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Gah. That's just horrible. There should be a minimum supported period of 6 years for all software on smart TVs, the consequences of which are full refund of th

by setquk 8y ago

Gah. That's just horrible. There should be a minimum supported period of 6 years for all software on smart TVs, the consequences of which are full refund of the initial purchase price of the TV. That'd kill this shit overnight.

alias_neo 8y ago
I'm inclined to agree, I'm on my second flagship TV in 7 years, the first, A Samsung OLED 3D Smart TV had most of its apps killed within 2-3 years, I'm now on an LG, WebOS so not many apps to start with, but I see this going the same way soon. I'd love to be able to just not have all of the "smart" features that they kill well within the lifespan of the TV and instead offload them to an external box. At least the Samsung didn't have huge Netflix, Amazon etc buttons on the remote, like the LG, which will end up doing nothing some day.
CWuestefeld 8y ago
This is a mega-tangent, but... Frankly, if you're dumb enough to buy a smart TV, this is what you deserve. It should be obvious that (a) the expected lifespan of the hardware investment in a TV is a pretty long time - 10 years, maybe? But (b) the expected lifespan of the "smart" part is obviously much smaller: for example, you know that codecs are going to change, and computational requirements for them will increase significantly (e.g., from MPEG2->DIVX->H264->H265) on a much faster scale, maybe 2-3 years. With the hardware for the display being on drastically different horizon than that for the computation, it should be obvious that the overall product design is flawed. And it's flawed in a way that updated software will eventually be unable to cover. EDIT: obviously we want to be able to do "smart" stuff with our TVs. But the right approach for this is with separate components (e.g., Roku, Fire, Apple TV) that we can swap out as they become obsolete while retaining the longer-term investment in the display.
- setquk 8y ago
  Fair points and totally agree. I was dumb enough (I would use the same words!) to buy one the first time round so I agree with you.
- TallGuyShort 8y ago
  First of all, it's not obvious to most lay people. Second, I wouldn't have a problem if that was the reason stuff stopped working, but if Smart TV makers / sellers explicitly advertise certain apps, those apps damn well better have a decent life. I bought mine and days later my favorite Roku app (Spotify) decided to shut down that app for something like a year. Nothing to do with hardware advancements, they just made an intentional decision to de-prioritize a device I had already been sold and it didn't keep up.
- crysin 8y ago
  The problem is if you want a 4K tv from Sony, Samsung, LG, or Vizio you'd be hard pressed to find any that are not some variation of a "smart" tv. You could go back to 1080 and find some dumb TVs still but then you're losing out on the HDR support.

by setquk 8y ago

alias_neo 8y ago

I'm inclined to agree, I'm on my second flagship TV in 7 years, the first, A Samsung OLED 3D Smart TV had most of its apps killed within 2-3 years, I'm now on an LG, WebOS so not many apps to start with, but I see this going the same way soon. I'd love to be able to just not have all of the "smart" features that they kill well within the lifespan of the TV and instead offload them to an external box. At least the Samsung didn't have huge Netflix, Amazon etc buttons on the remote, like the LG, which will end up doing nothing some day.

CWuestefeld 8y ago

This is a mega-tangent, but... Frankly, if you're dumb enough to buy a smart TV, this is what you deserve. It should be obvious that (a) the expected lifespan of the hardware investment in a TV is a pretty long time - 10 years, maybe? But (b) the expected lifespan of the "smart" part is obviously much smaller: for example, you know that codecs are going to change, and computational requirements for them will increase significantly (e.g., from MPEG2->DIVX->H264->H265) on a much faster scale, maybe 2-3 years. With the hardware for the display being on drastically different horizon than that for the computation, it should be obvious that the overall product design is flawed. And it's flawed in a way that updated software will eventually be unable to cover. EDIT: obviously we want to be able to do "smart" stuff with our TVs. But the right approach for this is with separate components (e.g., Roku, Fire, Apple TV) that we can swap out as they become obsolete while retaining the longer-term investment in the display.

setquk 8y ago
Fair points and totally agree. I was dumb enough (I would use the same words!) to buy one the first time round so I agree with you.
TallGuyShort 8y ago
First of all, it's not obvious to most lay people. Second, I wouldn't have a problem if that was the reason stuff stopped working, but if Smart TV makers / sellers explicitly advertise certain apps, those apps damn well better have a decent life. I bought mine and days later my favorite Roku app (Spotify) decided to shut down that app for something like a year. Nothing to do with hardware advancements, they just made an intentional decision to de-prioritize a device I had already been sold and it didn't keep up.
crysin 8y ago
The problem is if you want a 4K tv from Sony, Samsung, LG, or Vizio you'd be hard pressed to find any that are not some variation of a "smart" tv. You could go back to 1080 and find some dumb TVs still but then you're losing out on the HDR support.