptop. It works fabulously, and I can switch between the two with a single button on the remote.
occultae nullus est respectus musicae - originally a Greek proverb
Every bloody piece of technology you own was PRODUCED with Linux, and it more than likely relies on Linux. Wanna know why? Because Linux is reliable. I maintain 38 intrusion machines, 5 extruders, and 7 sonic welders, as well as dozens of table/bench machines that rely on Linux. In the entire plant, only ONE machine runs in a Windows (NT4 SP6) environment, and it crashes frequently.
If/when you fork over half a ton of money, do you want to bring YOUR high tech gadget home, just to see a BSOD? Just for fun, Linux users can experience the BSOD. But, why?
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Don't get hyped by the bright colour of LCDs in the showroom, get a Plasma if you don't have an exceptionally bright living room or watch static images for a long time period. They have - better blacks (without gimmicks like LCD-backlighting) - more natural colors - much better motion resolution (http://www.crutchfield.com/S-mVnnO3HsmRB/learn/learningcenter/home/tv_flatpanel.html) Modern plasmas from better manufacturers (Pioneer, Panasonic, Samsung) don't have the burn-in issues (which were common some years ago) anymore.
You prediction was made in much simpler terms years ago, and so far it seems to be coming true: Everything that has traditionally been sent by wires will be transmitted wirelessly, everything that has traditionally been sent wirelessly will be sent by wire. Ham radio doomed itself years ago when the old farts in the ARRL insisted that morse code be kept as a requirement for most licenses, and any license that had good range without using satellites. Of course, many of them quit using morse right after they got their license. But they still insisted that new hams learn it (and using a computer that could send and receive code wasn't an acceptable option, perhaps because the ARRL couldn't sell computers training materials). Now the code requirement has finally been dropped, but too little too late. Many of us who would have gladly worked for General or advanced "tickets" decades ago were blocked out by the asinine requirement, even after all other radio services completely abandoned the code. Now there seems little reason to get the equipment that has continued to spiral in price, particularly when the Internet and other services have made ham almost obsolete. Yes, it still comes in very handy in emergency situations when other forms of communication break down, but it's utility is greatly diminished by having driven away many potential members of the ham community.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
I bought a new HDTV, so let me share some of my experiences and things to look out for:
1) DLNA. This is *supposed* to be a standard built on top of uPnP, allowing a TV to access a media server on the local network. It sounds good in theory: let your MythTV box stream directly to your TV. In practice, it is not worth very much: the set of video formats that a DLNA TV supports is VERY MUCH smaller than the set of formats you see in practice on your media files. In fact, my Samsung TV cannot even play back content streamed over the network that it can play if that same file is placed on a USB flash drive and plugged directly into the TV. My advice is don't plan on using DLNA, plan on hooking up a real computer.
2) HDMI inputs. Again, my TV has 4 inputs - 3 more than I need. The TV will NOT take the digital audio from an HDMI source - for example, Blu-Ray audio from my PS3 - and pass that audio unmolested through to the optical output connecting the TV to the amplifier. As a result, all I would get from any game or from most Blu-Ray disks was the left and right channels passed on to the stereo - no sub, no surround, no center channel. And the TV does NOT have a six channel audio output - only 2. So I end up having to do all the switching at the stereo, and then pass everything on to the TV - so I really only need one HDMI input.
3) HDMI-CEC. In theory, this allows the TV's remote to control other things, like a Blu-Ray player or a stereo, by passing the command data down the HDMI cable. The PS3 does not support this, nor does my lower-end (but brand new) Sony stereo. Maybe if you buy all of your gear from the same manufacturer, and you buy higher end gear this works, but beware. Plan on either having many remotes, or buying a smart remote and training it (and because the PS3 uses Bluetooth rather than IR, plan on your universal remote not controlling the PS3).
4) Internet through your TV. Two words:
Flash
Javascript.
