10 ms·

CES 2018: Look to the Processor, Not the Display, for TV Picture Improvements

60 points by teklaperry 9y ago

pjc50 9y ago
Hmm. Reminds me of https://superuser.com/questions/1282598/what-sense-does-it-make-for-sharpness-to-be-adjustable-on-a-monitor/ https://superuser.com/questions/1282598/what-sense-does-it-m... - what's happening with these "picture improvements" is effectively post-processing "photoshop". They will generally be displaying TV from digital sources, so the need for denoise is questionable. Anti-banding might give you nicer sunsets. But fundamentally you now have a TV that rather than displaying the input signal decides to give you something it considers better. Results are likely to be variable. Also: "Samsung, though it didn’t tout a new processor, promised that all its gadgets, big and small, will be a lot smarter this year—and will, by 2020, be using AI and talking to the cloud." Fully compliant with all major buzzwords. Also employing a black box user surveillance engine.
- lamlam 9y ago
  I was recently shocked to learn that you cannot buy "dumb" TVs from any of the major brands any longer. The only source I was able to find were random brands from China, and commercial displays from companies like NEC. Unfortunately commercial displays are optimized for longevity and not picture quality :/ If anyone knows where I can get a decent dumb TV please share.
  - cbg0 9y ago
    You don't have to connect it to the Internet if you don't trust it, it's still going to work as a TV.
    - adamtulinius 9y ago
      And still likely to be awful in one way or the other. I got one of Samsung's top model TV's back in 2013, and after a year (or so) some update caused it to start crashing randomly, no matter the input source (and daily with the Netflix app it comes with) Yes, chrashes/hangs even with HDMI input sources, where the interface just hangs after adjusting the volume. But that's just an anecdote.
      - praneshp 9y ago
        After owning the S2, S3, S4, a couple of Notes, and a Gear S3 watch, I have concluded that Samsung is incredibly bad at software. If my plan is not to wipe the device and use some OS I want to (like in my pre-Note devices), I'll stay far far away. For a TV, I got a TCL Roku TV this past Thanksgiving (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B06Y6FSV5Q/ https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B06Y6FSV5Q/). It's been pretty good, because TCL just made the hardware (and is good at it), and the OS is Roku. I've heard complaints about it but (and myself find some features very rigid) but Roku's interface is simple and stable. I haven't had an app or the OS crash on me in a month or so.
        wvenable 9y ago
        As a hardware manufacturer, Samsung is actually better than most at software. Their software isn't that bad.
  - pjc50 9y ago
    > random brands from China Those are the best products! :)
    - walterbell 9y ago
      We need a git repo with known-good generic brands, preferably that can be flashed with open firmware. Any recommendations?
    - lamlam 9y ago
      Yes, but they can be hit or miss, and I simply don't have the time or funds to be testing multiple models.
  - navaati 9y ago
    Buy a computer screen. For example Dell P4317Q, it's a 43" 4K screen, about 1000€ (a bit less), gorgeous. It's the closest you can get.
    - semi-extrinsic 9y ago
      I use one as my main monitor, it's very good. Every time I upgrade my monitor size, it's irreversible since the claustrophobia of using a smaller display increases.
      - walterbell 9y ago
        What viewing distance do you use?
        michaelbuckbee 9y ago
        Jumping in here, but I use a 55" curved 4k Samsung as a monitor (per recommendation of my optometrist). I stand around 40" from the center of the screen.
        walterbell 9y ago
        Did the optometrist say why that size and curvature specifically?
        michaelbuckbee 9y ago
        No, that was more me playing around with what would work (I started with a 4k 42" Seiki TV and this was the upgrade. At sizes larger than 40" the curved screen really helps you with better seeing the corners of the screen without having to lean.
        semi-extrinsic 9y ago
        It varies a bit between sitting and standing, but about 100 cm to the closest point. To the furthest corner it's another 20 cm.
  - epmaybe 9y ago
    What if you put the smart TV in game mode? Doesn't that turn off all the features/post processing?
    - mstade 9y ago
      Depends on the set probably, but in my experience most TVs still do some processing.
    - Crespyl 9y ago
      You may or may not be able to get rid of some or all of the image processing, but you still have all the other issues of a "smart" TV, like auto updates/ads/tracking/infection and other problems that come with having too much cheap software where it doesn't belong.
      - slobotron 9y ago
        Is it not possible to just not connect it to the Internet?
        bradyd 9y ago
