5 ms·
How fucking hard is it to make a competent display? I feel like the A/V market is ripe for disruption. Sell a quality line of displays with no "smart" crap and
by coldpie 10y ago
How fucking hard is it to make a competent display? I feel like the A/V market is ripe for disruption. Sell a quality line of displays with no "smart" crap and a relatively low-cost receiver with no "smart" crap, a usable front-end with tons of A/V features and a dozen inputs of different types.
This must be harder than I think it is, because no one is doing it.
- maxxxxx 10y agoI think "smart" stuff can be produced cheaply but sold expensively. It may be hard to make money on a basic display.
- gshulegaard 10y agoThis is my suspicion as well. It's also why the "top of the line" TVs from a display specification perspective also have "SMART" baked in as well. That said, is this LG issue because it has smart stuff or because it lacks appropriate shielding? The article kind of hints that it's a lack shielding.
- digikata 10y agoI don't know about most consumers, but the "smart" stuff is a big product negative feature when I'm shopping. I'd much rather add an external device of my choosing, Roku or Apple TV or something else than use the TV internal "smart" apps/channels which may or may not get updated. Now if some TV added a nice little shelf space, or mount point for an external box behind the TV - I would think that would be a selling feature. You can just not activate/use the feature, but I find I keep tripping over the button on the remote.
- maxxxxx 10y agoSomehow this stuff seems to sell. Same for Android phones. I hate that every manufacturers feels they need to add some crappy custom UI on top of stock Android but they keep doing it.
- thwarted 10y agoFor the same reason ISPs and telcos have traditionally included "value-adds" on their Internet connectivity, like email accounts, portals, news, business websites, etc, etc, etc, because they don't want to become commodity "dumb pipes". The phone manufacturers need to create and push non-standard (and often broken) app launchers and branded skins in order to differentiate, otherwise they'd just be another Android phone maker, rather than, say, the manufacturer of the Samsung phone.
- scarface74 10y agoI agree. With the exception of TVs with Roku built in. One remote that was intended to control the TV and the Roku functionality.
- coldpie 10y agoI feel like there's an easy Kickstarter grab here for some startup founded by someone with experience in display manufacturing......
- delecti 10y agoI would love a normally priced TV with no smart crap, but would absolutely not back a Kickstarter for one. It's really just not the right platform for that.
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- delecti 10y agoMy understanding is that you're overestimating the cost to manufacture the "smart" crap. The basic hardware is so inexpensive that they don't really lose much to just cram some extra crappy software (crappy software that is extra, or software which is extra crappy, your pick) onto the hardware that already has to go into the TV.
- coldpie 10y agoLeaving the "smart" crap out isn't for cost savings, it's to create a higher quality product. I will even pay more for a TV with fewer features to get in the way.
- untog 10y agoYou're in a minority, though - that's the problem. Stuff like TVs have huge benefits to manufacturing at scale. Counter-intuitive though it might seem, it'll be cheaper per-unit to produce a TV with smart TV crap with a market of one million than it will be to make a basic TV with a market of ten thousand.
- blacksmith_tb 10y agoBut the manufacturer might stand to poach 10K incremental sales if they just added a small "disable (outdated) smart functions" switch to the back of the unit...
- ethbro 10y ago> it'll be cheaper per-unit to produce a TV with smart TV crap with a market of one million than it will be to make a basic TV with a market of ten thousand I would go even farther and say that (in longer term accounting) it will be much cheaper to produce a smart TV with 10,000 sales than a basic TV with 10,000 sales. Or haven't we learned that the first thing a processor + network connectivity is used for is extracting marketable analytics?
- cr0sh 10y ago> I will even pay more for a TV with fewer features to get in the way. Look up "Retail Digital Signage" and "Retail Video Displays" (and similar terms) - for instance: http://www.planar.com/products/large-format-displays/ultrares/ http://www.planar.com/products/large-format-displays/ultrare... These are all essentially large LCD displays (monitors) with little to no extra features (many will have the ability to load via wifi or usb graphics and animations to be rotated on the screen - it's advertising after all). Your only other option would be large computer monitors, but because these tend to be meant for the desktop, you won't easily find sizes beyond 40 inches diagonal. Note that for digital signage - you are going to pay more - a lot more (it's one of those cases of pay more, get less - because niche and "you're a business, you have money"); also note that some of these kinds of displays can be found at Business Costco stores (though maybe not the 4K+ units). Another interesting thing about these units is that they have very small width bezels at the edges, for those cases where you want to tile them to make a video wall (again, retail advertising and menus and such).
- rb808 10y agoI dont understand how you can get a 40 inch 4k TV for $350 but a 32 inch 4k display is $900. Seems the 32 inch space prices are way too high.
- ogsharkman 10y agoThis has confused me too, maybe it has to do with the size of the relative markets?
- bardworx 10y agoManny different reasons, including: - monitors have better refresh rate and color accuracy - tvs don't have sleep functions and won't wake up with your computer. - tvs that cost $350 don't have have refresh rate, contract etc. Monitors are more expensive because the have to be more detailed in color reproduction, accuracy, etc.
- rwmj 10y agoI'm using a 55" 4K TV as a monitor and it works fine at full resolution, so my advice is just buy a TV for this.
- vldx 10y agoHonest question, how do you work on 55" display?
- rwmj 10y agoBy mainly having the work windows in the center, and email/chat in peripheral vision. See my setup here: https://rwmj.wordpress.com/2016/02/12/new-standing-desk-set-up/ https://rwmj.wordpress.com/2016/02/12/new-standing-desk-set-...
- abhorrence 10y agoThe pixel density on the 32 inch is mich higher, perhaps this leads to larger manufacturing cost? That seems unlikely to explain the entire gap however.
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- bitwize 10y agoIndeed. If I wanted a smart TV I'd attach a brain to the VESA bracket on the back.
- swingbridge 10y agoThis. I am endlessly frustrated with display manufacturers think that I want to do all sorts of "smart" stuff with my display. No. I want it to display a nice image for the stuff I want to plug into it, that's it! Setup a new TV for a family member recently and the instructions basically wanted me to Bluetooth pair my phone to the TV so I could set it up. I was like you have to be $&@!ing kidding me. Power, volume, input select. Just give me 4 buttons and that's it and I'm happy.
- chrisper 10y agoLG is just a bad company. Most of their products are faulty in some way. I had issues with their monitors and phones. I stopped buying anything LG since then.
- jobu 10y agoTheir current OLED TVs are absolutely stunning, and I really like what they've done with WebOS. Unfortunately the price is not something I can justify right now.
- chrisper 10y agoYeah, their TVs look nice. But I wonder what hidden issues it might have? I am just skeptical of everything LG now. Of course this is just anecdotal, so I am sure there are people who say everything LG is awesome. On the upside, LG refunded me the whole purchase price of the Nexus 5x that broke. So props to that.
- dan1234 10y agoI think thin margins for a product not replaced too often, and a heavily patented technology makes it pretty unattractive market to new entrants.
- DavidPP 10y agoThe Vizio P65-C1 might be what you are looking for. The "smart crap" is actually in the remote which is a 7" Android tablet.