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There is, if you desire control of your television. If you have no problem with Roku et al. pushing updates to your TV, then by all means use integrated softwa
by ethbr1 2y ago
There is, if you desire control of your television.
If you have no problem with Roku et al. pushing updates to your TV, then by all means use integrated software.
- Dylan16807 2y agoA separate streaming device, or a computer, has the same issues. Unless a TV screen is special here it sounds like this logic won't let me use any streaming services.
- Larrikin 2y agoA streaming box can be factory reset or thrown in the trash. If your 65 inch TV doesn't let you roll back an update you have to buy a new TV. Streaming boxes are usually faster and more feature filled than the in built TV stuff as well.
- Dylan16807 2y agoAnd now we're getting into much more technical details and why I said "inherently". A proper built-in box will let you bypass it.
- karmakaze 2y agoThat's exactly the problem. There's no guarantee that the built-in will be and remain "proper" with updates. It's like saying we can trust our government with encryption backdoors as long as they behave properly.
- ethbr1 2y agoMy perspective: the incentive for manufacturers is to generate as much revenue as possible. In hardware manufacturing, margins are extremely tight. Consequently, any additional revenue from selling customer data is incredibly attractive. Especially if you can do so better/faster than your competitors, thereby competing at the same retail price points with better net margins. As a result... they have every incentive to fuck their customers over from a privacy perspective. And what they're doing is invisible. And this is an entity people are comfortable trusting with unfettered access to their devices/network?
- Dylan16807 2y agoSorry, I was unclear. By 'bypass', I mean something that does not require the cooperation of the box. I should have said the proper way of adding it will let you bypass the box, not phrase things as if the box is the gatekeeper.
- cassianoleal 2y agoWithout connecting my TV to the Internet for firmware upgrades, I would be missing out on several fixes and improvements especially with handling of higher frame rates, VRR and IIRC at least one in the HDMI ARC subsystem that was causing audio drops.
- Larrikin 2y agoWhich TV manufacturer is shipping out buggy TVs that require updates?
- cassianoleal 2y agoI imagine all of them. This is all controlled in soft/firmware and as such is bound to have bugs. There's also updates that make better use of the hardware.
- ethbr1 2y agoThen use USB offline update? Samsung: https://www.samsung.com/us/support/answer/ANS00062224/ https://www.samsung.com/us/support/answer/ANS00062224/ Vizio: https://support.vizio.com/s/article/Firmware-Information-215?language=en_US https://support.vizio.com/s/article/Firmware-Information-215... TCL: https://support.tcl.com/rokutv-common-questions/01-how-to-manually-update-the-software-on-your-tcl-roku-tv https://support.tcl.com/rokutv-common-questions/01-how-to-ma...
- Larrikin 2y agoName the specific one you're talking about. Either there is a manufacturer we should all avoid, or atleast a model, or you made it up.
- cassianoleal 2y agoLol ok so I'm making it up, then. I don't owe you anything, dude. You can believe whatever you want, I don't give a single f.
- 2y ago
- gspencley 2y agoI'm not saying that other people should go the route that I did, I'm just adding to the conversation. I wanted to make my "smart" tv "dumb" without losing smart tv functionality, so I bought a mini pc and installed Kubuntu on it. Normally I don't use KDE but it is a very highly customizable DE and so I customized the hell out of it to make the desktop look like a typical smart tv launcher page. I created launchers for streaming services and YouTube etc. and bought a USB remote control from Amazon. Now I have a Linux machine that is entirely under my control, runs FOSS software and runs streaming services in a web browser instead of installing proprietary software on my TV. I also have way more features, like being able to use VLC to play local media so it supports pretty much every file format ever (and I have a lot of older video files from decades ago so that's nice). My "smart" tv is no longer connected to any network but I can still do every smart tv thing that I want to and more.
- 0cf8612b2e1e 2y agoUnless things have changed, a Linux machine will not give you a high bit rate picture. Netflix requires DRM and will only give you 720p. So you get freedom, but a worse product. Which is a trade off not all would be willing to make.
- dmkolobov 2y agoThere are also few major streaming services which require elevated levels of DRM , preventing them from being used on Linux.
- gspencley 2y agoI've not had any issues with any streaming service not working on Linux. Disney+, Netflix, Prime Video, Shutter all work fine for me. If it can be streamed in a browser, on any OS, it works on Linux. Typically your browser just needs to have Widevine installed. As for Netflix quality, I've not noticed any quality issues at 1080p but I've not measured the stream to confirm if that's what they're actually streaming.
- fragmede 2y agoI'd rather my tv get updates than have it end up as part of a botnet. The recent RCE in ssh shows nothing is immune.