        With some smart TVs, no. For example some Vizio TVs require you to install the Vizio app on your phone (you must allow location tracking) and connect over WiFi before you can even finish the setup process.
        wernercd 9y ago
        What's to stop you from disconnecting it after setup? I've got newer Vizio's with Chromecasts connected to them... no issues with them being disconnected.
        Crespyl 9y ago
        Usually, but some won't let you finish set up without some internet access. Even if you do keep it disconnected, there's no guarantee that a badly behaved update process or app won't interfere with the normal operation in some way. I'm sure there do exist models that are perfectly fine in offline mode, but it's still a lot of (very opaque) room for things to go wrong in ways that a "dumb" display won't have.
  - neilsimp1 9y ago
    I'd be interested to know as well. I bought a 50" Emerson "dumb" TV a few years ago, and anytime I consider upgrading all I ever see is smart TVs. I plug the TV into a HTPC so I really don't need any smart TV feature, ever.
  - walterbell 9y ago
    Buy a projector.
    - barrkel 9y ago
      This is the way I went as well. One of the best purchasing decisions I've made in the past decade.
  - saiya-jin 9y ago
    I recently bought used 55" Sony for relative peanuts, and it was really simple - don't ever connect it to internet. There is really nothing valuable that Android TV could get from manufacturer these days, only potential issues. Maybe for me it's easier since I just use it as PC projector and watch content from it, don't have set top box connected to it at all.
  - kitsunesoba 9y ago
    It’s been my belief for a while now that there’s a market for premium dumb TVs. They would: - Use high end best binned panels (lowest possible image retention for OLED, etc) - Traditional LCD models would have very high standards for backlight consistency - Do little to no image processing - Be designed around being hooked up to external media boxes - Have a nice modern OSD text - Allow you to use your phone as a remote via Bluetooth (and control other media center components via IR cables and HDMI commands) - Not have any means of internet connection or any other smart functionality whatsoever Effectively, they’d be to TVs as studio monitor headphones are to audio. Enthusiasts would jump all over something like this despite inflated prices, I have no doubt.
    - josteink 9y ago
      > Effectively, they’d be to TVs as studio monitor headphones are to audio. Enthusiasts would jump all over something like this despite inflated prices, I have no doubt. Have several studio monitors. Can confirm.
    - gnode 9y ago
      This exists, for the most part, but is prohibitively expensive. Sony's Trimaster EL OLED range for instance. Why it is so expensive, (compared to consumer OLED TVs) I don't know.
    - clairity 9y ago
      the reason the premium consumer market doesn't sell dumb TVs is that it would wring all of the profits out of selling TVs. consumer electronics companies want to be seen as "adding value" on top of the display. if they don't, then manufacturers can just go direct to consumer, cutting them out of the value chain and redirecting profits to the manufacturers (and some to consumers in the form of lower prices). if they priced dumb TVs higher than their smart TVs, it would signal the negative value of the "smarts" in the TV, so they don't want to do that. so none of the electronics manufacturers really want to sell dumb TVs to the mass market, since it would be akin to committing corporate suicide (in that particular product category). of course one way around this is to brand a technical feature (as with sony's trinitron back in the day) and make that carry the value premium in the dumb TV, which would be how you'd approach the enthusiast segment you mention.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - mikewhy 9y ago
    I bought an LG TV recently, the only "smart" thing about it is Google Cast is baked in, which I think is acceptable. The only reason I want a dumb TV is to hook up an apple tv / google cast / computer running airserver.
    - lamlam 9y ago
      While there are a few TVs like that out there, I'm always worried they might pull what Visio did and essentially put their own stupid UI on top much later [0]. [0] https://www.theverge.com/2017/8/2/16083238/vizio-smartcast-remote-google-cast-tv-apps-interface-update-roll-out https://www.theverge.com/2017/8/2/16083238/vizio-smartcast-r...
- zghst 9y ago
  Samsung’s TVs are the best in the game, it’s ashame that they are “noisy”. No matter how much I try to disable leaky software features, there’s always something I miss: I had a roommate ask if he could connect to my TV because he could see it broadcasting a signal to Samsung phones =(
  - tigershark 9y ago
    Mmm..no. The best tv are LG oled.
    - zghst 9y ago
      Samsung’s software is amazing and their remote kicks ass
      - ct0 9y ago
        agreed! plex on samsung is seamless too!
      - tigershark 9y ago
