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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?
http://www.vizio.com/p-series
You can buy black projector screens around 100" for about 500 dollars or so. And that means you can watch your projector with the lights on.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
This is where Comcast building wifi hotspots into their cable modems becomes pretty damned insidious - how long until devices like this are "pre-authorized" to automatically connect to the mothership through any available wireless connection?
Imagine if a Samsung TV automatically phoned home through your neighbor's Comcast wifi/modem link not because you enabled it but because Samsung had paid Comcast to allow its devices through. And of course this behavior is on by default and block it, thanks to some timely lobbying, is now a violation of the first amendment (or something equally deranged-but-feasible vis-a-vis corporate personhood).
I have a projector that I project onto a very white surface,
Black is fine, because the BRIGHTEST aspects of the image are so bright that the non-illuminated parts of the screen are, in fact, quite black.
If I bring a totally white piece of paper in a cave, and shine a light away from it, will it glow like the su? Of course not.
Modern projectors are usually pretty bright. And you can of course easily provide some darker surface to project upon if you really feel it is an issue.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
They aren't manditory.
And yet I'd still have to pay for them to be there, which is a giant rip-off.
Also, not all "smart TVs" will allow you to turn their "smart" features off. The one my parents have pops up a "network connection unavailable, please select from available wifi networks" warning that lasts for a minute every time you turn it on, if you aren't connected to the internet, and has exactly zero options for disabling any of the features, including the ones that wouldn't work anyways because they connect to services and servers that have long since gone out of business.
Personally, I lucked out and found a nice crisp high quality 56" 1080p display that has a pile of inputs, and barely even supports TV channels. It was the only non-smart TV in the whole store at the time (Future Shop in Canada), was the display model, and they didn't have a box or even records of when it came into the store, so the manager let me have it for $150. I've checked there a few times since, and the only non-smart TVs they ever have are around the 16" to 24" size variety. Anything bigger and you're paying double price for a giant pile of features most people don't want and will never use.
Jesus fuck when did this site change from a tech savvy bunch of geeks to a bunch of dribbling retards?
When they started pandering to morons with zero ability to understand problems. Like you.
A friend of mine got a TV (can't remember the brand) from a raffle. he doesn't have internet, and the tv will NOT let him use it if he isn't connected to the network to agree to the TOS.
This is where we are heading......
Because those failure points will still be there in a "dumb" TV.
The TV needs a video processor and modern video processors already have multi cores with GPUs and all that. You can thank the smartphone revolution, but the SoCs used in TVs are often derived from the SoCs used in smartphones. Enough so that TV-specific SoCs can be more expensive.
So you're already talking about a TV with dual or quad core processors, 1GB of RAM, and other things. WiFi/Ethernet isn't pricey (and often bundled because most SoC vendors encourage bundling - if you go Broadcom, and use Broadcom WiFi/Ethernet ICs too, you get a break on the whole package).
Basically, TVs have gotten to the point where thanks to smartphones, they're swimming with CPU power, already run Android or Linux, and are sitting there as required pieces for the video processing chain. "Smart" features are merely software items that are trivial to add on because they come "for free".
Plus, it's one of the few ways to get Netflix in 4K. Netflix doesn't support 4K on PCs.
This is why I ended up buying a smart TV even though I don't use any of the smart TV features. Several companies I looked at treat dumb TVs as a lower tier and smart TVs as their upper tier, and not just in terms of the software functionality. Or at the least, because the smart TVs were newer models, they had other newer parts. The screens they use can be different, with different performances. In my case, there still was a literal $20 between a smart TV model and the dumb TV model of the same size, but the smart TV had better color and a wider viewing angle because it used a newer screen. So when they push new features, they update other parts of the TV too, while even if still selling separate models without those features, not updating them.
I have EXACTLY the same issue with cars.
I really don't want (to buy, maintain, or the extra weight, complexity and/or immediate outdatedness of) LCD touchscreens, navigation, parking aids, multimedia systems, blind spot monitors, voice control, OnStar, 57 airbags, hybrid technology, my car connecting to its manufacturer, etc etc.
These "features" are pretty much all literally unavoidable in all cars these days.
I ESPECIALLY don't EVER want a car that drives itself.
I wish someone would just make a new version what used to pass for a sporty car about 20-30 years ago. I.e.a simple, ergonomic cabin that uses physical controls, analog dials, a good motor and a well-sorted suspension, all without the need for any onboard computers at all. I say this as a software engineer, even I know there are some places that are better off without any technology and computers, and the car is one of the best examples I can think of.
Don't buy one now. High-dynamic-range television is coming, and a consortium of TV suppliers was announced at COMDEX recently. They will work together on coming up with a single standard for HDR. Netflix has also promised to deliver HDR content by year's end. It would be silly to buy a 4K panel that can only process rec-709 now when HDR is right around the corner.
Or if they put in a cell-phone data link, like the non-Android Kindles (and some Android Kindles) and preauthorize the data services.
No it cannot because you have to project it onto something.
Even if you don't have a blank wall (most homes in fact do have walls) it's very easy to put a large piece of something flat together to project on. I use a cheap $10 vinyl sheet.
Run cabling "along the ceiling"? Maybe you like your house to look like crap
If you run cabling carefully and the cables match the ceiling color it can look just fine. That said I did simply put a small hole in the ceiling and run the cables between floor joists, it didn't require much effort to do that.
If you want to talk "convenience" then how about the substantial effort it takes to put in a screen anywhere near as large as what you get with a projector? I have a 70" diagonal image, how many people would it take to move around a TV that had that size of screen? What happens when it breaks down? What if I want to bring it somewhere for a party? There are massive inconveniences to "real" TV sets that I don't have to worry about. I also can fling all the Wii controllers I like right into the screen without care.
Good luck getting a good cheap 4K projector plus accessories cheaper than a 70" flatscreen.
Admittedly that is true right now for 4k projectors, but it's not true for 1080p projectors. In a year or two projectors will probably reach equality.
I thought you were just telling us to mount it to the ceiling.
I'll give you a pass on this since you don't seem to know much about projectors, but most mounts have a part that attaches to the ceiling, then a part you put on the projector that attaches to the ceiling mount so you can easily remove the projector. On mine I can just turn three large knobs, twist the projector 90 degrees and it detaches from the mount.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley