Not to mention that after 6 years the TV becomes useless junk killed by bulky modern app updates. I think there is a market for something like "Framework TV".
I just want to watch a film.
I don't want to hack my forks either. Or my microwave. I just want to heat stuff and then shovel it in the appropriate foodhole so I can get on with things.
This place isn't for just hackers, not anymore at least. And that brings good and bad.
I recently acquired a very old Sony TV it reminded me how lag-free TV interfaces are supposed to work. But nooooo LG is like "we're going to make great TVs but the UI is a poorly written web page running on a 386, enjoy!"
No separate box seems to do all of 4K, Atmos, Dolby Vision, HDR10+, HLG without some weird restriction like 'except the Netflix app'. Even worse if you wanted DV IQ I assume, but I think my TV doesn't support it anyway.
And honestly I think I prefer WebOS to Fire sticks' UI for example. Stock Android TV isn't great either. If I was into playing Xbox/PS games I imagine that would make a better 'hub', since it's presumably (I have no idea) more organised around your own content/games at least rather than random adverts and features you don't want. Also probably more money being spent on designing it.
The home screen on my LG TV seems to devote the top 60% of the page to sponsored content. Is this not an issue for you?
But my friend has a Samsung TV and it shows him ads for things he can buy from eBay, ads for games etc. in a similar area .. and yeah that's nonsense, that would really get on my nerves.
I can't decide if it's better to check for such things before purchase, or just return it as defective if I end up getting a model that does this.
If it doesn't say on the box "requires constant internet to function" in big bold letters, it should.
That would be a ridiculous requirement, because people expect that TVs need electricity. But the producer can argue that people these days also expect TVs to need the internet, can't they?
You can fix that with a piece of tap or blu-tack.
Coordinated asshole design.
A NUC is generally the way to go for smart TV functionality in general, IMO: you get way longer support, and it's much easier to diagnose problems as compared to some locked-down, proprietary, do-it-ourselves OS.
Also, you cat reset an old, slow TV, put it in "dumb" mode, then add something like a Vero V or another box.
You can make an OLED visibly burn in within a couple months if you max the brightness, cover it in static content and then leave it running constantly.
Or it can last a decade if used lightly, on lower brightness, with good burn-in compensation software, with few to no static images.
2004 is the first year I remember watching a HD widescreen TV show (Lost). There were a handful of test clips and the like earlier, but they were a rare thing. E.g.: there's a HD video taken of the aftermath of 9/11 because the operator was just learning to use this (at the time) brand new technology.
That lasted about a decade, and then 4K become a thing around the 2013-2014 timeframe. I got a Sony 4K TV in late 2013 and a Dell 4K monitor in 2014.
However, both of those were standard dynamic range, albeit with a fairly "wide" colour gamut.
I got my first OLED HDR display in 2021, and an OLED HDR TV in 2022.
In other words, every "generation" of television technologies has lasted about a decade before being superseded by something significantly newer and better.
Display technology still has some ways to go. No current consumer panel reproduces 100% of the Rec.2020 colour gamut. Similarly, there are no consumer panels that can reproduce the full HDR10 or Dolby Vision brightness range of up to 10,000 nits. There are 8K displays that are close to that target spec, but they're either one-off experimental models or more expensive than a luxury car.
A decade from now, around 2033 mark, I full expect something like VR technology to have replaced TVs for many people. Apple's new headset (available next year!) will set a new quality bar that no traditional TV can ever hope to match, such as an extremely wide field of view, stereo, and very bright HDR in combination. Sure, they're expensive now, but after a decade of further development? They'll be amazing and cheap.
Many young people live by themselves and can't afford a "huge" TV. Meanwhile VR will give them a virtual TV as big as they like.
Another potential future technology that might obsolete the current 55-85 inch typical TV sizes is "OLED wallpaper", or something similar that would allow wall-sized televisions.
Even before the 2030s I expect something like quantum nanorods to replace OLED panels, potentially allowing up to 10,000 nits in an affordable panel that doesn't suffer from burn-in.
On another front, I've noticed a lot more people watching something like TikTok, YouTube, or Netflix on their hand-held devices instead of traditional TV. I can picture a future super-thin, super-light Apple iPad with an OLED HDR display becoming very popular, especially for people on a budget that can't afford a huge TV.
You are likely right about your specific use cases. Though you might also want to see how early on some people predicted that TV would never take off, because families just didn't have the time for it.
We don't have a TV at home, and we would just do different activities in the situations you described. (But, yes, those activities in these situations would likely not include hanging out with headsets on.)
I have a 4K OLED from 2018. Since then, I think the only notable improvement in the models from the same manufacturer is maybe enhanced-ARC? That is a neat feature, but not sufficient imo. Maybe a 120Hz refresh rate, but very little content even uses 60, let along 120 - at least in the cinema and TV space.
Why is that?
They also shift the image around by a few pixels to prevent logos and tickers from permanently marking the screen.
And when turned off, they also try to level the brightness of individual pixels by displaying different patterns - again to combat "burn-in".
How much TV are you people watching such that this statement becomes even remotely accurate? My 2017 LG OLED display says it has 6400 power-on hours and it looks as good as new.
https://www.marketingcharts.com/television/tv-audiences-and-...
Still, the objective tests from RTINGS seem to suggest that it's the LCD sets that look all fucked up after a few years, while almost all the OLED ones look perfect. And they OLED sets aren't showing a downtrend in overall brightness over time.
https://www.rtings.com/tv/learn/longevity-results-after-10-m...
I've tried to get her to change oh so many times, all in vain...
No rational explanation either. Just... that's how she rolls I guess.
For the lifespan of the screen, it doesn't matter if anyone actually directs their eyes at it.