        It doesn’t matter, the best quality is firmly in the hands of the LG oled TVs. And if I buy a tv I buy it for the image quality, certainly not for the remote.
- znpy 9y ago
  > Fully compliant with all major buzzwords. It's missing the "blockchain" and "cryptocurrency" buzzwords.
  - MrMid 9y ago
    GPU mining chip in your TV? Coming soon!
- digi_owl 9y ago
  Btw, i recall Samsung was caught sending audio from around the tv back to their servers, unencrypted, to do voice commands, a few years ago.
cooper12 9y ago
Why on earth does a TV need denoising built-in? I've noticed this trend—when I rarely visit electronic stores—where all the display models have huge vibrant screens, but whatever they show on them is always oversaturated, sharpened, and in general overprocessed. On top of that, when I visit some people's houses, they have everything setup completely wrong: stretching the picture to avoid letterboxing, upscaling from a lower resolution signal (acceptable depending on your distance, but better to have an HD signal for an HD TV), motion interpolation, and so much more. What ever happened to a television naively playing what it was given? Why does everyone want a neon prickly picture and assume they know better than the people who mastered the content? I know some will say "personal preference", but there's no accounting for taste and settings like these can ruin something carefully crafted. Lastly, to get back to denoising, noise is actually detail, stop removing it (and you'll almost never have it in modern stuff, mostly just old films—where it's part of the actual negative). This trend extends to photography as well, with editors not knowing when to ease off the saturation (the greens would hurt your eyes IRL) and contrast sliders, which might explain public perception or expectation.
- mstade 9y ago
  Yeah it's unfortunate. It started I guess with TV makers implementing processing to fix problems with broadcasts before digital came around, and then just got progressively worse over time as the makers try to out-do each other with features that "improve" picture quality. What's worse, at this point people are so accustomed to the soap opera effect of these features that when they are turned off they think something is wrong. Try it at a friend's or relative's house – change their settings to turn off motion interpolation and noise removal and such, and I'm sure most will start thinking something's wrong with their set. It's sad.
indescions_2018 9y ago
Games designed to be played in 4K 60FPS HDR can feel pretty "future-proof". Playing Horizon Zero Dawn, an open world rpg with mech dinos, on the PS4 is stunning. Even if rather buggy. You are reminded it has been some time since you last were awed by the quality of snowflake particle effects. I realize a $2K+ setup is beyond the reach of all but hard core enthusiasts. Especially as Gigabit connection speed availability is all but required. But 4K video will probably remain the standard for the next 4-5 year time frame.
- mstade 9y ago
  Man, HZD looks insanely great at 4K HDR on a 65" OLED – buy far the prettiest game I've ever played. It doesn't play at 60fps though, as far as I know it's capped at 30fps. Presumably they can't guarantee stable frame rates higher than that, which probably makes sense given the insanely great graphics. At 30fps thought it's super stable, I've never seen it stutter and I've finished both the main game and DLC. Great game, can't wait for the sequel!
dod9er 9y ago
Its always about the buzzwords... a few years ago I tried to buy a TV without 3D-support because I didn´t want to spend the money on a useless feature (for me). Guess what, no major brand offered a TV without 3D, I ended up buying the usual suspect. But now the situation has improved ! It got easy again to buy a TV without 3D-support at least :D Same for the current must-have features... I think the common nerd would love a dumb display with decent calibration etc. out-of-the-box, so he could just connect his favorite media-box and have fun for a reasonable price. But this isn´t where the profits are made! edit: Because you could just replace your mediabox after a few years, when e.g. netflix stops playing on it. I´m really waiting for a new player who gives us this dumb high-quality display so many nerds are waiting for.
- dsr_ 9y ago
  If you block your TV's MAC addresses at your firewall, all the intrusive "smart" features stop working. Or have DHCPd map them to static IPs and block those. Either way, most people on HN can do this... and most TV purchasers aren't even aware that it's an option.
  - Simon_says 9y ago
    I'm curious why you would need to block MAC addresses. Why wouldn't just not plugging in ethernet and not giving it the WiFi password be sufficient to stop your TV from going online?
    - osaariki 9y ago
      Just a guess: having the TV think it has an internet connection might prevent annoying prompts to connect it to the internet.
amelius 9y ago
