- cross-posted to:
- internetofshit@suppo.fi
- cross-posted to:
- internetofshit@suppo.fi
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“each new connected TV platform user generates around $5 per quarter in data and advertising revenue.”
Fuck me, this is the amount of money that’s enough motivation for them to ruin my experience and make me angry?
I guess regular users have much higher tolerance to ads than me, but our home has a strict zero ad policy.
I’ve heard somewhere else that it’s a 50/50 split between the TV sales and ad revenue
Roku is selling televisions at a loss with the intent on injecting ads based on whats on screen including detecting when you pause a show/game and injecting ads
Patient Pending…
That was the sentence that stuck out to me the most in the whole article as well. Incredible how much is lost for so little. I imagine it’s like drug dealers though, maybe $5 for the first seller, then gets chopped up and cut again and sold for less and chopped up again…
My question is, what are the alternatives? Other than finder older TVs without so much junkware and spyware, Are there open OS ROMs that can be loaded? Cracked firmware or debloated ROMs? I was very into Android’s launch 15 years ago and rode a train of options away from terrible stock ROMs from various OEMs; eventually privacy and simplicity becomes a selling point for OS after companies get through enshittifying it.
My question is, what are the alternatives? Other than finder older TVs without so much junkware and spyware, Are there open OS ROMs that can be loaded? Cracked firmware or debloated ROMs? I was very into Android’s launch 15 years ago and rode a train of options away from terrible stock ROMs from various OEMs; eventually privacy and simplicity becomes a selling point for OS after companies get through enshittifying it.
I’d like for us all to stop for a moment and appreciate just how thoroughly and comprehensively fucked up it is that Linux, which is what all these TVs are running and which is supposed to be Free Software (which exists for the express purpose of empowering the user’s right to control his device), has been subverted so goddamn badly!
Wow had no idea TVs ran on Linux. They should pull the license.
They should, but they won’t. Between Torvalds’ (wrong) opinion and the logistical issues of getting approval from all the other copyright holders, the Linux kernel will remain vulnerable to tivoization in perpetuity.
“commercial display” is a worth while route to explore. They do cover a wider range of image quality and features, so it does take paying close attention to specifications.
Be cautious with the commercial display route. A lot of them come with “management system” software the company is trying to push which can paywall control features or break things on you if they get online for firmware updates.
In general though they do make good displays: they are typically a lot more expensive (and heavy!)
If a company could pay $5 a customer for a competitive edge in customer satisfaction over their competitors, they would. Either they are getting way more than that or there is some cartel/monopoly action going on in the market. Maybe they are playing the long game to introduce an ad free model at a premium.
Still don’t see how nobody is undercutting existing players with ad free, smart tvs.
Why is basic math.
In a made up scenario let’s start with a dumb 50"ish TV. That cost them around $100 to build. Add in another $50 for shipping and distribution fees. It’s at the store for $150 cost. If they set the price at $400. There is $250 dollars of profit to share between the store and the manufacturer. The manufactuerer likely gets under $100.
Now for a smart TV the revenue stream looks different. First their costs only go up by a few dollars for adding the “smart” chips. So let’s say $155 cost. Then they collect revenue from the streaming providers to be supported by their smart TV say $30 per set. Then they collect the $20 per set per year in user data collected. So if they price the smart TV the same as the dumb one they generate $95 from the sale of the set.
So the profit from a dumb TV is $100 at he point of sale.
The profit from a smart TV is $225+ in a constant revenue stream over 5 years.
And this is why we see so much advertising for smart TV’s as being the best thing.
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I pity the poor fool who sets up their smart TV instead of just grabbing an HDMI cable and plugging in their computer.
That is beyond the capabilities of normies.
My wife would agree with this:
And I’ve got Plex running on an always on NAS.
Lmao that greentext was literally me before I finally set up arrstack. One of the best investments of my time, it has definitely paid off over many years of just having things automatically download.
My Arr’s are unreliable. The trackers they search keep becoming unavailable for some reason. Flaresolver doesn’t seem to work with my VPN setup. Sometimes the file it finds to download turns out to be 54GB for a 1080p movie and I can’t figure out what the hell is going on there either. I haven’t got the time to look into Usenet any time soon. If I try to deploy something and it doesn’t work 100% right off the bat then the “wife acceptance factor” drops to zero, so I’ve got to be damn certain before I start tinkering.
