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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
Just use a projector. It's inexpensive and typically has no features other than projecting.
You may actually have to pay more for a large screen without all the WiFi and stuff because the production volume for them is a lot smaller.
Live with the fact that you get "extras" for almost no cost.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
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.
...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)
You don't need to buy a dumb TV. All you need to avoid is plugging it into a network.
If you don't plug your home theatre equipment into your network, it can't call home. Done.
4G as in cellular? Pop out the SIM. Sorted.
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
Agreed. I'd love to ditch the tuner. what a pain in the ass having it switch inputs to the tuner automatically if you dare touch certain remote buttons. "Guide" is what kills me, as I usually adjust volume on TV the hit guide. Whoops, have to adjust volume then hit CABLE, then hit guide...but now to clear the guide I have to Exit, exit, input, input, input then cable, then guide again. I'd keep the speakers if I could, but would take no smart, no tuner, no speakers over smart+tuner+speakers.
I don't know why you care, since you can always just not use the smart features, but if you insist you must not have them professional monitors fit the bill. NEC makes the ones I generally spec out. Very well built, high brightness, rated for 24/7 operation, etc. You pay for it, of course, since they are commercial grade rather than residential grade.
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.
Yeah, because disabling it in SOFTWARE makes it impossible for the tv to activate it when your not looking right?
If you want to be totally safe, you need to cripple the hardware itself!
1. Take large roll of aluminum foil
2. Wrap TV carefully, don't allow any gaps
3. Take a small piece of foil, roll it up to look like a wire, tape it to the bigger piece (use duct tape here), and push it into the GROUND line of your wall outlet.
4. The GROUND line, stupid.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
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...
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.
Holy cats, yes.
I run a weekend cabin rental business on the side and at least once a month I get a renter who pushed the wrong button on the TV or DVD remote that screws up everything and I have to go help them figure out how to get it back to a state where they can watch a DVD.
At the very least put a "Reset" button that can be programmed to put everything back to a particular state with one touch.
For each "SMART" TV they typically have the same model with none of the "SMART" features for cheaper. I don't need or want any of the smart features, so I never buy Samsung's SMART TVs but I have bought the non-SMART equivalent. Many people seem to think ahh a "SMART" brand TV for more money and don't realize that they are paying for "SMART" features that they never had plans to use. SMART just sounds like a better TV.....
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.
Last summer my brother brought over a projector he had from when he was in college it cost around $900 at the time and is comparable to todays $200-$300 projectors. We set up a screen using a unused drop cloth in the back yard against the garage. We had BBQ and watched a few movies the family thought it was great even the neighbor came out and was talking about being reminded of the movies in the park when he was kid only this looked a lot better. I've been considering building a theater in my basement kind of a man cave with a nice hd projector ever since.
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.
Not if you place them on the ceiling. You can simply run cabling along the ceiling to where it needs to go.
Run cabling "along the ceiling"? Maybe you like your house to look like crap but personally I think running wires along the ceiling looks terrible and my wife would feel even stronger about it. To do it so it doesn't look all JV requires actually putting holes in the ceiling/walls and is a substantial project. It also requires hiring an electrician unless you are planning to violate a whole bunch of code and safety regulations.
A projector on the ceiling can go pretty much anywhere.
No it cannot because you have to project it onto something. Maybe every wall you have is a blank white wall but that doesn't describe my house. Furthermore once you mount it it's staying there and is non-trivial to move elsewhere.
For the size? Don't think so.
Then you haven't looked into it. Unless you are talking about >80" screen size, projectors lose to flatscreens at the same price points. Good luck getting a good cheap 4K projector plus accessories cheaper than a 70" flatscreen.
So many people on Slashdot today seem to have projector info from the 80's when projectors were not nearly so bright as they are now. Projectors are far more awesome than any TV can ever be, AND you can take them with you someplace else if you want to.
I thought you were just telling us to mount it to the ceiling.
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
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.
Turn on 3D mode and you can tilt your head to see behind the "SIM Card Error! Contact Support Immediately!" popup in the center of the screen.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
Or if they put in a cell-phone data link, like the non-Android Kindles (and some Android Kindles) and preauthorize the data services.
If you decide you want "smart", add a Roku.
Gently reply
The problem with this argument is that there isn't really a price difference between smart and dumb TVs anymore. While the failure point argument is valid, I wouldn't worry too much about it. If you never use the smart features then those parts are not going to have a high failure rate.
More importantly, if you do buy a smart TV and chose not to use its features you will want to make sure you spend some time with the remote in the store. You'll want to either check it out in a store that doesn't have wifi or that allows you to disable it on the TV to test it out. Find out how well it works as a simple screen. Is it quick to switch between inputs? Is the remote good enough or does it at least support using a Harmony replacement? Are interfaces slow because the software on it is too heavy?
Basically, I'm advocating that you just don't care what features the TV has that you don't use and instead find the cheapest set where the features you do want to use work well. If that set has smart features, don't use them and you probably won't have an issue.
Yeah, because disabling it in SOFTWARE makes it impossible for the tv to activate it when your not looking right?
If you want to be totally safe, you need to cripple the hardware itself!
And how hard is that? In my home, the wifi is encrypted so if the TV connects via wifi, I simply don't give it the key. If it connects via ethernet, I disconnect the ethernet cable. It's not too hard to prevent the TV from phoning home.
As for the original question, at this time it doesn't seem like there are too many options for this. I bought a "smart" tv several years ago, I thought it would be helpful since I wanted to be able to stream Netflix without getting a third-party box. The interface is terrible, it's very slow and unresponsive. There haven't been any updates to the "NetTV" portion of the software, so pretty much the only thing worthwhile is Netflix - most of the other services it supports either are useless or don't even exist anymore. If the company cared about providing updates and staying current with services it might be worth it but there is no motivation for the company to provide software updates since they would prefer I just buy a new TV if I want access to current services. With things like Chromecast and FireTV, it makes a lot more sense to get a dumb TV and add the smart features you want via a cheap dongle rather than paying hundreds of dollars for the TV manufacturer to add the same hardware with a crappier interface to the TV.
Enigma
You might not use the features, but they might be active all the same, and snooping on you. Even if you have not configured them or think you have turned them off.
Prove anything by multiplying Huge Number times Tiny Number
You could have at least provided a link!
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
The manual directs you how to bypass this. He's using an LG TV.
Not quite that simple. Even if you blacklist the TV on your router, your neighbor can still offer it service.
Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once
Compare that to a Plasma TV,
Why should I when they are dying.
Yes, Plasma TV's have amazing contrast - which is an utterly irrelevant fact in 2015.
Frankly even though the blacks are a little better there's no way I'd buy one of any size due to how delicate and heavy the beasts are. Projectors are vastly more practical than Plasma.
Even decent cheap projectors now are as good as LCD TV's, which are all you can find anymore... and you can always control viewing conditions to improve a projected image to your liking if you are fussy.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
uh, I would say "yes you do", but there again I only live here, the fuck do I know?
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel