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I made the switch to a projector a couple years ago and advocate highly for them. The screen can disappear when not in use, and they're "dumb by default". New LED projectors have bulbs rated to last 10k hours or more.

I use a projector as well instead of a TV but they're definitely not standard replacement for a normal TV in all situations. You need a dark room (so if you like to have the TV on while do you chores or other tasks, it won't work well with a projector), the fans can be a bit loud depending on your noise tolerance, the contrast, color and brightness/blacks won't be as good as a decent OLED TV unless you go for a very high end projector and screen, which is going to be very expensive.

It's definitely worth considering but there are pros and cons to consider, it's not an acceptable replacement in all situations.

>the contrast, color and brightness/blacks won't be as good as a decent OLED TV unless you go for a very high end projector and screen

Not even that, I suspect that projectors would be defeated by mid-range VA-LED TVs, especially when you factor in that TVs have nifty tricks like FALD

The other thing I've noticed, is that you can't casually watch something in the company of some visitors, it's going full movie night or nothing. That's a real use case I'm missing with a TV.

And you can't even make the picture on the wall smaller if you want, it always dominates completely.

When my mother is visiting we just want to half watch some game show and chit chat, we don't want to have a movie night, and we don't want to focus entirely on each other/conversation for a whole evening either, it's kind of exhausting.

I’m pretty happy with my Spectre that I bought from Walmart.com. I think it is only 75 inches but 4K with 4 hdmi ports and I think it was $5-600 or so.

It seems up on the latest hdmi standards and it turns on and off with the appletv plugged in.

My favorite shopping aggregator found 840 TVs from 70 to 85 inches. 503 of them has 4 HDMI inputs. Seems like it is most popular number of inputs for TV of that size. PC, Xbox, Playstation, media player. Do you need more?

I'm not having trouble finding one. All I said is that I'm currently shopping around, and my prediction for the future is that kind of TV will become scarce.

When our work-horse Toshiba finally fails, we're going to replace it with either a large gaming monitor or a pro signage monitor from B&H/Adorama.

Will a pro signage monitor have HDR? Will it support more than 60hz? Will it have multiple inputs? Looking at the specs for LG (just first up on the search) they have none of these features. I’d be concerned about viewing angles with a gaming monitor. I looked at all this stuff when I was TV shopping a few years ago.

Just get one with an HDMI input and buy a Roku. Never give the TV your wifi password.

Sorry to break this, Roku is about as bad for ad data sharing / tracking: https://advertising.roku.com/advertiser-solutions/oneview - any time you hear things like ‘full funnel attribution’, there is a good amount of adtech in the background.

As far as I know, Apple TV doesn’t do this, and Kodi + Raspberry Pi seems clear of it too.

For my part, I don't much care about the data sharing. My issue is that our smart tv has ads and the default software is terrible. I can't believe I spent so much money only to have a measurably worse experience. I ended up buying a Roku just because the software is easier to use than the junk that LG shipped. I use 2 other HDMI ports for different games consoles, so the "smart" tv is just a source of aggravation, and I feel insulted whenever it ends up in the default software and they show me a goddamn ad.

Maybe I should have gone with Kodi.

Kodi + Real Debrid on a Chromebox is pretty amazing.

If you care about privacy but still want to use something off-the-shelf, go for an Apple TV rather than Roku.

Apple is part of NSA's PRISM according to Snowden leaks.

If the data isn’t being collected, PRISM doesn’t matter.

A TV without smart software and a lot of ports is called a PC monitor.

A 70" 4k pc monitor sounds prohibitively expensive though.

Our of curiosity, do you know why that is? What makes TVs different from monitors? (Genuinely don’t know much about the space)

tl;dr; Monitors require high pixel density - you generally sit closer. Checkout this graph:

https://www.displayninja.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/best...

A 4k monitor of 32" and a 4k tv of 32" have same pixel density. But their price difference can be several fold. Pixel density is not the differentiator.

I guess that the consumer home TV panels aren't meant for extended hours of usage. Their overall lifespan would be a lot lesser than commercial display panels and monitors.

Hunch: burn in resistance could be a reason. TVs usually have something moving at all times, whereas a many folks have menu bars and applications that are more static and could burn at element in.

For a long time I found the single biggest difference between them to be:

Even the best TVs had atrocious latency compared to cheap monitors. I don’t really know why this is, but it likely has something to expensive transformations to the video signal to “improve” quality. I have very pricy 1080p Samsung TV from 2013. Even in “Game Mode” I has latency of over 100ms. This enough to be noticeable in just moving a mouse around, let alone gaming.

That has been mostly rectified nowadays. I have an LG C1 (42”) and use it for gaming and work. It has <1ms average latency and just enough pixel density for computer use. It does need a good desk though.

The biggest remaining differences would be:

- TVs tend to have a “smart interface”. This can generally be avoided if you are just switching between inputs. - TVs tend not to support DisplayPort input. - TVs tend require large desk stands and are not VESA compatible. You need a large desk to use one as a monitor. - Very few TVs with high quality panels are available in smaller more pixel dense sizes. I’m imagining this will become less of a problem with a move to 8k. - TVs tend to have almost unusable colour calibration out of the box. Rtings reviews tends to note how close the displays get to a standard colour profile after calibration. Many can be calibrated to a reasonable level though. - OLED panels are much more common in TVs.

Are there any TVs / monitors that hit the 55" level where the price isn't astoundingly different?

I have found this issue of latency to be a real challenge when connecting to a TV via HDMI so I'm curious if it gets better with larger TVs

If one of those ports is an antenna input then it is a TV. Otherwise it is a monitor. That's the "tele" in "television".

Apparently this is enforced by the regulators. If it has a tuner it will say "television" on the box. Otherwise it says something like "monitor" or "display".

TVs have wider viewing angles than PC monitors. It’s not a 1:1 comparison.

Unfortunately very few, if any computer monitors support a remote.

check out “commercial display” tvs. they always have ports and usually don’t come with as much software

AFAIK the problem with those is that they're overpriced and have inferior picture quality. I guess if you want to make a statement or something they're worth buying, but for now I still think your best choice is to buy a "smart tv" and don't connect it to wifi.

I was under the impression that commercial displays optimize for longevity instead of picture quality. Is that not the case?

Correct - they’re usually designed for always-on signage like you’d see at an airport.

I have somewhat smart TV, though bought couple of years back. It is not getting on the internet, it's only job is to receive signal over HDMI. I don't ever interact with its menus or other buttons expect power and volume, it stays on HDMI and is quite nice dumb TV.

From no TV to 70+ inch!!!

Look for a used signage panel. No commercial smart functions and quality that's barely available in consumer TVs but sometime can be had really cheap if you find the right place, look on govdeals, if your patient.

You can get any tv you like -as long as it has HDMI ports- and your choice of a TiVo, appletv, etc.

My last two tvs had smart crap built in; I never set any of ot up, not even as far as connecting to wifi.

you could always cast something to the TV from your computer or phone with no ads.

My worry is that TV manufacturers will have the capacity to overlay ads natively on the screen.

Not just that, they will have ability to monitor what you are playing and also listen to ambient sounds, fingerprint voices and also sense how many people are in the room.

They already do. I've seen it this week in my hotel room. It was a brand I've never heard of before. But at least when watching cable TV, the picture would turn into a PIP and ads were displayed in the frame.