Sadly, from a usefulness perspective, it seems these improvements are incremental, and the increments are getting smaller every year.
legulere 9y ago
Isn't one of the problems of all those picture improvement technologies that they increase input lag?
- dmart 9y ago
  Yes, making these "improvements" completely useless to anyone who occasionally plays videogames (and therefore most likely leaves their TV in game mode). I'd honestly pay extra for _less_ processing: give me a 65" dumb monitor with as little latency as possible, please.
  - modeless 9y ago
    NVIDIA has a product for you: https://www.geforce.com/whats-new/articles/bfgd-big-format-gaming-display https://www.geforce.com/whats-new/articles/bfgd-big-format-g...
seanalltogether 9y ago
> The company gave a don’t-blink-or-you-might-miss-it peek at what it says will be the world’s first commercial MicroLED display, available sometime this year. MicroLED technology operates like the Jumbo Tron in a football stadium, with a dedicated LED for each colored subpixel—shrunk down to the size of a standard TV, that is, with subpixels so small your eye can’t distinguish them. It doesn’t require filters or backlights, so color and brightness can be exceptional. Isn't that what OLED is?
- papercrane 9y ago
  The big difference between them is chemistry. MicroLEDs are using inorganic semiconductors, which are supposed to give it better lifetime performance.
  - Doxin 9y ago
    Could you explain to me what, in the context of display technology, organic even means? Presumably oLED displays don't contain organisms.
    - detaro 9y ago
      Same as in "organic chemistry": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organic_chemistry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organic_chemistry Roughly: Primarily carbon or carbon-hydrogen-based, often complex, molecules. If not naturally occurring in organisms, then made from the same "toolbox". (The liquid crystals in LCDs generally are organic compounds as well, but traditional LEDs are not, thus the OLED distinction in that case)
jerf 9y ago
"In the shorter term, the technology would enable scenarios like someone asking the TV what is in the refrigerator, then having it display a recipe then send that recipe to the stove." From now on, I will interpret this being the first idea floated as the use for some IoT tech as "we have no f'ing clue what we're going to use this for". Thirty years ago, this problem was perhaps unsolved. Now it's solved in at least two ways, with tablets and voice interactions, and those are better. Sorry, Sony, Samsung, etc, there is no way my TV, which is in the ENTIRELY WRONG ROOM, is going to wedge its way into my recipe workflow, and if that is the best idea you have, as evidenced by it being the first idea mentioned in this article... you have no ideas. Note how even in the example I quote above, WTF is the TV doing in that interaction flow in the first place? What I should be "asking" what is in the fridge is my cell phone, and by extension since they share OSes, optionally a tablet. (The core problem here is that Smart TVs are now mature. Ignoring surveillance and privacy issues, what we need are just more responsive UIs, and preferably, some sort of plan for how we're going to maintain these TVs in the future because especially at the high end these things are too expensive to be treated like cell phones that don't get updates after a year and a half. But that sure doesn't win any CES awards.)
- dfee 9y ago
  I just want the display, not the device. More and more it’s like Goodyear wants to sell me a car with the tires.
  - Zenst 9y ago
    Precisely that, be great if they were moremodular to a standard, but then, that's what PC's are, just not at the lego level for the common consumer. Then consumers wonder why due to software support obsolescence that their working TV becomes less functional after a few years. So it is like Goodyear selling you a car with the tyres that they stop supporting way before the tyre is even close to end of working life.
    - arthurfm 9y ago
      > be great if they were more modular to a standard There is actually. The Open Pluggable Specification [1] which is primarily used for digital signage screens. It's a shame consumer TVs don't use this standard (or something similar). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Pluggable_Specification https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Pluggable_Specification
wz1000 9y ago
Will these household appliances with general purpose CPUs and WiFi chips receive the necessary updates for an entire lifetime? I have a CRT TV that is over 17 years old and still works. Will manufacturers provide even 5 years of security updates? Because if not, the next big vulnerability could mean we're all screwed.
- sameAsYou 9y ago
  My 2 year old LG TV isn't receiving updates to the webOS anymore, and there are some apps for their store which aren't available for older OSes. I don't know how long I can keep buying 'other devices' like Chromecast/Roku to get around the problem.