Your TV will likely not support EITHER of them very well. Again, plan on an external computer. And DON'T plan on using a wireless mouse or keyboard - those things are so range-crippled now that unless you are within a couple of feet of the receiver (and I mean that literally: less than 4 feet!) they won't work (and that's not some no-name keyboard: that's a Logitech).
5) Linux. Yes, my Samsung runs Linux. It is cool to see the GPL in the manual. Other than that - it really matters not at all. The TV application itself is NOT FLOSS, nor is the Linux any kind of a standard distribution: You aren't going to do a "apt-get install $FOO" here. The system doesn't implement any of the "standard" things you might want, like SSH or X. It doesn't even support any file system on external devices other than VFAT (so no larger-than-4G files using EXT2).
All in all, my advice is: treat the TV as a monitor - it's job it to show pixels. Don't expect the TV to make sound - you'll have an external amp or receiver for that. Don't expect the TV to surf the web - you'll want a real computer with a real operating environment for that. Don't expect the TV to play media files - again, you'll want a real computer for that.
Cut those features from the TV, and spend the money you save putting together a media PC as a companion for the TV.
www.eFax.com are spammers
Since Windows 7 Ultimate would probably cost more than the TV, I'll stick with Linux thanks.
May the Maths Be with you!
One of the big draws for myself to buy a T.V that is wifi ready or internet ready, would not be for the widgets but rather for the updates that they could supply for software issues and such. On a personal note I am bounce back and forth between the idea of an edge lit led T.V by Samsung or a plasma either by panasonic or samsung.
If I were spending that kind of money on television, I'd get a more basic high-resolution TV and if I want to add general-purpose-computer-type features, I'd use a computer to get them, because the computer's going to be much more flexible and extensible in the future than a locked-in TV feature set. That still probably means you're going to spend a couple of hundred dollars upgrading your video card, so you can get 1920x1080 or more at high speed, and then you'll probably find yourself adding a TV tuner card to run MythTV, and then probably adding another terabyte or two of disk because mythTV filled up your current disk, etc., so it's not clear you'll actually save any money, but you'll get a lot more flexibility for things you want to do in the future.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Seriously. Buy the largest TV or display that you can connect to PCs. Then buy a small quiet laptop and hook a programmable remote control onto it.
Now all you need is the software. Which there is a big choice of. You can also build whatever you want.
It's cheap, and the recording/time-shifting features are integrated.
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
Roku Netflix Set Top Box already lets you stream Netflix movies to your TV.
You could extend streaming and downloads to the Internet in general.
Hulu lets you watch TV shows online.
TV programming would be on-demand instead of on a set schedule. It opens up the possibility of creating your own TV channel.
To answer your question, 'Internet TV' is going to be a big deal.
You'll note that none of these TVs run Windows because it doesn't make any sense to run a full-blown Windows install on the TV, nor do Sony and Panasonic want to get warranty calls about their TVs being infected with spyware and viruses.
The TVs themselves have a small Linux kernel. Even non-internet ready TVs often have Linux kernels to display the on screen menu. I believe all Sony TVs run Linux.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
you still need a box for cable and sat also the cable cable system is a big mess right now and a lot stuff is not in clear qam on cable.
It's on $99. Netflix and Amazon look great in HD if you have enough bandwidth. Then you can buy your TV based on video quality rather than connectivity.
+1 for plugging the tv into the graphics out on your computer... play movies away....whatever...
I'm covering the intersection of Internet and TV now at Videotcy (http://videotcy.com/), and, of course, I've been covering Linux almost since day one. What I've found is that the TV vendors honestly don't know what they're going to do yet with Linux. Or, to be more precise, they don't know how they're going to bring Internet-based video into their TVs. That's in large part because the field is still developing, For example, only one in five of Ethernet/Wi-Fi equipped TVs are even connected to the Internet.
So, what should they do? Spend money to add functionality that might not be used? Rely on media-extenders for Internet TV? Build in real computing power?
No one knows yet. That's one reason why I started Videotcy. I foresee interesting times ahead and I'm sure Linux and open source will have a big role to play. What that role will be? Well, I plan on finding out. I just don't have, no one does, an answer yet.
Steven
Not sure if it runs Linux under the hood (yeah, shame on me for not hacking it)... but I like my Samsung TV just fine. It has Yahoo widgets for Flickr, Youtube, the weather, stocks, and a bunch of other stuff. You can plug in a USB thumb drive or portable hard drive and it will play MP3's and video right off the disk. It does not have a built in DVR, nor does it support that functionality, but it's a nice TV with some cool extra features that I find useful.
(in the $1200-or-slightly-more range, as I won the extended-service-plan lottery and have a Sears store credit
Why does everyone write in this weenie, preemptive retort blocking way around here? Same thing as "I know this is going to burn my karma" clauses. Grow a spine. Just say what you think. You have 1200 bucks. Cool. I don't have an issue with you buying a TV with it. You don't have to ask it like you'd ask your boss for a day off. "Boss, I would like to take a day off in four months, as my girlfriend booked a long weekend at a get away resort and have an obligation to go with her". Just say "I'm taking this day off", or "I have about 1200 bucks for a tv". Everything else is just showing you're intimidated by possible responses by people that don't even matter.
slashdot: where everyone yells sarcastic metaphors to themselves to understand the issue
Whether or not a device runs linux is, these days, not a hugely useful guide to its level of openness, especially when audio/video become involved.
Many embedded platforms, almost certainly the majority of those used in "HD" media setups, support a pretty aggressive set of lockdown features at the hardware/low-level firmware level. If the system will only load manufacturer signed firmware, all the GPL2 in the world won't help you. If you are very lucky, and know a lot about what you are doing, they'll have left some sort of software weakness in place. If not, I hope you have a decent set of hardware hacking skills...
The situation is still a good deal better with router and NAS units and things; because the manufacturers don't care, and there aren't any mandatory "platform integrity" requirements to fulfil; but media devices are a mess.
http://www.aleutia.com/products/h1
Try that out. Mount it on the back of your tv, comes with an ion and can play 1080P without issues. And of course, it's an actual computer, so you can play some games on decent graphics levels as well.
In early 1996, I was a software engineer for Mitsubishi Consumer Electronics, in meetings to plan their first generation implementation of the ATV standard, on which current, U.S. HDTV devices are based. A huge priority for them at the time was to build a web browser into their television sets, and many ways to do this were investigated.
WebTV, which was pretty much the same idea in a set-top box, was in development at the time, and provided a model for that kind of thing, so Mitsubishi announced that they would, at some unspecified point, begin selling TVs with a feature they called "Diamond Internet" built into them.
It never happened. I don't know whether the issue was politics in the software department, or maybe just management recognition that it was a gimmick, but they never delivered such a product. Probably it came down to there just being too many other issues to manage to get an ATV set out the door.
However, it's clear that the idea's been there, lurking in people's minds, for the thirteen intervening years, and hasn't become any more useful a concept.
Incidentally, around that same time, I did buy a wonderful set-top-box by a company called Videoguide, that delivered TV schedules and news headlines to the device via unused text pager bandwidth. It was a great product, inexpensive and very useful, as even though I did have internet at home at that time, it wasn't an always-on connection. However, between shortened times to come out of sleep for laptops and PCs and the ubiquity of always-on internet connections in the home, I think the utility of a product like that isn't what it used to be. And anyway, Videoguide ended up getting bought out by Gemstar after spending tons of money.
Who needs a tuner? Get a tuner card, get a nice, fat computer screen and put it on a Linux box running XBMC. You'll never waste a night on viruses or wondering what went wrong, you'll constantly have plenty to watch, NO MATTER WHAT TIME OR DAY, and all will be well.
We have several machines like this in the house, now. Those video plugins for Universal, YouTube and others are all pretty good. And the demand there gives programming-people reason to keep series you actually watch, if you don't merely download them.
It's a really sweet life!