This comes off the back of a device on my network causing router issues and making Plex unreliable for a couple of weeks. By the time I diagnosed and fixed the issue, the damage was done and wife acceptance factor was lost.
Man that sucks. I must have gotten lucky or something with my setup. I also have trackers go unavailable all the time but I enabled 8 different ones and usually multiple will have the same torrent so it usually has no problem finding something even if 1 or 2 are down. I also don’t VPN tracker searches, just my BitTorrent client so flaresolverr seems to work fine for me (I only have it enabled for 2 of my trackers since most of the ones I use don’t seem to require it).
If you end up trying it out again I would look into the quality settings and make sure you’re not using the remux quality profile (edit: apparently the default 1080p quality profile has the 1080 remux quality enabled so this might have been the problem). By default most of the quality profiles seem to limit at 100MB/min, so a 2 hr movie shouldn’t allow anything over like 12GB. Whenever I tweak quality or custom formats I refer to trash guides which has a lot of battle-tested rules you can copy. I have my main quality profile set to only download qualities between hdtv720 and br1080 (which is just below remux) with custom formats copied from trash guides set to prefer hevc with surround sound since I have 5.1.
Thanks. Really helps to know where to start looking when I get time over the weekend.
You may also want to look into Usenet instead of torrents when you’re researching. Sonarr/Radarr/Readarr etc all work (in my opinion) better with Usenet.
You’ll need to pay some, but the reliability is amazing, which is extremely helpful for the partner acceptance factor. I pay for two providers (newsdemon is primary and eweka is a backup) and two indexers (drunkenslug and nzbfinder), and everything has been rock solid reliable for years. Download speeds are also MUCH faster than torrents.
Combine this setup with overseerr (or jellyseerr) so your partner can find their own things to download and you might be able to get them back on board.
Plus, no flaresolverr required!
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It seems like way more stuff than I want though
I mean yeah there’s a lot of stuff it does, but you can pick and choose what you want to use it for so it depends on what you would find useful - you don’t have to use the full automation. I started just by using it as a read-only way to see what movies I had and in what qualities and keep things organized. You can use it as a manual interface to do one-off downloads - basically just as an interface to search 5 torrent sites in 1 place where you are still picking exactly what you want it to download. You can use it only to rename files to a consistent format. So there are a lot of ways to use the various features of sonarr/radarr besides automatic downloads. You’re not forced to go all-in and out of the box it doesn’t start automatically downloading until you enable that.
I think it’s a common misconception that if you use sonarr/radarr you have to use download automation and set up trackers but it’s not the case. It’s a useful library organization tool even if you don’t ever have it download anything.
That was definitely my misconception
I’m glad to clear it up! It’s a super powerful tool, and I still occasionally skip the automation and just use it for manual searches since it reduces that process to a single click to search all configured torrent sites and a single click to download and have the rest automatically handled.
Before when I was visiting friends and wanted to quickly add something to plex, I used to need remote access to my torrent client and separate remote access to my NAS filesystem to move/rename files when downloads finish which was a really manual process. Now all I need is the reverse-proxied sonarr/radarr UI since it handles moving/copying/renaming on download completion - and while the UI isn’t mobile-first, it’s very usable and feels less error-prone than moving/renaming files remotely using a file explorer app.
This is the way
Ive been pretty happy so far with roku and blocking stuff with pihole, but every day I am more and more tempted to build a media pc…
This is the way to go. I tried pihole using Samsung smart features, but if you block the telemetry eventually your apps stop working and you can’t get them working again without doing a factory reset with blocking down. It’s prohibitively a pain in the ass, taking hours every time YouTube stops working.
Never had any issues with Roku on pihole.
Depends on your blocklist. It would freak out every so often on me when I was preventing it from bypassing my DNS with its hard coded ones until I added in a forced redirect instead.
Currently trying that for the same reasons you are tempted. Roku was passable and even a good choice years ago and it’s on a precipitous race to the bottom now.
Problem for me currently is finding a non windows solution that is navigable from a controller or remote is … tough. Steam, emulation station, Kodi all have reasonable interfaces but there seems to be a gap in a unified launcher solution (as well as a decent ‘app’ for accessing YouTube.) I really don’t want to spin up a single VM for each activity when they all in theory should play nice together.