60 points by teklaperry 9y ago

Hmm. Reminds me of https://superuser.com/questions/1282598/what-sense-does-it-make-for-sharpness-to-be-adjustable-on-a-monitor/ https://superuser.com/questions/1282598/what-sense-does-it-m... - what's happening with these "picture improvements" is effectively post-processing "photoshop". They will generally be displaying TV from digital sources, so the need for denoise is questionable. Anti-banding might give you nicer sunsets. But fundamentally you now have a TV that rather than displaying the input signal decides to give you something it considers better. Results are likely to be variable. Also: "Samsung, though it didn’t tout a new processor, promised that all its gadgets, big and small, will be a lot smarter this year—and will, by 2020, be using AI and talking to the cloud." Fully compliant with all major buzzwords. Also employing a black box user surveillance engine.

lamlam 9y ago
I was recently shocked to learn that you cannot buy "dumb" TVs from any of the major brands any longer. The only source I was able to find were random brands from China, and commercial displays from companies like NEC. Unfortunately commercial displays are optimized for longevity and not picture quality :/ If anyone knows where I can get a decent dumb TV please share.
- cbg0 9y ago
  You don't have to connect it to the Internet if you don't trust it, it's still going to work as a TV.
  - adamtulinius 9y ago
    And still likely to be awful in one way or the other. I got one of Samsung's top model TV's back in 2013, and after a year (or so) some update caused it to start crashing randomly, no matter the input source (and daily with the Netflix app it comes with) Yes, chrashes/hangs even with HDMI input sources, where the interface just hangs after adjusting the volume. But that's just an anecdote.
    - praneshp 9y ago
      After owning the S2, S3, S4, a couple of Notes, and a Gear S3 watch, I have concluded that Samsung is incredibly bad at software. If my plan is not to wipe the device and use some OS I want to (like in my pre-Note devices), I'll stay far far away. For a TV, I got a TCL Roku TV this past Thanksgiving (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B06Y6FSV5Q/ https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B06Y6FSV5Q/). It's been pretty good, because TCL just made the hardware (and is good at it), and the OS is Roku. I've heard complaints about it but (and myself find some features very rigid) but Roku's interface is simple and stable. I haven't had an app or the OS crash on me in a month or so.
      - wvenable 9y ago
        As a hardware manufacturer, Samsung is actually better than most at software. Their software isn't that bad.
- pjc50 9y ago
  > random brands from China Those are the best products! :)
  - walterbell 9y ago
    We need a git repo with known-good generic brands, preferably that can be flashed with open firmware. Any recommendations?
  - lamlam 9y ago
    Yes, but they can be hit or miss, and I simply don't have the time or funds to be testing multiple models.
- navaati 9y ago
  Buy a computer screen. For example Dell P4317Q, it's a 43" 4K screen, about 1000€ (a bit less), gorgeous. It's the closest you can get.
  - semi-extrinsic 9y ago
    I use one as my main monitor, it's very good. Every time I upgrade my monitor size, it's irreversible since the claustrophobia of using a smaller display increases.
    - walterbell 9y ago
      What viewing distance do you use?
      - michaelbuckbee 9y ago
        Jumping in here, but I use a 55" curved 4k Samsung as a monitor (per recommendation of my optometrist). I stand around 40" from the center of the screen.
        walterbell 9y ago
        Did the optometrist say why that size and curvature specifically?
        michaelbuckbee 9y ago
        No, that was more me playing around with what would work (I started with a 4k 42" Seiki TV and this was the upgrade. At sizes larger than 40" the curved screen really helps you with better seeing the corners of the screen without having to lean.
      - semi-extrinsic 9y ago
        It varies a bit between sitting and standing, but about 100 cm to the closest point. To the furthest corner it's another 20 cm.
- epmaybe 9y ago
  What if you put the smart TV in game mode? Doesn't that turn off all the features/post processing?
  - mstade 9y ago
    Depends on the set probably, but in my experience most TVs still do some processing.
  - Crespyl 9y ago
    You may or may not be able to get rid of some or all of the image processing, but you still have all the other issues of a "smart" TV, like auto updates/ads/tracking/infection and other problems that come with having too much cheap software where it doesn't belong.
    - slobotron 9y ago
      Is it not possible to just not connect it to the Internet?
      - bradyd 9y ago
        With some smart TVs, no. For example some Vizio TVs require you to install the Vizio app on your phone (you must allow location tracking) and connect over WiFi before you can even finish the setup process.
        wernercd 9y ago
        What's to stop you from disconnecting it after setup? I've got newer Vizio's with Chromecasts connected to them... no issues with them being disconnected.
