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TVs Are Still Too Complicated, and It's Not Your Fault (theverge.com)
In his latest column for The Verge, renowned journalist Walt Mossberg argues that TVs -- their UI, execution, underlying technologies, and remote -- are still too complicated. In the latest weekly, he has shared the experience of buying a new TV, setting it up, and the first few days of getting through it. The modern set, Smart TV for most, comes with a plethora of proprietary and standard features. But only a handful of people actually know what these features are -- and how they differ in the models offered by the same company. Mossberg says folks at Best Buy were of little use when explaining these features, but did a good job making false claims such as "you have to buy a sound bar because the TV doesn't have good speakers" even when that wasn't necessarily the case. Now Mossberg, having pioneered tech journalism as it is known today, knows a thing or two about TVs, but for a general consumer, it is an unnecessary thing that could spoil the experience, and make a bigger dent in their TV budget than it should have. But buying the TV wasn't the worst part. Following are excerpts from his column: But learning to use the TV is a whole other story. The Bean Bird (assistive cartoon feature) setup process was pretty straightforward, but it gets you going just enough to start watching something. Tweaking all of the TV's many features, including common ones like picture tones and uncommon ones like zooming in on a part of the picture or using a built-in web browser, takes hours. You must wade through menus containing scores of choices. And some controversial features common to modern TVs are buried deep in these menus. For instance, while I like motion smoothing others strongly dislike it -- it's sometimes known as the "soap opera effect." If you don't like it, the LG's interface doesn't make it at all easy to understand what's happening to your picture or what setting to adjust to turn it off. It's not even called motion smoothing in the menus -- LG calls it "TruMotion." The user interface is also somewhat confusing. There are at least three ways, for instance, to change inputs and at least two to bring up quick settings. The menu for launching apps like Netflix, inputs, and more appears to have a million icons in it and marches for what seems like miles across the bottom of the screen. So you have to edit it, which takes a bunch of time.Mossberg also found issues with the way the remote was designed to execute. "For instance, it's supposed to become a "universal" remote, controlling all your connected set-top boxes, but I can only get it to control some, but not all, of the basic features of my cable box, a TiVo Bolt. And its voice search is pathetic -- far worse than the one on the latest Apple TV."
I want no TV, I want a monitor. Simple as that.
Even as a monitor, my TV was unwatchable until I found that damn "motion smoothing" setting and killed it. It also took a while to change it from "show room display settings" to something more reasonable for my living room. As a geek, I was able to get it all sorted, but it was pretty poor usability the whole way.
I dont want a smart TV that sends all I watch and do to the internet.
Heh, even if you're watching a torrent or something, if your smart TV has a network connection it's phoning home with what you're watching (or hashes of screenshots thereof). Sadly, no one is selling high-end panels without all the "smart"-ness unless you want to pay 2-3x for industrial stuff.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Ah, not so fast! I have an LG Smart TV from about 5 years ago. You cannot switch inputs on the god damn thing without using a built in app. Switching inputs goes like this:
1) pick up the remote (only used for switching inputs) and press the quick apps button
2) Wait 10 seconds while it loads
3) point at (it works like a mouse) the "input" app and click
4) Wait while it looks up inputs like DLNA, etc. Watch HDMI 1 and HDMI 2 get pushed off of the screen when it finds our computers.
5) Switch to screen 2, click HDMI 1
6) Curse in frustration as you find it didn't "highlight" HDMI 1, so it ignored your click. Try again.
It takes a minimum of 30 seconds to go through this - just to switch from the TiVo to the Chromecast. I WISH I didn't have to use their ridiculous app, but there is no simple, old school, "input select" button on the remote.
Yet when it's hooked up via HDMI, DisplayPort, USB-C (Thunderbolt or not), it can get a network connection if the host device gives it one.
I intentionally set my Smart TV network settings to a non-existing IP address on my local network. That way I drive it to the ground. I only let it connect to the network when I want to download updates for it.
I stream to it via a roku stick that connects to it via HDMI, with the stick connecting and logging in my local network. The Smart TV doesn't get a connection at all.
For a closed box like an AppleTV or a PlayStation or a BluRay player, how would you ever fucking know?
Packet sniffing. Oldest trick in the book (though obviously not something feasible for the general consumer.)
Everyone I know who's tried this says that the Raspberry Pi's (at least the older model 1 and 2 devices) choke when you try to play 1080p video on them. That was the same experience that I got as well.