--- For a good time mail uce@ftc.gov
all our CNC lathes are running windows 98 se with a software layer for input. And they don't crash, until someone decides load up solitaire while they should be running parts.
... but Philips has the Net TV line range, and while not 'open' perse, it does allow you to browse all internet addresses, instead of just the Samsung/Panasonic/etc. addresses....
Slashdot: stuff for news, nerds that matter, matter for news, stuff that nerd
A Linux microwave would be nice to have if I wanted to add a microphone so it could pop popcorn correctly.
I'm not really sure why this is marked Funny, in the case of anything less than a top-end TV it's 100% true.
Just to clarify for the uninformed, that 'acronym' stands for 'HanDiCaP'.
My 42 inch is hooked up with an old MacBook with HDMI at 1900x + and sound going to my stereo. It's not perfect but I use Hulu (desk top) and netflix's streaming. Both are quite decent. Youtube, Why bother?
6.8SPC TR of 550, l xwind at 6, drift rt at 26" drops 77". AT has 503 ft-lbs at 1403 fps. FT 0.86
Hey, I was reading through this and thought that maybe a PS3 might be a nice option. If you have a media server running a PS3 can pick it up so you can stream via wireless straight to your TV. Of course, you also get a Blueray player and a game console. The PS Network does have a TV/movie download service that isn't too bad.
I wouldn't get the Popcorn Hour device for the price you can get a PS3 and do a whole lot more with it.
I had to switch to ATI Radeon 4870 so I could watch videos fullscreen on my 20" 1996 CRT TV.
How much did that cost you? I switched to a $40 scan converter when I wanted to watch YouTube on an SDTV.
Huh? I wasn't referring to streaming videos. I was referring to local video files (FLV, AVI, MPG2, MPG, MOV, etc.), discs, and media center stuff going fullscreen to TV and still using my computer.
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
How can you expect them to be Linux-friendly, when they can't even accomplish being simple enough to be used by John Doe (as in, more than the most basic functions such as ON/OFF, CH up/down, SOUND +/-) without the help of a 100-pages user guide?
Being Linux-friendly would more likely make them even more user-unfriendly.
Catalin Braescu
Ofaly.com
Huh? I wasn't referring to streaming videos.
I used YouTube only as the example that motivated me; Theora videos work too. The advantage of a VGA-to-SDTV scan converter is that it's external, and external saves time over having to open the computer's case, put in a card, close the case, and install drivers.
Ah, does it work the same way when using dual/clone setup? And if I want to watch video fullscreen on my old TV and still can use my PC? My issue was NVIDIA dropping the FEATURE/OPTION from its latest drivers and video cards. Even Vista pulled it. :(
See:
1. http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=65266
2. http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=49636
3. http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=29212
4. http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=78251
5. http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=50477
6. http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=43756
etc.
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
XBMC is certainly the one that seems to be most fully featured. There is some stuff its MacOS X cousin, known as Plex, has that I would like to be ported over to XBMC. One of these is the 'Application store' which makes it easier to install add-ons to the application. There are also a few visual and usability touches that Plex has that I like.
Other HTPC software includes:
- MythTV
- Boxee
- Moovida
- GeexBox
- SageTV
- Freevo
If you want to use Windows then there is Windows Media Center and some of those listed for Linux. As for the Mac the basic list for Linux applies, plus the following:
- iTheater
- CenterStage
- MediaCentral
- Front Row
I think you just need to play around with them and decide which one fits your needs best.
I got myself a Mac mini for my HTPC. The reason being is because for noise, size and features worked out to be cheaper than a similarly spec'ed non-Apple PC - I looked and none of the Mini ITXs even came close. The bonus is that I could install any OS I chose, though I ended sticking with MacOS X since I ended finding Plex generally to be to my liking. A Blu-Ray drive would have been nice, but I can wait.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
The overlay fullscreen setting has always been a horrible hack. Last time I used it, I couldn't minimize the video player window while it was playing or the video would stop or go away, and I also had to keep at least one pixel on-screen as well. Which meant leaving an annoying obstruction on my screen.