      - Crespyl 9y ago
        Usually, but some won't let you finish set up without some internet access. Even if you do keep it disconnected, there's no guarantee that a badly behaved update process or app won't interfere with the normal operation in some way. I'm sure there do exist models that are perfectly fine in offline mode, but it's still a lot of (very opaque) room for things to go wrong in ways that a "dumb" display won't have.
- neilsimp1 9y ago
  I'd be interested to know as well. I bought a 50" Emerson "dumb" TV a few years ago, and anytime I consider upgrading all I ever see is smart TVs. I plug the TV into a HTPC so I really don't need any smart TV feature, ever.
- walterbell 9y ago
  Buy a projector.
  - barrkel 9y ago
    This is the way I went as well. One of the best purchasing decisions I've made in the past decade.
- saiya-jin 9y ago
  I recently bought used 55" Sony for relative peanuts, and it was really simple - don't ever connect it to internet. There is really nothing valuable that Android TV could get from manufacturer these days, only potential issues. Maybe for me it's easier since I just use it as PC projector and watch content from it, don't have set top box connected to it at all.
- kitsunesoba 9y ago
  It’s been my belief for a while now that there’s a market for premium dumb TVs. They would: - Use high end best binned panels (lowest possible image retention for OLED, etc) - Traditional LCD models would have very high standards for backlight consistency - Do little to no image processing - Be designed around being hooked up to external media boxes - Have a nice modern OSD text - Allow you to use your phone as a remote via Bluetooth (and control other media center components via IR cables and HDMI commands) - Not have any means of internet connection or any other smart functionality whatsoever Effectively, they’d be to TVs as studio monitor headphones are to audio. Enthusiasts would jump all over something like this despite inflated prices, I have no doubt.
  - josteink 9y ago
    > Effectively, they’d be to TVs as studio monitor headphones are to audio. Enthusiasts would jump all over something like this despite inflated prices, I have no doubt. Have several studio monitors. Can confirm.
  - gnode 9y ago
    This exists, for the most part, but is prohibitively expensive. Sony's Trimaster EL OLED range for instance. Why it is so expensive, (compared to consumer OLED TVs) I don't know.
  - clairity 9y ago
    the reason the premium consumer market doesn't sell dumb TVs is that it would wring all of the profits out of selling TVs. consumer electronics companies want to be seen as "adding value" on top of the display. if they don't, then manufacturers can just go direct to consumer, cutting them out of the value chain and redirecting profits to the manufacturers (and some to consumers in the form of lower prices). if they priced dumb TVs higher than their smart TVs, it would signal the negative value of the "smarts" in the TV, so they don't want to do that. so none of the electronics manufacturers really want to sell dumb TVs to the mass market, since it would be akin to committing corporate suicide (in that particular product category). of course one way around this is to brand a technical feature (as with sony's trinitron back in the day) and make that carry the value premium in the dumb TV, which would be how you'd approach the enthusiast segment you mention.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- mikewhy 9y ago
  I bought an LG TV recently, the only "smart" thing about it is Google Cast is baked in, which I think is acceptable. The only reason I want a dumb TV is to hook up an apple tv / google cast / computer running airserver.
  - lamlam 9y ago
    While there are a few TVs like that out there, I'm always worried they might pull what Visio did and essentially put their own stupid UI on top much later [0]. [0] https://www.theverge.com/2017/8/2/16083238/vizio-smartcast-remote-google-cast-tv-apps-interface-update-roll-out https://www.theverge.com/2017/8/2/16083238/vizio-smartcast-r...
zghst 9y ago
Samsung’s TVs are the best in the game, it’s ashame that they are “noisy”. No matter how much I try to disable leaky software features, there’s always something I miss: I had a roommate ask if he could connect to my TV because he could see it broadcasting a signal to Samsung phones =(
- tigershark 9y ago
  Mmm..no. The best tv are LG oled.
  - zghst 9y ago
    Samsung’s software is amazing and their remote kicks ass
    - ct0 9y ago
      agreed! plex on samsung is seamless too!
    - tigershark 9y ago
      It doesn’t matter, the best quality is firmly in the hands of the LG oled TVs. And if I buy a tv I buy it for the image quality, certainly not for the remote.
znpy 9y ago
> Fully compliant with all major buzzwords. It's missing the "blockchain" and "cryptocurrency" buzzwords.
- MrMid 9y ago
  GPU mining chip in your TV? Coming soon!
digi_owl 9y ago
Btw, i recall Samsung was caught sending audio from around the tv back to their servers, unencrypted, to do voice commands, a few years ago.

