3 ms·

For about 5 years, any tv you found in an electronic store was 3D, and I have yet to find a single person who claims to like them. Today, every tv is a Smart T

by setr 8y ago

For about 5 years, any tv you found in an electronic store was 3D, and I have yet to find a single person who claims to like them. Today, every tv is a Smart TV, and yet again, I haven’t found anyone who thought they weren’t awful In cars theres the same issue with GPS systems: even luxury cars have awful interfaces. Presumably tesla’s is decent (never tried), but otherwise the only interface I’ve encountered yet that met the minimum requirement of a sensible response time (let alone everything else) is a luxury jeep. Mercedes, priuses, bmws, etc are all horrendous. In phones, the aux ports and phablets On the web, heavy js In games, complex 3D graphics (this is very slowly changing, as indie devs begin to realize games existed between 1980 and 2000) This type of event, where the producers collectively decide what the consumers want, and only produce it, and miss the mark by a mile, definetely exist (these are just things I’m irrated by recently), though I assume incompetence and babdwaggoning over any kind of real thinking going into this. (They didn’t try to force a trend, they just all thought it was the trend, due to whatever terrible research they all do; hell, I’d bet there was one or two marketing firms that were the root cause of most of these messes)

ghaff 8y ago
>I have yet to find a single person who claims to like them I like 3D well enough at least for the occasional novelty and film that uses it well, e.g. Gravity. There is just about zero content available however. My impression when I bought my TV was that there were certainly non-3D options available. But I got a pre-Christmas deal and I paid about the same as for an equivalent TV that didn't have 3D. It's the same with Smart TVs. It doesn't really add to the cost of the TV. I just never use the features. I guess the latest trend is whatever resolution that's an additional increment beyond the limits of human vision. Or maybe OLED. I do understand that the TV manufacturers are really desperate to drive TV upgrade cycles. The good news is that the new features are mostly harmless if you need a new TV anyway.
- OkGoDoIt 8y ago
  And the better news is that if you don’t actually care about these silly new features you can get amazingly great TVs for next to nothing. I saw a 46 inch 4K LED smart TV at Costco for around $300. It didn’t have HDR (the current trendy hotness in the top of the line TVs), so I guess it’s considered substandard, but holy crap that’s a great deal.
  - abakker 8y ago
    I have one of the Visio ones. Yes, good screen, but never let one of those things on your WiFi. Jeez.
- mvid 8y ago
  Just because it doesn’t increase the cost of the base model doesn’t mean it doesn’t increase the price, just that you don’t have the option of not paying for it.
a_t48 8y ago
I genuinely love my Smart TV. Its nice having the TV know about every input option, and not having to fool around d with multiple remotes.
- setr 8y ago
  The actual feature (having netflix, amazon, hulu, etc natively available) is fine; the problem is that its slow, unreliable, prints useless errors, and no matter how much you spend, the interface is always a janky horrible experience. There are also other nuisances like forcing the framerate up to 60fps by frame interprolation, causing everything in 24fps (most content) to look awful, and in certain implementations, jitter. Some of the things I noted have perfectly valid ideas, but just ..pathetic.. implementations (smart tvs, gps), and others are preferences that get forced onto you (aux port, web heavy-js, game graphics) But the key is the suppliers collectively decided that this is exactly what the consumers want, and the only option left otherwise is to turn back to 1990 or look to the chinese knockoffs. The ability to signal to the market that this isn’t whats wanted is lost... except by entirely avoiding all recent technological advances. And the truly strange thing is that there are few, if any, offering the same object but with improved interfaces (with cars it makes sense, the rest of the vehicle is more important; but tvs? video games? What the hell? These should be much easier to find variations on.
  - TylerE 8y ago
    > There are also other nuisances like forcing the framerate up to 60fps by frame interprolation, causing everything in 24fps (most content) to look awful, and in certain implementations, jitter. THat's just a shitty TV. My now almost 5 year old Smart TV handles 24hz just fine... the panel is actually running at 120 so 24 is an even multiple. Personally, I really like my smart TV and use many apps for stream non-mainstream sports, and the like.
    - setr 8y ago
      As far as I can tell, its an intentional modification (makes the show look "better"), and I only usually see it on the more expensive, newer home TVs. Whats your TV model/brand?
Illniyar 8y ago
If I recall correctly 3D TVs has always had minuscule sales volume compared to regular TVs. Even in it's "height" there were far more regular TVs sold then 3D ones. If 3D TVs were able to garner any premium over regular TVs, the electronics companies would have continued selling them. It was, and probably still is, a net loss. Smart TVs are a convenience that is actually in demand, mostly because it does not add a markup to price - why buy a non smart TV when you can buy a smart one at the same price. The majority of iPhone users probably use bluetooth headphones. Phablets are so much in demand, that apple had practically no choice but to build one. Heavy js and web is a completely different story because you aren't the customer for website with heavy js, and the advertisers, who are the customers of these websites, have a great demand for more javascript. AAA titles are dominating the market. Indie sales are a minuscule fraction of the game industry market. Why? because there is insane demand for AAA titles, and for that matter for massive multiplayer games - LoL, Fortnite, PUBG etc... Just because you don't like it, or for that matter the entire of HN don't like it, doesn't mean there is no demand for it.
- setr 8y ago
  >If 3D TVs were able to garner any premium over regular TVs, the electronics companies would have continued selling them. It was, and probably still is, a net loss Sure; the issue is that due to supplier convergence, the only option in a modern tv. If they weren’t so obviously harmful to sales, we’d still have them around, because it’d be impossible to differentiate between negative vs positive impact, simply because nothing else was available to even buy (in that trust/price/quality/brand range) >The majority of iPhone users probably use bluetooth headphones. Before or after it was their only choice? Like cars, the presence or lack of an aux port is irrelevant compared to the rest of the purchase. It doesn’t imply one way or the other whether anyone actually prefers it, when the change is bundled with so much more. >AAA titles are dominating the market AAA titles are always dominating the market. My point is that there is no way to differentiate between a AAA game being successful because of, despite or irresThe majority of iPhone users probably use bluetooth headphones.pective of its graphical complexity, because consumers simply cannot buy a AAA title that did not spend half its budget on 3D graphics. This is only changing because a few indie games/smaller titles have seen extreme success despite “weak” graphics (minecraft, fortnite, LoL). Even kickstarter games appealing to older genres (eg The recent CRPGs trend) probably put an outsized emphasis on graphics, despite targetting players of 90s work. My opinion is that games can get very far with very limited graphics, but looking at the general market its impossible to actually make the case because there’s very few examples where its even been tried. The best you can really do is turn to modern indie, or point out that some older games are still heavily played (WoW, starcraft, quake, etc) If the whole market suddenly shifts in a particular direction, there’s no chance for competition to rule out an idea as being a bad one.