My solution to this problem is Jellyfin, fed by usenet-backed sonarr/radar and Tubesync to pull in YouTube channel subscriptions. Those are added to a Jellyfin library which is accessible right next to movies and tv shows.
This is all through the Jellyfin app on a 2019 Nvidia Shield Pro. It’s a perfect couch-friendly setup. For just regular YouTube browsing, SmartTube can be installed on the Shield and on your phone. You can then cast to the SmartTube app on the Shield instead of to the YouTube app.
It seems we have similar backend setups 🏴☠️
I’ll need to dig into an android solution a bit - smarttube seems pretty nice but has no Linux version unfortunately.
Exactly what I’ve been looking for too, and have come up wanting. I got excited recently about finding KDE Plasma Big Screen, but then it falls at the last hurdle on the app selection.
That gave me abandoned vibes when I looked into it. Maybe they just didn’t update anything on their site but I struggled to find any recent info or reviews on it. A shame honestly. I loved the idea.
Looks like it was released in 2022, and I haven’t been following the development but the github looks like it has changes as recent as two weeks ago. I had just assumed that the lack of apps is primarily the big streaming content providers not opting to allow apps on an OS without a shitload of telemetry because it’s not in their interest.
Yeh, if I ever see my TV’s OS I’m like “fuck off! HDMI4!”
Ew.
That is my preference, but my wife says she prefers only one step (turning on and using the TV) over multiple (turning on the TV, turning on the secondary system and using multiple controllers) so we go with the simpler setup per her request.
I did put my TVs on a Wi-Fi network separate from my main one so, while they do show ads as much as my pihole allows, at least they’re theoretically only spying on each other.
With HDMI-CEC you can achieve what your wife wants. I have one remote to turn on my Nvidia Shield (with Plex, Jellyfin, Netflix, etc), and that same remote also controls all TV functions.
We had a samsung 4k curved tv that has ads on the input menu, and the ad space is filled with a samsung ad if the set has never connected to the internet.
It also harasses you with a pop up about connecting occasionally on startup.
It’s bearable but absurd. We returned it on principle
i for one cannot wait for this future
I went to a buddy’s house to watch TV and that’s how his Xbox Live looks like.
Like they’re so oblivious and he’s paying for that shit.
With that level of ads, they should get paid to watch it.
Shut up and drink your verification can
Has it got electrolytes?
Best we can do is 5 minutes worth of additional in-game currency
*Start menu in windows 11
… both Microsoft products … weird.
Mine is a monitor and nothing more.
Literally came here to say that. HDMI is king!
DisplayPort is superior
Definitely, but unfortunately TV’s don’t usually have DP.
Any TV can have DP if you watch the right videos.
Bonus points for buying a smart TV to get the heavily discounted price and never connecting it to the internet.
Some of the brands have been reported to not allow you to do anything until it has an internet connection to do its “initial setup” (or some such excuse).
I hope I can find a list of which ones to avoid when I have to eventually replace my old dumb TV.
Even then, you’re still having to wait for its CPU to fuck around with the image and sound before it actually outputs it,
I am so genuinely surprised that there isnt a bigger movement to hack TVs to replace the OS’s on them with non-invasive open software alternatives.
Especially with shit like this.
Because it’s not actually necessary; leave the TV isolated from the internet and use a set-top box (Apple TV, Shield, game console) as the media player.
While I agree, I think this solution is some nonsense. I bought a “TV” and paid for all the hardware and software that went into it, but I essentially have to use it as a monitor with my own hardware to escape the enshittification.
I also agree, but I view it more as ‘I bought a TV, and that’s all I want it to be’.
I don’t care about the built in software features foisted on me because I wanted an OLED panel; simply because they are going to be abandoned within 1-2 years, are powered by some anaemic chipset that is already multiple generations behind what is already available in my TV stand; and will likely end up as an attack vector to my network some period down the road.
The article mentions that TV manufacturers make ~$5 a quarter from selling your data. So those ‘features’ aren’t even free, they come at the expense of your personal information, privacy and likely security as a result.
So to quote a famous Dave Chapelle skit: “fuck ‘em, that’s why!”
simply because they are going to be abandoned within 1-2 years, are powered by some anaemic chipset that is already multiple generations behind what is already available in my TV stand; and will likely end up as an attack vector to my network some period down the road.
