More annoying is the 15 second "home menu" that pops up on my OLED every time it is turned on. I almost always forget to manually dismiss it before I set the remote down and there's no option I can find to disable it.
I would pay a premium for a TV with no internet connection.
I bought a Samsung QLED TV recently, and it works fine without an internet connection. I did give it an ethernet connection to grab firmware updates, and it downloaded a bunch of ads and crap to clutter the home screen. Luckily, unplugging the ethernet cord and factory-resetting the device got rid of the garbage and kept the updated firmware.
FYI I was able to update the firmware via USB stick without much hassle.
GGP did mean HDCP 2.x (DRM to encrypt the signal between display and device) which is often not supported by commercial displays. Unless devices detect a compatible, DRM-protected display, devices will refuse to play UHD content made by the movie industry.
Even 12 year old NEC p-series (used at airports, usually) have hdcp.
All streaming services require HDCP 2.2 support throughout the device chain. Because commercial displays aren't intended to use on-device streaming services or be used in consumer environments they often lack HDCP 2.2 support. While they might support HCDP 1.4 or 2.0, that will only support FHD content either streaming or disc-based. It's fairly difficult to find specs on commercial displays about their HDCP support level.
Content obtained via torrent played, and still does, at 1080 perfectly well though, if you are looking for a workaround. I currently pipe stuff to the TV from my media array via Kodi on a Pi.
(I do actually pay for Prime, though mainly for the delivery options, and Netflix, but still consume their content "my" way more often than not)
I don’t know what your other child responses are talking about.
https://hdfury.com/product/linker-4k60-444-600mhz-scaler/
Even one of these cheap splitters should be able to provide an HDCP-workaround:
It's a ridiculous state of affairs that I have to jump through hoops just to get a TV to display a fucking video feed. I don't need or want the TV's software. I don't need or want a UI more complicated than the old analog TV genlocked character generator UI. I'll plug smart stuff into the TV if I want.
Edit: Added HDCP version
The "Smart TVs" are subsidized because they're robbing you and your mother of your privacy and security.
Don't get it twisted.
Painless experience and no ads.
DoH/DoT are just the camel's nose under the tent. Just wait (perhaps it's already happening) until TV manufacturers install 4g/5g modems in their devices.
At which point, there will be a market for TV-shaped faraday cages. Or not, as that will make actually watching the TV difficult/impossible.
This stuff really ticks me off. Grrr!
I hear this raised every now and then, but is that even feasible economically? Those embedded cell connections are a recurring cost, after all. I'm curious if the per-unit revenue from ads and tracking is large enough to justify the per-unit cost to send/receive that data over a cell connection.
Seems like UI nudges and dark patterns to push users into connecting their TVs to their home internet connection would be cheaper and more effective.
That's a great question. If it's not today, it likely will be soon.
I think it may be so already. These are niche cases, but the costs aren't so different than TVs:
I use a CPAP machine and the one I got six years ago had a cellular modem (as well as WiFi) without my involvement in any mobile account. Thankfully, I was able to disable that (and a big "Fuck you!" to Philips for being such rapacious scumbags).
I also got a Kindle as a gift in ~2004 or so and it had both WiFi and a cellular modem with no charges to me.
>Seems like UI nudges and dark patterns to push users into connecting their TVs to their home internet connection would be cheaper and more effective.
Cheaper? Definitely.
Effective? Most likely yes.
More effective than a cellular modem? Methinks not so much. A device connecting to a network over which you have no control would be much more effective, IMHO.
Aside from a small group of folks who will shoot, stab, defenestrate, bend, fold, spindle or mutilate such a device, most folks would likely just shrug and move on while being forced to watch ads.
And more's the pity.
If they make the TV into one of those monstrous Alexa Show (?) devices where you can make calls or do other things, they may be able to persuade some customers to get a connection for the TV. Even then it’s a stretch because most TVs are in one place for years and the places they’re in would have WiFi/broadband coverage in the same or a nearby room.
That doesn't seem to bother Amazon's Whispernet.
Amazon has been doing this for years[0]. Free cellular access for specific Kindle devices for specific purposes. They've sold many millions of those around the world.
Granted, Amazon was generating revenue from selling ebooks, which was the incentive for providing the service.