cooper12 9y ago

Why on earth does a TV need denoising built-in? I've noticed this trend—when I rarely visit electronic stores—where all the display models have huge vibrant screens, but whatever they show on them is always oversaturated, sharpened, and in general overprocessed. On top of that, when I visit some people's houses, they have everything setup completely wrong: stretching the picture to avoid letterboxing, upscaling from a lower resolution signal (acceptable depending on your distance, but better to have an HD signal for an HD TV), motion interpolation, and so much more. What ever happened to a television naively playing what it was given? Why does everyone want a neon prickly picture and assume they know better than the people who mastered the content? I know some will say "personal preference", but there's no accounting for taste and settings like these can ruin something carefully crafted. Lastly, to get back to denoising, noise is actually detail, stop removing it (and you'll almost never have it in modern stuff, mostly just old films—where it's part of the actual negative). This trend extends to photography as well, with editors not knowing when to ease off the saturation (the greens would hurt your eyes IRL) and contrast sliders, which might explain public perception or expectation.

mstade 9y ago
Yeah it's unfortunate. It started I guess with TV makers implementing processing to fix problems with broadcasts before digital came around, and then just got progressively worse over time as the makers try to out-do each other with features that "improve" picture quality. What's worse, at this point people are so accustomed to the soap opera effect of these features that when they are turned off they think something is wrong. Try it at a friend's or relative's house – change their settings to turn off motion interpolation and noise removal and such, and I'm sure most will start thinking something's wrong with their set. It's sad.

indescions_2018 9y ago

Games designed to be played in 4K 60FPS HDR can feel pretty "future-proof". Playing Horizon Zero Dawn, an open world rpg with mech dinos, on the PS4 is stunning. Even if rather buggy. You are reminded it has been some time since you last were awed by the quality of snowflake particle effects. I realize a $2K+ setup is beyond the reach of all but hard core enthusiasts. Especially as Gigabit connection speed availability is all but required. But 4K video will probably remain the standard for the next 4-5 year time frame.

mstade 9y ago
Man, HZD looks insanely great at 4K HDR on a 65" OLED – buy far the prettiest game I've ever played. It doesn't play at 60fps though, as far as I know it's capped at 30fps. Presumably they can't guarantee stable frame rates higher than that, which probably makes sense given the insanely great graphics. At 30fps thought it's super stable, I've never seen it stutter and I've finished both the main game and DLC. Great game, can't wait for the sequel!

dod9er 9y ago

Its always about the buzzwords... a few years ago I tried to buy a TV without 3D-support because I didn´t want to spend the money on a useless feature (for me). Guess what, no major brand offered a TV without 3D, I ended up buying the usual suspect. But now the situation has improved ! It got easy again to buy a TV without 3D-support at least :D Same for the current must-have features... I think the common nerd would love a dumb display with decent calibration etc. out-of-the-box, so he could just connect his favorite media-box and have fun for a reasonable price. But this isn´t where the profits are made! edit: Because you could just replace your mediabox after a few years, when e.g. netflix stops playing on it. I´m really waiting for a new player who gives us this dumb high-quality display so many nerds are waiting for.

dsr_ 9y ago
If you block your TV's MAC addresses at your firewall, all the intrusive "smart" features stop working. Or have DHCPd map them to static IPs and block those. Either way, most people on HN can do this... and most TV purchasers aren't even aware that it's an option.
- Simon_says 9y ago
  I'm curious why you would need to block MAC addresses. Why wouldn't just not plugging in ethernet and not giving it the WiFi password be sufficient to stop your TV from going online?
  - osaariki 9y ago
    Just a guess: having the TV think it has an internet connection might prevent annoying prompts to connect it to the internet.