You do realize all of that would probably cease being a problem if people were able to hack their TVs to install custom OS’s.
all the spyware bullshit would also be gone with a custom OS.
Literally every one of your gripes would be addressed and fixed by being able to hack your TV
Custom OS isn’t going to address the anaemic hardware, nor do I think relying on open-source custom ROMs for a niche item is the best way to ensure any hardware-level vulnerabilities are covered.
If you already have an Internet-connected device hooked up to your TV (eg. PlayStation); there is no need to connect another, especially when it provides an overall worse experience.
Shit, a basic HTPC is infinitely better - using a Linux-based distribution (which will have a lot more support vs. a niche TV ROM), and it’ll be supported well beyond what the hardware could handle.
Custom OS isn’t going to address the anaemic hardware, nor do I think relying on open-source custom ROMs for a niche item is the best way to ensure any hardware-level vulnerabilities are covered.
Not only would it give “anemic” hardware new life, I can point at how its already been done at another in home device. Routers. DDWRT/OpenWRT/Tomato do exactly that for old, otherwise useless routers.
Literally every single argument you make can make against it has been proven wrong, and has in other devices, be addressed with a custom OS/Firmware that is designed for purpose without all the bloat and other BS.
You can adamantly say “Nuh uh!” all you want, but it doesnt change the facts.
You can buy PS5s for every TV in your house if you want to, Not everyone has that money, luxury, or stubborn desire.
That anemic device uses hardware decoding in order to be able to decode the video data fast enough - it is literally unable to handle newer video encodings fast enough because it would have to do software decoding, which is were the anemic part totally kills it.
Routers on the other hand have been entirely done in software for ages (with at most hardware support for the encryption in things like SSL, which hasn’t changed in decades) and don’t have to reliably process 4k of data within 20 ms (for 50Hz) time frames.
Your example is very much an apples and oranges comparison.
Good luck implementing all the display color calibration, pixel refresher, anti-burn in features, etc… on these new TV panels. Personally I’d rather keep my warranty and just use a separate device to run the apps.
Kind of, I haven’t had to buy a new tv to replace my dumb tv from 2014 but my understanding is that these awful smart TVs are at least cheaper because they’re subsidised by all the ads. If that’s the case, at least you didn’t actually fully pay for the hardware and can hopefully afford to put your own on there without being out of pocket by too extreme an amount.
That’s not really true because even the high end top of the line Samsung QD-OLED TVs have ads on the home screen if you connect Internet. If you want the latest display technology, your only options are Smart TV with ads, or spending 10x the price for a commercial display that nobody will actually sell you.
They can’t show you ads if you never connect them to the internet
I happen to work for a commercial touch screen and android OEM. In my position, I needed to test a 50” 4K IDS display, and since i work from home it had to be shipped to me and we don’t exactly have a “return” option. It’s now in my bedroom with an Apple TV 4K on it.
You’re right. This is likely the only way to get a “dumb” display and tbh it’s not even the “best” display tech because it’s for commercial use, designed to run for longer hours with higher reliability at the cost of the newer fancier bells and whistles. But i didn’t pay for it and it’d pretty decent. I’m not complaining. And you’re also right that no one will actually sell you one of these. You have to buy it through a distributor at volume. Getting one outside of my weird circumstances as a one-off is basically not possible at all.
Which is exactly where you were before smart TVs.
The best solution os actually to keep the decoder smarts separate from the actual displaying of image because those two things have different life-cycles and different costs.
A decent TV screen will last you decades and work fine at doing what it does, with the only pressures to upgrade being video connectors - which change maybe once every 2 decades and usually you can use adaptors to give them another 2 decades or so of life - higher resolutions - which make no difference unless you have a very large screen, something which requires a large living room to view at the optimal distance and in which case what really drove you to replace it was not obsolescence - and screen tech advances - which is another of those “every couple of decades it changes but the old ones are generally still fine” kind of thing.
Media Playing, on the other hand, has its life-cycle linked to video encoding and compression which change every 5 years or so and either you have a seriously overpowered generic CPU there (which smart TVs do not) or you have hardware decoding, and in the latter case new video encodings require new hardware with support for them.