by setr 8y ago

ghaff 8y ago

>I have yet to find a single person who claims to like them I like 3D well enough at least for the occasional novelty and film that uses it well, e.g. Gravity. There is just about zero content available however. My impression when I bought my TV was that there were certainly non-3D options available. But I got a pre-Christmas deal and I paid about the same as for an equivalent TV that didn't have 3D. It's the same with Smart TVs. It doesn't really add to the cost of the TV. I just never use the features. I guess the latest trend is whatever resolution that's an additional increment beyond the limits of human vision. Or maybe OLED. I do understand that the TV manufacturers are really desperate to drive TV upgrade cycles. The good news is that the new features are mostly harmless if you need a new TV anyway.

OkGoDoIt 8y ago
And the better news is that if you don’t actually care about these silly new features you can get amazingly great TVs for next to nothing. I saw a 46 inch 4K LED smart TV at Costco for around $300. It didn’t have HDR (the current trendy hotness in the top of the line TVs), so I guess it’s considered substandard, but holy crap that’s a great deal.
- abakker 8y ago
  I have one of the Visio ones. Yes, good screen, but never let one of those things on your WiFi. Jeez.
mvid 8y ago
Just because it doesn’t increase the cost of the base model doesn’t mean it doesn’t increase the price, just that you don’t have the option of not paying for it.

a_t48 8y ago

I genuinely love my Smart TV. Its nice having the TV know about every input option, and not having to fool around d with multiple remotes.