amelius 9y ago

Sadly, from a usefulness perspective, it seems these improvements are incremental, and the increments are getting smaller every year.

legulere 9y ago

Isn't one of the problems of all those picture improvement technologies that they increase input lag?

dmart 9y ago
Yes, making these "improvements" completely useless to anyone who occasionally plays videogames (and therefore most likely leaves their TV in game mode). I'd honestly pay extra for _less_ processing: give me a 65" dumb monitor with as little latency as possible, please.
- modeless 9y ago
  NVIDIA has a product for you: https://www.geforce.com/whats-new/articles/bfgd-big-format-gaming-display https://www.geforce.com/whats-new/articles/bfgd-big-format-g...

seanalltogether 9y ago

> The company gave a don’t-blink-or-you-might-miss-it peek at what it says will be the world’s first commercial MicroLED display, available sometime this year. MicroLED technology operates like the Jumbo Tron in a football stadium, with a dedicated LED for each colored subpixel—shrunk down to the size of a standard TV, that is, with subpixels so small your eye can’t distinguish them. It doesn’t require filters or backlights, so color and brightness can be exceptional. Isn't that what OLED is?

papercrane 9y ago
The big difference between them is chemistry. MicroLEDs are using inorganic semiconductors, which are supposed to give it better lifetime performance.
- Doxin 9y ago
  Could you explain to me what, in the context of display technology, organic even means? Presumably oLED displays don't contain organisms.
  - detaro 9y ago
    Same as in "organic chemistry": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organic_chemistry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organic_chemistry Roughly: Primarily carbon or carbon-hydrogen-based, often complex, molecules. If not naturally occurring in organisms, then made from the same "toolbox". (The liquid crystals in LCDs generally are organic compounds as well, but traditional LEDs are not, thus the OLED distinction in that case)

jerf 9y ago

"In the shorter term, the technology would enable scenarios like someone asking the TV what is in the refrigerator, then having it display a recipe then send that recipe to the stove." From now on, I will interpret this being the first idea floated as the use for some IoT tech as "we have no f'ing clue what we're going to use this for". Thirty years ago, this problem was perhaps unsolved. Now it's solved in at least two ways, with tablets and voice interactions, and those are better. Sorry, Sony, Samsung, etc, there is no way my TV, which is in the ENTIRELY WRONG ROOM, is going to wedge its way into my recipe workflow, and if that is the best idea you have, as evidenced by it being the first idea mentioned in this article... you have no ideas. Note how even in the example I quote above, WTF is the TV doing in that interaction flow in the first place? What I should be "asking" what is in the fridge is my cell phone, and by extension since they share OSes, optionally a tablet. (The core problem here is that Smart TVs are now mature. Ignoring surveillance and privacy issues, what we need are just more responsive UIs, and preferably, some sort of plan for how we're going to maintain these TVs in the future because especially at the high end these things are too expensive to be treated like cell phones that don't get updates after a year and a half. But that sure doesn't win any CES awards.)

dfee 9y ago
I just want the display, not the device. More and more it’s like Goodyear wants to sell me a car with the tires.
- Zenst 9y ago
  Precisely that, be great if they were moremodular to a standard, but then, that's what PC's are, just not at the lego level for the common consumer. Then consumers wonder why due to software support obsolescence that their working TV becomes less functional after a few years. So it is like Goodyear selling you a car with the tyres that they stop supporting way before the tyre is even close to end of working life.
  - arthurfm 9y ago
    > be great if they were more modular to a standard There is actually. The Open Pluggable Specification [1] which is primarily used for digital signage screens. It's a shame consumer TVs don't use this standard (or something similar). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Pluggable_Specification https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Pluggable_Specification

wz1000 9y ago

Will these household appliances with general purpose CPUs and WiFi chips receive the necessary updates for an entire lifetime? I have a CRT TV that is over 17 years old and still works. Will manufacturers provide even 5 years of security updates? Because if not, the next big vulnerability could mean we're all screwed.

sameAsYou 9y ago
My 2 year old LG TV isn't receiving updates to the webOS anymore, and there are some apps for their store which aren't available for older OSes. I don't know how long I can keep buying 'other devices' like Chromecast/Roku to get around the problem.