So your TV with built-in decoding - i.e. “smart” TV - will need to be replaced more frequently driven by the need to support new digital formats, even though the part that costs the most by far - the screen - is still perfectly good. On the other hand if your media player functionality is separate, all you have to replace with some frequency is the much cheaper media box whilst only replacing the much more expensive screen side once in a blue moon.
Smart TVs are great for manufacturers because they force people to replace the TV much more often hence they sell 2 or 3 times more TVs, but they’re in the mid and long term a really bad option for actual buyers who needlessly spend much more on TVs, not to mention Ecologically with all those perfectly good screens ending up in landfills because the $20 worth of “smarts” tied to a $1000 screen is not capable of handling new video encoding formats.
Many of the cheap TVs with Roku built in require you to set up a Roku account before you can even use the HDMI inputs. After setting up your account you can disconnect it from the internet and use it as a normal TV, but I spent a while trying to get around this block. In the end I had to create a Roku account.
That sounds awful; hopefully you were at least able to poison their DB with a fake name and a 10minutemail (or similar) account?
Basically, though I tend to use GMX email aliases for these sorts of useless signups. I don’t want some temporary email account to be all that’s needed to get control over my TV should I ever connect it to the internet again.
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Ironically the billboards in my town seem to be disappearing due to lack of use.
The billboards are the only thing that aren’t billboards.
“We estimate we can sell up to 80% of an individual’s visual field before inducing seizures.” ~Nolan Sorrento
I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but if your screens are showing you ads then they aren’t your screens…
Average users will not have the knowledge or patience for work arounds.
Imo, the larger problem seems to be the majority of users appear to be fine with ads and data collection just to watch a movie or series.
Imo, the larger problem seems to be
the majority of users appear to be fine with ads and data collectiona lax and ineffective regulation.“Voting with your wallets” is a false premise dreamed up by corporate to avoid govt regulation and has not and will never be a real thing that works in this world of monopoly and lack of option.
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You can either vote with your wallet or do nothing…
Working people have no way to lobby government, shortage of a revolution, real people make decisions for benefit of other real people.
NPCs are just here to enrich them both.
You can either vote with your wallet or do nothing
I don’t want to fight here, we agree. In fact i bet we agree on a lot. But VWYW is, i can not stress this enough, not a thing. If it ever was in our lifetimes, it ain’t now. Its time the phrase was dropped outta everyone’s mouth.
You can purchase something that thru your effort does not do most of the awful things you are trying to avoid, that’s being a smart customer. It’s not like I’m dismissing the entire idea behind VWYW, just that it is simply that now, it’s an idea that doesn’t work with the facts on the ground.
The power of our “wallet ballots” gets lower when Monopoly power gets higher. Monopoly power is very high. VWYW power is in this world, in this moment, not a thing.
My point, is a simple but strident one. VWYW is not voting! It just isn’t.
It has absolutely no effect on the world around us. Puts no pressure on companies. Is not a thing except in our heads. It is time to let go of the idea.
And yeah…working people like you and me have no power period. “Voting with your wallet” is now simply a power fantasy pushed by capitalists to keep regulations at bay and held by the powerless clinging to an illusion of agency.
I don’t agree but you can either vote with your wallet or mindlessly consume.
One is better than the other but yeah 80% of spending is not really discretionary… Gonna need to get a rental, gonna need healthcare, transports education etc
But you can stop drinking soda for example… It ain’t much but it is something.
People don’t have to pay subscriptions either…
I … think i understand what you’re saying. You don’t agree with my definition of VWYW? I don’t wanna assume, but i think maybe you define it as reckless vs thoughtful spending?
Mine has to do with the effectiveness of our purchases in driving market trends. They do not.
You don’t have to buy a subscription to Netflix, but deciding not to isn’t changing anything for anyone (besides saving you 15 bux).
After nearly three years of price increases, signs that buyers have had enough are starting to mount. On Thursday, the food and beverage giant PepsiCo reported a 0.5 percent decline in revenues in the second quarter in its Frito-Lay snack business from year-ago levels, a result of a 4 percent drop in volumes in the category.
