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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 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.
These TVs already run 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
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!
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.
Linux is more reliable, but that is not the reason is is used. Linux is cheap, can be stripped down to its essentials thus having less of a footprint and is easily extensible. That is why Linux is used. If M$ gave away the compilers and libraries then made windows truly modular companies would start using it instead. Sad but true.
Bad Panda! No Bamboo for you! In matters of importance ACs will not be responded to. Want to say something critical,OK
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.
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.
You can get middle-end HDTVs for 150 EUR nowadays? Sweet!
But why didn't you guys tell me until now? :(
np: Orbital - The Naked And The Dead (2Orbital (Disc 2))
"I'm not anti-anything, I'm anti-everything, it fits better." - Sole
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.
Wrong.
I work for a company that uses Linux in embedded systems -- if Microsoft gave away anything with their stinking Win32 layer anywhere, or anything that only supports FAT and NTFS filesystems, or anything with their driver model, or their desktop-oriented scheduler, we would still not touch it with a ten foot pole.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
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