The better solution is to just set up a normal dual-head configuration and get a video player capable of handling that correctly, such as Zoom Player for Windows.
I've been on Linux for a while, and I've got a multi-screen setup with video out to my SDTV, and my sound card is split to give separate audio to both my TV and my PC speakers, and I have MythTV set up to be usable with a remote without bothering the person using the computer. All from a single computer with one (nvidia) video card and the motherboard-integrated sound card.
I Saw an Internet enabled TV demo at JavaOne-
It was at several keynote, and I think it was using JavaFX, and from LG. Did anyone else see that?
That doesn't mean it's all of a sudden a PC and can do whatever you want it to. Do you think that means you can hook a keyboard and mouse to it and run apt-get to install packages?
So get the cheaper tv without linux and use the difference to build a PC with an HDMI output.
Seriously, linux practically runs every type of appliance you can think of, but don't buy them expecting them to be any different because of it.
Is that way it takes 30 fucking seconds for my plasma TV to show a picture after it's turned on? Because i have to wait for a god damn OS to load?
a good screen can last far longer than technology changes in delivering media to that screen.
The only reason the TV still exists and it hasn't been replaced completely by computers already is that this way, cable companies can bill you for both, cable access for TV and cable access for the internet. There is no reason you couldn't get access to streamed tv programs with only an internet access other than profit.
Actually, FreeBSD DOES run on some microwaves. There is a list of compatible hardware.
It is the OS of choice for odd appliances.
"Omnis tuus capsa sunt inesse nos"
Actually, I have Comcrap and I'm currently able to watch all the digital cables I'm supposed to get in clear QAM, albeit not on their correct channels (Discovery is on 103.5 instead of 40, for example). I don't care that I don't get "On Demand;" it's better than a shitty box! Unfortunately, the fascist assholes at Comcast recently told me that they're getting ready to start encrypting everything for no good reason...
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Is that way it takes 30 fucking seconds for my plasma TV to show a picture after it's turned on? Because i have to wait for a god damn OS to load?
The reason current TV's take longer to load up than previous models is to do with power consumption. Newer models power down almost completely when you press the off button, whilst older models used to remain in more of a standby mode. If you were to unplug an older TV and compare the loading time with a newer one, it would be roughly the same.
In any model TV you have to wait for the electronics to warm up (minimum time would be comparable to switching your monitor on from cold after it was unplugged for a bit).
Hmmm, and who's Yahoo's new search partner?
I bought myself Philips PFL 8404 and it does everything you want AND it has ambilight, which really does its trick when is dark in the room. But I am not sure does this TV runs Linux. It has some mentioning about GPL, but after googling I was unable to find what actually is its firmware. Otherwise - great TV. Full HD, several HDMI slots, USB (reads my 1TB NTFS external disk), RJ45, integrated browser for youtube etc, but you can load any page you want in some simple web browser, DLNA - finds everything I shared with ushare, Ubuntu detects it correctly when connected with HDMI or SVGA cable. For me this is a great choice.
Just do what I did, hook up a small form factor HTPC to it and be done. Then who cares what bells and gimmicks are in the monitor? To me this is like asking for a "Linux friendly PC monitor", wanting some embedded computer in the monitor like a primitive iMac. Why go to all the trouble? I want a "dumb TV" that does nothing but display video signals. My HTPC works perfectly for everything else you describe, Hulu, Youtube, DVDs, whatever. My advice, skip the gimmicks and just get the best quality MONITOR you can afford and spend the rest on a little HTPC. A used Dell SFF 755 or 760 with pumped up low profile video card would work quite well.
You are better off getting just a monitor that can accept multiple inputs and then attaching whatever you want to use to that. The odds that any vendor is going to come close to what you want in both a monitor and Internet functionality is slim to none.
So get the monitor that is a great monitor. Then build or buy a computer to hook to the monitor that does exactly what you want. Plus it is expandable and configurable.