I think maybe we voted with our wallets against $6 chips but you could probably convince me otherwise in a paragraph :)
Well sir I’m always down for a nice discussion, you had me at hello. But youre in trouble if you only wanted a paragraph 🤣
Your link is great evidence to your point. It absolutely does reinforce the idea, with evidence that voting with your wallet does indeed affect change. I should say also my point isnt VWYW doesn’t ever work but that it has very little power.
I’d like to suggest that same article also helps mine, at least some.
Point being it shows VWYW (at the consumer level) didn’t have the power to stop the inflation of chips in the first place. Leaving aside the illusion of choice, the current system has taken the power of VWYW out of our hands almost completely.
The fact that PepsiCo even has that kind of market power is beyond question at this point right?
I’m not saying anything controversial if i take it further, that supply chains between our bag of chips and Pepsico, (distributors, grocery stores etc) are also consolidated, yeah?
At each step of the process, market consolidation reduced the ability of the companies within that chain to VWTW, and they pass the costs on down to the next link who also has no ability to VWTW. At the end of this chain we sit with our wallets, but the power has been diminished before we got to open them. Just like the lesser evil, VWTW becomes a choice of voting between ALL chips that cost more across the board or no chips at all.
That’s what i mean when i say VWYW in this system, at this time, is meaningless.
Yeah that’s well put. All this advocacy for adblockers and not accepting the awful state of things fall on deaf ears, most people don’t care, they accept the state of things as it is, and technology as magic.
People deserve better and should expect/demand better.
But that’s the thing. To play the devil’s advocate:
Should expect/demand better
Should they? Says who? Us - who to most people are - “weird computer people” for knowing how to navigate an excel spreadsheet?
We know it sucks. But they’re entitled to think it’s fine, especially since we’ve made so much noise about this for the past decade that it’s hard to imagine anyone is uneducated still.
“Liberating” the masses in this manner seems like a crusade up the alley of Don Quixote.
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They’re not “fine with ads and data collection” so much as they don’t care and can’t be bothered to look for a better way.
It’s just apathy and a bit of lazy inertia.
they don’t care and can’t be bothered to look for a better way.
This implies they are fine with it by tacit agreement.
No, it implies that they don’t understand that there is an option.
Your average user would also never be on lemmy to see this, at least for now.
and i bet if most users would not put up with that, they would remove hdmi ports.
First thing I thought of, Idiocracy, love that movie.
It’s not a movie, it’s a documentary. :(
I wish the programming we got was that good
Instead we get reality tv where as soon as someone says they like it. I find them unattractive
I can barely see the ads whilst sailing the high seas. IP is the fakest of P.
Yar me hearties! There be booty on that there internet!
Disconnected my TV from the Internet. I stream media from a PC on my lan to Kodi running on a fire stick. Setup openwrt to drop all packets to wan from the fire stick. These companies can get fucked and if they ever figure out a way to stop me from owning my devices, I’ll just take up some new hobbies and be done with it all.
That’s great for you, but people like you vastly underestimate how much hassle people are willing to go through as far as setting up tech goes.
I connected my PC to the TV via HDMI. i use Firefox with ublock.
See, that’s more realistic.
I’d need a dedicated computer, because my PC doesn’t live in the lounge, but I’m seriously considering doing it. My Chromecast has been pissing me off lately.
Look at some n95 NUCs on Amazon, or any mini pc really. Often less than 200$ for a full windows PC that can stream anything you throw at it.
You can get decently capable machines for under $100 if you go used
You can buy small PCs for cheap now. A lot of them don’t even need active cooling
This is the only way for me.
No Amazon or Google or Nvidia stuff. Just an old PC, a cheap wireless keyboard with a touchpad and you are good to go.
Overestimate
Yep. LG OLED disconnected from all web connections - literally has its MAC address blacklisted from my router, changed the launcher from stock Google for my NVIDIA Shield to a non ad-riddled launcher called WOLF, side-loaded SmartTube for ad-free YT, and Plex = non-dystopian media experience.
My next experiment will be to install a glue-tun bound Invidious instance via docker on my NAS, and then point Yattee on my iPhone to it for a mobile version of YT that’s not filled with non-stop ads… now if I can just figure out how to launch it correctly… 😓
Yep, same here.
Samsung TV cannot reach the internet. Nvidia Shield is running Flauncher as the default launcher. I watch all my content through Jellyfin and SmarttubeNext.
I have not seen an ad in years.