>There’s no way these TV manufacturing companies can buy one connection per TV (and accept the liabilities that come with such a connection) or get their customers to have one.
If they follow Amazon's lead, they'll enter into contracts with global networks (Amazon uses AT&T) for bulk rates on carrying their products' traffic.
That said, it's not at all clear to me what the break even point might be on a per-device basis for these TVs, but the first search result for "WiFI/LTE chipset price" yielded this link[1]:
ZTE 4G Module LTE Wireless Wifi Board with Sim
Card Slot Mini Router PCB for IOT Camera GPS
Sensor Data Transmission
1 - 499 Pieces $17.49
500 - 1999 Pieces $15.99
>=2000 Pieces $14.99
Whether or not it would be profitable for the TV manufacturers is an open question.
I'm not saying that it will happen, just that it could.
And that would make me sad.
[0] https://smallbusiness.chron.com/amazon-whispernet-work-58992...
[1] https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/4g-Lte-Zte4g-ZTE-4G-M...
Would manufacturers need to add cellular support if they could instead sign deals with other companies to auto-setup a wireless connection?
I realize Sidewalk is very low bandwidth, but I wonder if that's a problem for the telemetry data we're worried about.
Far more TVs are sold than those car navigation units ever did. I don't think money is an issue if they want a slow back channel. If they wanted to ship all ads over it, sure, but periodic phone-homes? Updates to DNS-bypassing lists of IP addresses? Unless they're prevented from selling it, they'll do it eventually.
Until this changes (and I don’t see it happening - if anything, the new generations seem even more happy with living in an advertising-saturated world), the people who resist will be a tiny minority not worth going after.
Roku devices hardcode 8.8.8.8 DNS in their software. So a Pi-Hole would be useless in a typical config. Evident by the constant hammering of dns.google in my firewall logs (dropped).
DNS filtering can only be effective if you intercept/drop all other outbound DNS traffic at the edge of your network.
Are they fussy about where responses come from? If not then you can redirect to your local filtering DNS service. If they do "protect" themselves that way then I'll add them to the list of devices that I'll never knowingly connect to my network.
And also more expensive :) I wish I knew if that was because the crapware and ads on smart TVs are actually reducing the cost, or if it's just that smart TVs use crap hardware and software by comparison. Given how laggy they can be, that wouldn't surprise me.
At least in terms of the actual display parts. The smart TV probably has some processing capabilities that are incomparably better than what you'd get in a monitor. This is, of course, used to display ads. However, the ads are necessary to subsidize the cost of the powerful SOC... wait, why do we need the SOC again?
If you get quotes from chinese sellers on panelook, you'll find that monitor panels+drivers are cheaper than TVs with the same specs, even at 1pc pricing.
It's not clear whether they have HDCP, but... surely they must? That's table stakes for a computer monitor.
No premium required. Just set your TV's with a static IP address and block outbound access to that address at your firewall.
I also blackhole the DNS entries of specific hosts that the TV attempts to contact. Blocking the IP address is sufficient, but I choose to nuke it from orbit. It's the only way to be sure. ;)
If you're assuming the TV is malicious, why trust it to honor that static IP setting? Doesn't even have to be malicious - a bug or carelessness could mean that it temporarily falls back to DHCP for some time in the boot process.
A separate VLAN (or wireless network) with the entire thing isolated and not being able to talk to anything is the way to go, but there just aren't many reasons to connect it to a network to begin with so save your time and just don't.
I guess you missed this part, eh?
I also blackhole the DNS entries of specific hosts
that the TV attempts to contact. Blocking the IP
address is sufficient, but I choose to nuke it from
orbit. It's the only way to be sure. ;)Why pay a premium when this is something that is extremely easy to achieve? Simply don't connect your TV to the internet. Criteria met. If you want to go further, you can also easily remove the WiFi antenna and ethernet ports.
Everything is so slow. Back when Freeview started being a thing in the UK, TVs then had a rapid TV Guide built in and everything felt instant. Now every screen change is a pause. I've got a PS5 so I'm much happier using that for apps.
It feels like feature phones were slow and laggy, we then got responsive smartphones. TVs were responsive, now they're slow and laggy.
Note that the router should not actually be connected to any other network.
There is a solution for which time is running out but is currently still possible. You can find someone selling a used, perfectly good television made in the era right before every single TV was a "smart" TV.