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Ask Slashdot: Affordable Large HD/UHD/4K "Stupid" Screens?
New submitter LOGINS SUC (713291) writes Truly in the first-world problems category, I've been looking for large format (>55") HD/UHD screens for home entertainment. In light of the recent Samsung big-brother monitoring and advertisement injection concerns, does any reputable manufacturer still make "stupid" TVs? I don't want to pay for all the WiFi, apps, cameras, or microphones. I don't need it to have speakers. And at this point, I don't even care if it has the TV receiver functionality. All this stuff leads to vendor lock-in or is well on the path to obsolescence by the time I purchase the device. I prefer all of this non-visual functionality be handled by devices better suited to the purpose and I don't want to pay for screens including these widgets I have no intention of ever using, at all.
I've searched all the normal retail outlets. If I find anything, they are wildly expensive. "Computer monitors" fit the bill but are almost all 55") LCDs in the sub-$3,000 range anymore? Are projectors the last bastion of visual purity for home entertainment?
I've searched all the normal retail outlets. If I find anything, they are wildly expensive. "Computer monitors" fit the bill but are almost all 55") LCDs in the sub-$3,000 range anymore? Are projectors the last bastion of visual purity for home entertainment?
...to put on your tinfoil hat before you get out of your bed from your lead-lined walled bedroom....
It's not tinfoil-hatism when it's true. Big brother issues aside, there's a very valid point in his post: Why pay for all those extra electronics/failure points when all you want is a display device. Personally, all I want is a screen and speakers with enough ports on the back for my various systems.
The word is "dumb."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Remo...
http://gizmodo.com/5887808/eve...
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
Their 65" 4k (30hz @ 4k resolution) is now on Amazon for $999. The 39" has worked just fine for me, so I imagine the 65" is comparable in terms of quality. (It does have 4 stars on 600+ reviews)
Presumably by leaving it unconfigured or intentionally misconfigured, you could trick it into not being very "smart" at all. I would only consider smart TVs with mandatory connectivity (of which I don't know of any) as really falling outside the acceptable criteria here. If you dont like the "smart" features don't freaking use them. Rip the button off the remote and cover it with a bit of black electrical tape. Whatever floats your boat. However, the features come from a $10 ARM SoC which every vendor is building in nowadays since it really doesn't increase their cost much. In fact, as the question suggests, making special TVs without these features is now more expensive since more people want them than don't.
For example don't user the remote control that came with it, because it has dedicated app buttons that will take 30seconds to fail to launch netflix for you, or worse, offer to walk your wife through wi-fi setup. So you need another remote too. And since they are special your universal remote won't work out of the box, so you'll need to to button to button remapping to get that to work.
You know what would be even better than turning wi-fi off? Not having it at all...kinda of like what the OP asks for.
To answer the OP's question you can buy commercial TV's (like hotel rooms or restaurants buy for their active menus) and they have no smart features. They are widely available at commerical type stores. Lg also makes them up to 65" (we have some installed here). Big, dumb panel. Here is their site:
http://www.lg.com/us/commercia...
Here's a 65" one from Staples:
http://www.staples.com/LG-Supe...
On top of this not being a "stupid" screen, this product is also unsuitable as a pc monitor. It uses 4:2:0 chroma subsampling which makes text look terrible.
http://www.geeks3d.com/2014120...
I also second the Seiki 39". Got mine from Amazon.com when it was $400. Now it's 2/3 of that.
On my NUC it actually uses the 4K resolution but I rarely use it as a monitor because of the low refresh rate (15Hz) at that resolution.
It is an AWESOME TV!!! I have it hooked up to
- Roku3
- Google Chromecast
- Amazon Fire Stick
If I had to find downsides it would be
- no "discrete code" to switch to a particular input. One selects "source" then scrolls up or down from the current source to the eventual source input. This makes things tougher for scene-remotes.
Ehud
The manual directs you how to bypass this. He's using an LG TV.
It could be argued (and has) that "Smart TV" features, are a value-add for the manufacturer, not the consumer. (because those very features are used to generate revenue, and are not particularly useful to the end-user).
The only real benefit to the end-user is if they're too dumb or lazy to hook up a Roku or other cheap streaming device (or whatever). In fact; I found my Samsung's menus and apps to be so ridiculously slow and poorly designed, that those features are basically unusable. (example: get up in the morning, turn on TV to watch something while I eat breakfast: TV takes at least 60 seconds before Netflix app can even be selected (please wait, the TV is starting up), then another 30 seconds to START the program, then another 30 seconds to display, pick, and enter the profile - OMG-Teh LAG!; we're all used to Netflix taking about 5-10 seconds to fire up the stream of your selected program, plus the remote is shitty, is very sensitive about direction pointing, weird button placement, poor battery life. . . if I instead use the Roku, it's literally 5 seconds to get into where I'm picking the program, the remote has a simple, intelligent layout, and doesn't particularly care if it's pointed perfectly at the device).
As far as "Smart TV" features go, I think it's just this year's "3d" (which, also, nobody wanted.)
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