Your TV may still search for open network and send telemetry back home this way. Connect it somewhere and drop all packets here too if you want to fix this.
Didn’t think about that, thanks.
Server to host media. Super easy to set up and can run on a Windows client. Don’t even need an independent server to run it on. https://jellyfin.org/
https://kodi.tv/ (or https://libreelec.tv/ for an OS that boots to just Kodi)
Application to watch through Kodi https://github.com/jellyfin/jellycon
Client to run Kodi on: MeLE PCG02 Mini PC Stick https://a.co/d/1EGnekO
If you didn’t want to install LibreELEC to the PC and just want to keep Windows, you could run Kodi in Kiosk mode and it would boot directly to it just like LibreELEC.
I have not watched normal TV in years, let alone an ad on my TV. I spoke to my neighbors one day and figured out they were paying ~$60 a month for all their streaming services, and they’re STILL getting ads…
Stuff like this is unacceptable, and I refuse to partake in the lunacy and delusion that is modern television.
Also Plex as an alternative to Jellyfin with a way better UI and better app support
And also a good degree of bugs and enshittification
Wait plex or jellyfin? Both?
Edit: thanks y’all
Plex. Its been getting shittier for years.
Meanwhile JF has been improving in leaps and bounds.
Since he mentions enshittification, I assume he means Plex.
However I am pretty sure both will have some bugs. I use jellyfin, so I can only speak about that. But one annoyance is that the androidTV app sometimes doesn’t have the best subtitle support. However it allows you to open movies in external players, which is a workaround.
I bought a lifetime plex pass once and have no issues since. HW encoding works out of the box, the scanners do their job and I can use their apps on every platform. I had to disable the Plex offered free movies once, the horror. Don’t act like Plex is some Google level shit of annoyance or ‘enshittification’.
Jellyfin on the other hand has atrocious UI that basically screams the absence of any sort of UI designer into your face, the HW encoding is a mess to set up and the apps are a jungle of different 3rd party apps…
I never said Plex is google-level enshittification, don’t project words in my mouth. What is a fact though is that it is undergoing enshittification and that it’s a buggy mess and video transcoding might work for you, but it’s a well known source of pain for others. It could be better on Jellyfin too, but nowhere near as difficult to set up, even on weird/unsupported systems.
UI screams no designer
Idk what you’re on about, not even LTT Linus pointed out any issues with the UI and he is no Linux CLI wizard.
If anything it’s far simpler to use than Plex because it doesn’t have the dark pattern bullshit into it.
You load the app, you hit movies or TV shows, hit your favourite movie or TV show and play. It’s not complicated at all, no need to click past the various upsells and no need to buy battle passes just to watch a film.
The only thing this supposed absence of a “UI designer” seems to have brought is the absence of upsells and enshittification/dark patterns.
My TV is a smart TV whose smart features I never, ever use because the first thing it does is switch to the input my Apple TV is on.
Ironic really that the reason I chose an LG is because webOS seems less cunty than Android TV and whatever shit Samsung are offering. But I still never use it.
I was pleasantly surprised that my Sony tv has a basic option so you can use it just as a screen. All smart stuff disabled.
webOS seems less cunty than Android TV
Every time they do an update, things get worse. But my last TV had some dying pixels, so there’s no going back.
Can you install separate launchers on webOS? I installed a launcher on my Android TV and haven’t seen an ad since, even with smart features.
There is a certain unfortunate irony in the realization that one of the easiest ways to avoid this kind of thing is to buy a commercial digital signage panel intended for advertising instead of a consumer TV.
Or just don’t connect it to wifi and use hdmi media players that don’t have ads in the OS.
Start buying commercial displays. Cost more but will be about as close to a dumb tv. You will have to provide your own smart device for apps …
Commercial displays are not tvs. Quite often the refresh rate is terrible and you cannot watch action movies on it, because it was designed to show static billboard ads.
Not to mention if you want an OLED display, any sort of commercial variant of that will be $10000+ and marketed to Hollywood producers and other creative industries that care about color accuracy.
Or hear me out… Just don’t give it an internet connection.
Some TVs listen for open networks and use those, so if there is one near you your TV could sneak out either way.
open the back of the TV, locate the arial on the board and scratch away the traces leading to it.