I don't think HDCP has anything to do with it. The Linux that's running on the TV probably never gets to see the data stream, it just switches that between various inputs and decoders. It just won't be fast enough to read more than a 1 or 2 frames eper second from the framebuffer, if it has any access at all. Linux is typically used for the On Screen Displays, and in some of the newer TVs, for the web browser.
However that depends on how you are streaming it to your HDTV. Examples: 1) PlayOn streaming of YouTube to PS3 connected via HDMI = Bad viewing experience with most content. 2) Streaming content via PC or laptop connected S-Video or component = slightly better experience. 3) Streaming content via PC or Laptop connected by VGA/DVI = Excellent viewing experience. #3 BTW is how we here at our place watch MOST of the TV content we wish to view. Both picture and sound are excellent and extremely close to our Roku box in performance. Now given this info it would depend on how a manufacturer presented the streaming content from the built in CPU (they should have done this a very long time ago) to the video processing side. They most likely already know that web content needs different conditional processing than that of a DVD player. I would assume that the video pre-processing would handle the scaling and other needs to present the flash or silverlight content correctly. Seems to Reason that if a PC or laptop can do it via VGA a HDTV with a built in box can do the same..
I spent the last 3 months choosing a new TV (final decision : Panasonic 50G10). I had a good hard look at the internet and media capabilities of the sets on offer and decided that they were far too tied in to vendor support for codecs and then I was NEVER going to get the flexibility and capabilities that a dedicated HTPC would offer. Case in point : The Pani 50V10 with all the bells and whistles has problems with some common audio codecs and 6 months after release this has yet to be rectified.
I would strongly advise you not to buy a TV that does anything other than receive a TV signal. Seriously, the companies that make the TV don't care how reliable the extra features are, provided the TV will still show pictures from whatever's plugged in to it. The amount of returns we've had because $FEATURE just "stopped working" is ridiculous. My advice would be to get the best screen you can afford, and then work on getting the picture to the TV through a device which is specifically designed to do just that. I personally would recommend a PS3. Although they are expensive, they will run Linux, support DNLA, uPnP, and on top of all that, will play blu-ray discs, DVDs, and, let's not forget, games.
Write to Sony, Samsung, and the other TV manufacturers and ask _them_ which of their products work with Linux. Even though you will probably get a disappointing answer, you will have expressed interest in having consumer electronics work with Linux. If even one one-hundreth of the Linux community were to express interest in Linux-compatible hardware and Linux ports of software, you wouldn't even need to ask the question. Lets make things better for those of us who will be in the submitter's shoes five years from now: write to the hardware manufacturers and ask about Linux support!
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The broadcast HD channels will also remain clear but I suppose the rest of the digital cable lineup (including a bunch of new HD channels being added this month) will remain encrypted. I hope cable box + Firewire continues to work for those.
HD ver of stuff in Clear SD are NOT Clear and DTA may have that privacy mode turned on and more stuff will not be in clear then.
A couple of months ago I got a Philips 37PFL9604H/12 as a replacement for my Philips 37PFL9732D. The 37PFL9604H comes with Internet TV services.
I tried Youtube of course but I was disappointed by the responsiveness of the GUI. Hell, booting the TV and getting to the point where you can select a source goes excruciatingly long. Once it's there it's rather brilliant though -both image and sound.
My educated guess -can't be bothered to actually verify this- is that the margins on TVs are so minute that every possible corner is cut is designing the hardware and that the CPU may actually be a wee bit under dimensioned.
I hadn't the slightest objection to his spending his time planning massacres for the bourgeoisie... (P.G. Wodehouse)
Yes, I know that -- the Discovery channel on 103.5 that I'm referring to is 480i. But I'd rather watch 480i on 103.5 without a set-top box of any kind (and with only one remote!) than watch 480i on channel 40 with a flaky box that keeps breaking and having to be exchanged, or in 1080i that costs an extra $10/month!
