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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. Then I buy a set top box or whatever to connect it to satellite or internet streaming or whatever I use for watching. I dont want a smart TV that sends all I watch and do to the internet. No thanks.
http://www.theonion.com/video/...
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How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
A problem I've heard from people about touchscreen remotes (and did experience with my old Pronto remote) is the lack of tactile feedback. You don't know what you're hitting without looking down at the remote as you can't do it by feel.
Full sized touchscreen displays are the thing these days. Too bad they didn't think to include a 'power-off' screen saver that looks like a hole in the dashboard with a couple of hanging cables so car thieves would think your stereo was already stolen.
Have gnu, will travel.
Smart TVs are riddled with underpowered hardware, security issues, outdated or plain abandoned apps, empty stores, and they are condemned to get completely abandoned after a while, unless you replace your TV sets as much as your smartphone or something, which doesn't seem to be something most consumers will do.
My Samsung TV came with smart tv functions (I didn't want it, but the price was right for the set), after initially testing the Samsung Hub or whatever they called it, I packed the smart tv remote and other crap that came with it (a bluetooth accessory, 3d glasses, and all that crap) away, and never looked back at them. And afaik, after a couple of years it's basically unusable - outdated, slow as molasses, and now a security issue.
The horrible mess that has been created by a bunch of TV manufaturers wanting to push proprietary shit on consumers has got to stop, that is if TV manufacturers still wants to offer usable smart tv solutions for consumers.
I dunno why Google stopped Android TV development, but that's the way to go. In fact, just throwing regular Android there would be a huge improvement over the shitshow that smart tvs currently are. I mean, nothing like Chromecast and other streaming pendrive/small tabletop devices selling like water to show how ineffective the smart tv strategy was.
Even if smart tvs worked well, were secure, and had good features overall, it's just a failed strategy. You really don't want to combine a product that is supposed to last 10 years or so, with something that will get outdated in less than a year.
I bought a new TV last Christmas, and my recent experience tends to agree. It wasn't even a smart TV, just a standard one. I still had a whole bunch of problems.
* Terrible interface for trying to figure out how to adjust color/brightness
* Terrible interface for trying to scan for over the air channels. Ran through this probably 5 times to get it right.
* Discovered a firmware bug which would turn the TV on once every 24 hours. This could not be disabled. Spent two weeks trying to upload patched firmware, which included a web site that said the model number was wrong even when it wasn't (no ability to browse, you've just got to know and type it from the box), multiple calls to the main vendor and then sub-vendors, finally getting the firmware patch with no instructions, calling back to find out totally unintuitive process for uploading the firmware, part of which includes "wait for 5-20 minutes while it takes care of itself in the background, and if you interrupt this invisible process you may brick your TV".
* Found that patched firmware didn't actually fix the bug, but that it at least allowed for a sub-feature that, if there's no signal to the TV, it will turn back off 15 minutes later.
* TV had terrible sound. Tried multiple versions of traditional (audio jack) and USB speakers, none of which worked for inexplicable reasons. Eventually took a big risk spending $80 on a soundbar that would handle digital audio, hoping it would work, and got lucky. (Sub-issue: soundbar goes to sleep if the TV is paused for a while, and when you wake it back up, the TV doesn't recognize it. You've got to turn the TV on/off to get sound working again. Sub-sub issue: sometimes Netflix loses track of sound, even when the TV had located it; same fix.)
* I've got 3 remotes: TV, streaming device, and sound bar. The wife and kids get it, but none of our visitors or relatives can figure anything out. I'm *this* close to printing a laminated cheat sheet of instructions, which they probably won't use because it's too complicated.
* Relatives tend to leave the TV either tuned to an over the air signal or a powered-on streaming device, so that when the firmware bug kicks in, then the TV stays on until someone realizes it was accidental and turns it off hours later.
The Quirkz Handbook of Self-Improvement for People Who Are Already Pretty Okay
Yes, what a wonderful idea. I would love to put all my controls in the same device... oops hold on, I have a phone call... damn, where's the mute button? Oh, gotta launch that app... oh wait, I have to unlock the device first... ah crap! the battery is dying...
That seems so much easier than just having a nice, dumb IR remote.
An IR remote with tactile buttons, on the other hand, is a great design. It just works and needs line of sight to work which means that if I drop it into the couch or sit on it or look at it funny, it won't register... unlike an RF remote or app (looking at your Roku remote control)
Plus, there is something to be said about tactile feedback... all this touch screen stuff is driving me crazy.
My eyes reflect the stars and a smile lights up my face.
As an aging techy, Smart TVs are among the gadgets that I look at and say "Is there something I am missing here, am I finally going over the hill, or is this really just the crappiest dogpile of UX malpractice, feature bloat, and scamware ever created?" It turns out the be the latter (this time).
So no, it's no surprise -- older people are old enough to remember the world of software before it turned to utter crap, when we had well designed UX experiences with crisp response times and common sense discoverability. So naturally we'd be the ones in a position to complain.
Someone had to do it.
As an aging techy, Smart TVs are among the gadgets that I look at and say "Is there something I am missing here, am I finally going over the hill, or is this really just the crappiest dogpile of UX malpractice, feature bloat, and scamware ever created?"
That's been my experience when I go to Best Buy or Frys or whatever and look at the new gadgets, especially TVs.
I look at them and think, "I don't need this shit, just give me a TV without all the 5-level nested menus and other horsecrap." But almost no one makes a TV that doesn't include loads of useless shit. My last TV (a couple years old) has firmware that never seems to have an update available and loads of picture settings that don't seem to do much at all. Adjusting settings is frustrating as fuck, and I speak as someone that's been in tech for 40 fucking years.
My Blu Ray player came with a load of utter bullshit like screen savers and some of the lamest games you've ever seen, and it also doesn't ever seem to have an update available either.
The Blu Ray player's craptastic "Opera Store" doesn't even have a browser available (!!) nor does it have an Amazon TV app, and there's no way to get one. The USB port on the front is WORTHLESS, it's only for showing stored pics and movies, and it won't recognize a keyboard (or any other device), which is really too bad since the on-screen keyboard is the WORST, most user-unfriendly piece of shit in the known universe.
Seriously, fuck you, TV manufacturers, fuck you in the ass with a telephone pole wrapped in barbed-wire.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
Step 1: Do not connect it to a network.
Mitigation plan complete.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Step 2, hope neighbor doesn't put in an open WiFi.
I was trying to convey that LCD screens allow a much richer UI over fixed buttons.
Yes, but for the use case of a TV remote, the most important thing is to be able to use it without looking at it.