If it doesn’t have the passphrase for wifi, how is it going to connect? I rarely see unsecured wifis around neighborhoods anymore. For copper/fiber, you’re not going to hook it up to keep it disocnnected.
It’s not that simple.
Here’s an example: Amazon could outfit all of their delivery vehicles with open wifi networks. Every Alexa device calls home when a truck drives by.
Here’s another: you may have a guest wifi, or your neighbor, or their neighbor. All it needs is one.
Yeah of course there are solutions to faraday cage it away from the world. But all they need is one connection. You have to stop it forever.
Guest wifi does not mean it is unsecure, it is simply just another logical network. Sure amazon could equip their trucks with wifi I suppose and maybe some TVs would have good connection to update fast enough while a truck is there without a lot of tcp retransmits due to lack of efficient lack of penetration but that’s not going effect all brands and surely it isn’t something that is currently happening in a large effect.
You could talk about hypotheticals in the future sure but they aren’t going to scan for these magical “network ports” that are just hanging around the ether. It needs to have a connection and one that is reasonable in quality and time.
If it doesn’t have the passphrase for wifi
Open networks have no passphrase. Otherwise they wouldn’t be open. And yes they’re less common but it doesn’t mean you’re neighbor can’t set one up at any given time.
Cheaper TV’s sometimes won’t function without one.
So buy one that’s a little more expensive and will. It’s still going to be tons cheaper that a commercial display and offer better performance
This is what I did. Works fine for my needs. My older relatives hate it but they rarely come over.
Since at one point in the near future I’ll be shopping for a TV, is there such a thing as a good quality panel TV that is dumb? I intend to hook it up to a PC or a set top box. Alternatively, is there a smart TV that can be easily bootloader unlocked and rooted without consequences (similarly to how a Pixel phone can)? I realise this is even more niche than unlocking/rooting a phone, but still, someone might have ideas.
I just bought a smart TV, updated the software, and disconnected it from the Internet, only allowing it access to our local Plex server. No ads and no stupid suggestions. It’s great.
You could also try this, apparently.
Oh, that’s clever! Definitely bookmarking that for future reference.
Anyone have a non-Spez link?
Might be cheaper than a purposedly dumb TV nowadays too, despite the receiver. It’s ridicolous.
Get a non-consumer TV if you can. They’re more expensive but are actually built to last, have way more features and you can swap in whatever compute board you want so you’re not stuck with an underpowered Android TV board.
I’m very interested in this. Any suggestions as far as specific models to look at, or where to source one without needing a fancy business vendor connection? Maybe a trustworthy review site to compare some options?
I’ve not looked into it much other than seeing it in this video by Jeff Geerling and making a mental note for next time I’m in the market for a TV but it may be of interest to you.
I’m sorry I can’t provide more details than that, but it’s basically a digital signage TV designed to run 24/7 for years, and as such is actually built without the absolute bargain basement parts that go into consumer units.
3000 dollars
Guess I’ll continue to use my old computer and an hdmi connection to a physically Wi-Fi disabled smart tv. I understand why it costs what it does but fuck.
Try a Spectre t.v. they’re made for digital signage. I got one and hooked it up to a media server.
Seems promising, but also seems to be an US thing. I should’ve mentioned I’m in the EU.
Ah, my bad. Sorry.
They seem to be consumer grade, but dumb. Does someone here have one? How are the refresh rates? Can I play FPS games with at least 60hz on it?
I have one. It’s 4k, which gave me some trouble from an Ubuntu media server, and the refresh rate is ~144, I believe. It cost me something like 300-400 USD.
Awesome, then I’ll probably get one. Thank you!
It’s also 60", which is absurdly large to me lol. Glad I could help, though.
It was maybe 7 years ago now, but I bought a dumb Sceptre TV and it still works great. Was only $300 at the time.
Scepter televisions are a great option, no “smart” features at all. Bought two of them about 6 years ago and no issues.
My LG OLED TV can be configured to load directly into a HDMI input. I keep it disconnected from wifi at all times. I never see the smartTV OS. It’s probably the best option because OLED panels are the best current display technology.
I use an AppleTV as an external media box for all my needs. But the same would apply for an Android box or HTPC setup etc.
I’m still a bit concerned about OLED - my main gripes being 1) the potential for burn in and 2) the somewhat limited maximum brightness. Still, thanks for the suggestion.