And it should be illegal for Comcast to turn on the encryption for channels that I have a legitimate right to watch, especially since they're doing it to force me to pay extra every month to rent a set-top box! If there were a good technological reason for it and I had the ability to buy my own box or "digital-cable-ready" TV instead that'd be one thing, but they're just being greedy and anti-competitive.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
In addition to morse, hams are under the government's requirement not to use any sort of encryption - including coding schemes that aren't encryption at all but just something that the FCC doesn't yet have equipment to read.
For instance: Back in the '50s or so ASCII teletype machines at 110 bps were coming on the surplus market - but the hams were still limited to the WW II vintage 5-bit badot code at 60 bps. "American National Code for Information Interchange" - but the hams, who were supposed to be experimenters at the cutting edge weren't allowed to use it. (Apparently the FCC didn't want to buy new teletypes so they weren't interested in adopting the ham proposals to allow the code.)
What finally broke the ice: Irv Hoff and one of his buddies built (in the days of soldering discrete transistors together to make logic) a device to convert ASCII to and from morse (which had no speed limit) and transmitted it using FSK at some hysterical speed. Of course the FCC came after them for using an illegal coding - and they said "Illegal? It's MORSE! Just tape it and slow it down." (Which they did, and were able to read it.)
The rules were changed to allow ASCII at reasonable speeds shortly after.
In addition to coding rules, there are (or were) bans on any commercial traffic, limits on "obscene" language, limits on talking with people in certain countries, and requirements that an operator be managing and monitoring the traffic with limited exceptions for automated radios. (Where's the first amendment when you need it?)
This stuff makes it really hard to do things like forward internet traffic over ham radio: Any given packet might violate one or more of those rules. Encryption, at least for digital signatures, is required these days for authentication and other defenses against identity theft. Any new protocol constitutes a new coding. Etc.
Why should a hobbiest bust his butt to obtain a license to communicate under such draconian rules, when the internet and unlicensed-band wireless systems like WiFi serve most of the purposes so much better and with these limitations?
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
I may not be a typical consumer of tv and radio - I hardly ever watch anything and I only listen to the radio when I drive - but as far as I can see, the traditional tv set is well on the way to being dead now. All the major stations offer access to at least some of their programs from their websites, and catching programs at the right time is mostly irrelevant. The other big advantage of getting programs from a website is that you can search for them - you don't have to suffer through progrmas that you have no interest in any more.
Another thing is this about HD - is that really that great a feature? High resolution is important in still photos, but much less so when you're watching a movie, since your eyes are simply not that fast and you don't have the time to analyse all the details anyway. A much more important aspect than image quality is program quality; when you can search for the programs, you are likely to be much more critical about what you watch.
I think at some point the tv will simply become an oversize computer monitor, and you will have whichever computer you like somewhere under it, and the remote will simply be a wireless keyboard/mouse combination; and all tv will come from the net. I also suspect that the public service broadcasters will grow in market share - they tend to make a larger part of the quality programs; since BBC introduced the iPlayer, I simply can't be bothered even looking at ITV et al.
Ive seen all the media players on the market and read loads of reviews and they all have some drawbacks that stop me buying. But I think that this is the way to go because, even though a computer running Linux would be the best media player compatibility wise (in my opinion), I do not want to have to buy a laptop solely for this purpose, as it is a waste of a usable PC. Also, you really need a HDMI out to connect to a TV as VGA doesnt do widescreen and svideo sucks in terms of quality and laptops with hdmi dont come in 13" flavours so you need a more expensive 15" or above laptop. Now, if the video HDMI out of the media player (popcornhour et al) is pretty decent then it's a much cheaper alternative to using a laptop/HTPC that could cost upwards of triple the price.
Can anyone recommend a media player such as tvix or popcornhour or any of the others that has outputs 1080p without hiccups, and supports movies and music just as well as each other (x264,mp4,divx,iso and ogg,aac,flac,mp3, plus good NFSv3 or NFSv4 support)?
