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Comment by hapticmonkey | Hacker News Reader

My LG TV has been offline for the past 2 years (since I got it). I'm so much happier using the Apple TV.

I know people want "dumb" displays, but the reality is that these OLED panels offer industry-leading image quality and benefit from economies of scale, where most users want some form of built-in OS. A signage board cannot compete on price or quality. As long as TV manufacturers let me run it offline without issue, I'm fine with that.

Also fwiw, you can use apps like Infuse on the Apple TV for playing your own media files over the network. No Need for USB drives, just connect direct to the shared folder.

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> As long as TV manufacturers let me run it offline without issue, I'm fine with that.

I suspect that this won't be the case for much longer. Once you've stuffed the TV with all the ads and data harvesting you can, the logical next step is to ensure it doesn't work at all unless those ads are being watched and that data is being harvested.

I have used a projector my entire life, I have no idea why this isn’t a “thing” (especially with HN crowd-like communities)…

I have a projector that I never use because I don't like the fan noise.

They're great for sports though. Hard to beat an entire wall of screen.

I prefer OLED for TV and movies though.

if you have a family with daytime viewing habits, projectors are basically a no go. 100" tv, with better brightness and black levels, are getting down to $2k range. they only make sense for > 100", and you'll be sacrificing some quality for a bit of viewing angle, usually recovered by scooting your couch a bit closer. i like bright, which is why i no longer go to theaters, which never did make the transition to HDR that they promised over a decade ago.

> I'm so much happier using the Apple TV.

Then it is Apple that is harvesting your data. They may or may not display ads (I don't have an AppleTV to check), but they are certainly logging your interactions and possibly selling that data with third parties. That is on top of all the data Apple already has on people using iPhones, and the reason why I will never use anything other than a free/libre ROM like Graphene or Lineage.

Its terrible Apple is spying on you. But the alternative is to have someone spying on you and forcing ads on you. Sophie's choice.

I suggested in another comment a Linux HTPC or a Pi with a FOSS AndroidTV ROM as alternatives.

Mini PC with Linux + Jellyfin + web browser.

Some people want netflix or similar streaming services, and don't pirate. Which is limited via the browser.

> Then it is Apple that is harvesting your data.

They quite literally have settings to disable that. There are no ads in the operating system.

https://support.apple.com/en-au/guide/tv/atvb66239fa1/tvos

I'm sure some conspiratorial thinking would lead people to the conclusion that Apple are secretly tracking and selling data. There is no evidence to suggest this is happening.

It's probably the next best thing to setting up your own linux home theater PC. But that comes with trade-offs with UX and DRM blocking 4K streaming apps and lack of Dolby Vision playback.

You can convert dolby vision content while preserving the enhancement layer on Linux, and play that. It's kinda of a pain but easily automated.

>I'm sure some conspiratorial thinking would lead people to the conclusion that Apple are secretly tracking and selling data.

Apple in their privacy policy reserves the right to use your data for ads. They aren't secretly tracking, they are telling you so.

But it's no different than Google, who also doesn't sell your data. Just mining it to target ads.

My samsung and lg tvs also have options to disable data harvesting. The problem , however, is that just like the apple tv they all are black boxes that have no intention in respecting your choices, thus you can't trust that disabling those options is actually disabling all the data harvesting and tracking. Apple is not a saint.

> possibly selling that data with third parties.

Nope. According to the privacy policy

The privacy policy literally includes that they do?

> We provide some non-personal data to our advertisers and strategic partners that work with Apple to provide our products and services, help Apple market to customers, and sell ads on Apple’s behalf to display on the App Store and Apple News and Stocks. For example, we may share non-personal data about your transactions, viewing activity, and region, as well as aggregated user demographics such as age group and gender (which may be inferred from information such as your name and salutation in your Apple Account), to Apple TV strategic partners, such as content owners, so that they can measure the performance of their creative work, meet royalty and accounting requirements, and improve their associated products and services.

https://www.apple.com/legal/privacy/data/en/apple-tv-app/

I'm not refuting that they don't sell your data, I haven't checked. But your link is not relevant to the discussion.

It's the privacy policy of the Apple TV app, not the Apple TV device.

Apple TV is the best device for using Plex with a TV fwiw.

That's true, but not if you want to use HDR which the Apple TV + Plex sadly still don't support. Infuse on Apple TV does.

Some threads:

- https://www.reddit.com/r/appletv/comments/1azy0s9/current_st...

- https://forums.plex.tv/t/does-the-plex-app-supports-hdr10/89...

Infuse is a game-changer. I’ve been network streaming from my own media servers since the days of the original Xbox Media Center. Infuse is the best setup I’ve used. It a shame there’s nothing comparable in terms of polish on Linux or Android.

> signage board cannot compete on price or quality.

Those aren't the only two options. There are commerical TVs (eg in hotels) that are very close to standard TVs, but with a minimal interface.

> but the reality is that these OLED panels offer industry-leading image quality

Except in scenes with fire (like a campfire) or where some spots may have high brightness compared to the surroundings. The LG OLED TVs I’ve seen all go blank in such scenes. The TVs I’ve seen that have LCD panels don’t have this issue. It seems like the only way to disable it (after turning off power saving and a few other things) is to buy and use a service remote to turn off ASBL. From my online reading, it seems like doing this may void the warranty and probably have negative effects on the life of the panel.

I have an LG OLED and have never seen it go blank on any scene.

It just looks great all the time. Especially on scenes like you describe with a dark scene with bright highlights. Campfire scenes look great, space scenes look great. That's what OLED is best at.

If you're talking about ABL, I've only noticed the dimming on ads or powerpoint lectures that have fully white backgrounds, and I've been thankful for it at those times because I find all-white backgrounds too bright to watch anyway.

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