setr 8y ago
The actual feature (having netflix, amazon, hulu, etc natively available) is fine; the problem is that its slow, unreliable, prints useless errors, and no matter how much you spend, the interface is always a janky horrible experience. There are also other nuisances like forcing the framerate up to 60fps by frame interprolation, causing everything in 24fps (most content) to look awful, and in certain implementations, jitter. Some of the things I noted have perfectly valid ideas, but just ..pathetic.. implementations (smart tvs, gps), and others are preferences that get forced onto you (aux port, web heavy-js, game graphics) But the key is the suppliers collectively decided that this is exactly what the consumers want, and the only option left otherwise is to turn back to 1990 or look to the chinese knockoffs. The ability to signal to the market that this isn’t whats wanted is lost... except by entirely avoiding all recent technological advances. And the truly strange thing is that there are few, if any, offering the same object but with improved interfaces (with cars it makes sense, the rest of the vehicle is more important; but tvs? video games? What the hell? These should be much easier to find variations on.
- TylerE 8y ago
  > There are also other nuisances like forcing the framerate up to 60fps by frame interprolation, causing everything in 24fps (most content) to look awful, and in certain implementations, jitter. THat's just a shitty TV. My now almost 5 year old Smart TV handles 24hz just fine... the panel is actually running at 120 so 24 is an even multiple. Personally, I really like my smart TV and use many apps for stream non-mainstream sports, and the like.
  - setr 8y ago
    As far as I can tell, its an intentional modification (makes the show look "better"), and I only usually see it on the more expensive, newer home TVs. Whats your TV model/brand?

Illniyar 8y ago

If I recall correctly 3D TVs has always had minuscule sales volume compared to regular TVs. Even in it's "height" there were far more regular TVs sold then 3D ones. If 3D TVs were able to garner any premium over regular TVs, the electronics companies would have continued selling them. It was, and probably still is, a net loss. Smart TVs are a convenience that is actually in demand, mostly because it does not add a markup to price - why buy a non smart TV when you can buy a smart one at the same price. The majority of iPhone users probably use bluetooth headphones. Phablets are so much in demand, that apple had practically no choice but to build one. Heavy js and web is a completely different story because you aren't the customer for website with heavy js, and the advertisers, who are the customers of these websites, have a great demand for more javascript. AAA titles are dominating the market. Indie sales are a minuscule fraction of the game industry market. Why? because there is insane demand for AAA titles, and for that matter for massive multiplayer games - LoL, Fortnite, PUBG etc... Just because you don't like it, or for that matter the entire of HN don't like it, doesn't mean there is no demand for it.

setr 8y ago
>If 3D TVs were able to garner any premium over regular TVs, the electronics companies would have continued selling them. It was, and probably still is, a net loss Sure; the issue is that due to supplier convergence, the only option in a modern tv. If they weren’t so obviously harmful to sales, we’d still have them around, because it’d be impossible to differentiate between negative vs positive impact, simply because nothing else was available to even buy (in that trust/price/quality/brand range) >The majority of iPhone users probably use bluetooth headphones. Before or after it was their only choice? Like cars, the presence or lack of an aux port is irrelevant compared to the rest of the purchase. It doesn’t imply one way or the other whether anyone actually prefers it, when the change is bundled with so much more. >AAA titles are dominating the market AAA titles are always dominating the market. My point is that there is no way to differentiate between a AAA game being successful because of, despite or irresThe majority of iPhone users probably use bluetooth headphones.pective of its graphical complexity, because consumers simply cannot buy a AAA title that did not spend half its budget on 3D graphics. This is only changing because a few indie games/smaller titles have seen extreme success despite “weak” graphics (minecraft, fortnite, LoL). Even kickstarter games appealing to older genres (eg The recent CRPGs trend) probably put an outsized emphasis on graphics, despite targetting players of 90s work. My opinion is that games can get very far with very limited graphics, but looking at the general market its impossible to actually make the case because there’s very few examples where its even been tried. The best you can really do is turn to modern indie, or point out that some older games are still heavily played (WoW, starcraft, quake, etc) If the whole market suddenly shifts in a particular direction, there’s no chance for competition to rule out an idea as being a bad one.