Tvix seems to have a great interface but bad on connectivity (think they have issues with the networking). I already have a great home server with all my media so networking is very important to me...i dont want an internal disk in the media player. One last concern I have is that if I stream music through a media player to a AV receiver, does the AV reciever do the decoding or does the media player decode before forwarding to the receiver? If you have a great recevier, then you dont want the signal being messed with by a cheap media player before it reaches the receiver.
"Everyone knows that vi vi vi is the number of the beast" -- Richard Stallman
Your "context to moderators" is both patronizing to the mods
It's supposed to help moderators with an itchy Offtopic finger figure out how a post could potentially relate to the article.
Your "choice B" was not "designed to play indie games" - it's a general-purpose personal computer
Which is my point. There comes a point after which a general-purpose personal computer is superior to one locked down to just surf the web and play major-label video games.
Those "other PC games" are not mostly javascript and flash 7 - most of the big titles are native binaries - so the situation is the same as the Wii - native code for performance reasons.
No, the situation is not the same as the Wii or even the iPod Touch - the PC does not require user-space applications to have been digitally signed by the hardware maker or the operating system's publisher.
and if you want to play indie games on it, you can buy a second and run a home-brew set6up off it
What country are you talking about? The summary mentions Sears, which operates in the United States. One might get arrested there.
You're right, and it's good for people to know that.
But: If you have any need for supporting HDCP, then something has already gone terribly wrong with your setup. HDCP is for people with Bluray players and cable boxes. But when you buy into that stuff, you know you're locking yourself into HDCP dependency and that you're creating a legacy where you're pretty much guaranteed to get fucked pretty hard.
Plan ahead and avoid it altogether. So my advice to the guy is: if hacker-friendly means no HDCP (and it does), and no HDCP is a problem, then deal with your lockin/DRM problem first. Then buy a TV. Get out of jail before you start tweaking the fine details of freedom.
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
I have looked into the Linux version running on my TV and it seems that people have been able to get telnet running on it, and the firmware upgrade certainly looks hackable. People have reported that the firmware has a simple checksum and no cryptographic signing although I haven't dared try this kind of hacking myself yet. (The girlfriend acceptance factor of spending lots of money on a nice big plasma and then ruining it because I couldn't ssh into it is rather low...)
Anyway, I agree with what most people have said yet. The usability of the internet TV feature is very low. The TV does support youtube out of the box, but it doesn't work very well. The yahoo widgets works even worse and are next to useless.
My current plan is to try to determine whether the "service port" on the back of the TV is in fact a serial port. If so my hope is that a passwordless getty is running on it. If so I may at least be able to do a few minor hacks to it.
The implications however are clear. Online video and other streaming sites will increasingly become accessible on the TV - no PC required. Interestingly, Yahoo! is insisting that their hardware partners do not block any applications (widgets) that are carried in the gallery, although getting into the gallery is another thing.
The greater question is whether people will want this functionality. I work for an online video site and our research shows that people will only go to the trouble of pulling up an online video clip on a TV if it is 40 minutes or longer on average, once the initial 'watch a few YouTube clips' for novelty reasons wears off. The UI effort is simply too great compared to a remote control.
Another option is of course going the specialist set-top box route. Better still, build your own.
It's clear I think that we're heading towards all TV content being streamed over IP. It's addressable, it's dynamic, it's global.
Who modded this troll? HDCP is a DRM evil that needs to be eradicated, and no one here should support it in any way, shape or form.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
You might check at ShopWiki.com - their site has a great search that allows you to specify store, price range, options and they also have a lot of Shopping Guides including several specifically about buying televisions. Could be some great information there.
In this article it is mentioned that Panasonic has some problem with its links on the site that hosts the GPL code. While the link on that site is broken, there is mention on the net of the TV itself listing the correct and working URL to download the TV's GPLed code
Funnily the site has a note saying the webmaster@ account is not working due to SPAM issues. So you can't contact them to fix their link issue. But then any self respecting web master will discover its mistakes by monitoring the site's logs ;-)
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