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I've thought about this a lot recently. It would be ideal to reflash the PC embedded in the back of the TV, but failing that, how hard would it be to connect t

I've thought about this a lot recently. It would be ideal to reflash the PC embedded in the back of the TV, but failing that, how hard would it be to connect the display to something like a raspberry pi. This prototype seems like the latter, and it definitely has its warts. You really need the display unit to make this functional. I wonder how hard it is to flash the onboard components. Is there an OpenWRT equivalent for smart TVs?

gjsman-1000 2y ago
Nope, and probably never will be. Roku TVs have signed boot and boot loaders, and the attack surface is so small, they haven’t had a public root exploit in about a decade (edit: there was one in 2021 I missed.) Google TV is just Android TV, complete with reusing Android chips and Android Secure Boot. The other manufacturers might have more weaknesses (perhaps webOS would be more open), but it’s very vendor and board specific. So the question: A. Who can reliably defeat secure boot; B. Who wants to write Linux drivers for every TV ever sold?, and C. Who wants custom firmware if you well never get 4K or 1080p because the DRM isn’t happy?
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creer 2y ago
TVs, I mean TVs made to be TV sets, don't have PCs so to speak running them. I don't know what proportion of them use that, but there are lots of chips made to lower the chip count while providing the specific functionality needed to do a good job of rendering compressed video. So between "single chip" TVs where lower chip count is the objective and "high end processing" where a better image quality is the goal, I expect most TVs use rather dedicated solutions. For example, chips like: https://www.nxp.com/products/no-longer-manufactured/connected-media-processor:PNX9520E https://www.nxp.com/products/no-longer-manufactured/connecte... https://www.nxp.com/products/processors-and-microcontrollers/arm-processors/i-mx-applications-processors/i-mx-mature-processors/multimedia-applications-processors-hd-video-high-end-advanced-applications-arm-cortex-a8-core:i.MX537 https://www.nxp.com/products/processors-and-microcontrollers... https://news.synopsys.com/home?item=122891 https://news.synopsys.com/home?item=122891 (who in the world thinks it's a good idea to do press releases with no date? These people is who) https://news.synopsys.com/home?item=122565 https://news.synopsys.com/home?item=122565 So anyway, that doesn't mean it's impossible to free them - mods / reflash are available for some DSLRs for example. But it's more difficult. There are however "universal" TV main boards for replacements... And these may have more documentation available? Maybe?

gjsman-1000 2y ago

Nope, and probably never will be. Roku TVs have signed boot and boot loaders, and the attack surface is so small, they haven’t had a public root exploit in about a decade (edit: there was one in 2021 I missed.) Google TV is just Android TV, complete with reusing Android chips and Android Secure Boot. The other manufacturers might have more weaknesses (perhaps webOS would be more open), but it’s very vendor and board specific. So the question: A. Who can reliably defeat secure boot; B. Who wants to write Linux drivers for every TV ever sold?, and C. Who wants custom firmware if you well never get 4K or 1080p because the DRM isn’t happy?

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

creer 2y ago

TVs, I mean TVs made to be TV sets, don't have PCs so to speak running them. I don't know what proportion of them use that, but there are lots of chips made to lower the chip count while providing the specific functionality needed to do a good job of rendering compressed video. So between "single chip" TVs where lower chip count is the objective and "high end processing" where a better image quality is the goal, I expect most TVs use rather dedicated solutions. For example, chips like: https://www.nxp.com/products/no-longer-manufactured/connected-media-processor:PNX9520E https://www.nxp.com/products/no-longer-manufactured/connecte... https://www.nxp.com/products/processors-and-microcontrollers/arm-processors/i-mx-applications-processors/i-mx-mature-processors/multimedia-applications-processors-hd-video-high-end-advanced-applications-arm-cortex-a8-core:i.MX537 https://www.nxp.com/products/processors-and-microcontrollers... https://news.synopsys.com/home?item=122891 https://news.synopsys.com/home?item=122891 (who in the world thinks it's a good idea to do press releases with no date? These people is who) https://news.synopsys.com/home?item=122565 https://news.synopsys.com/home?item=122565 So anyway, that doesn't mean it's impossible to free them - mods / reflash are available for some DSLRs for example. But it's more difficult. There are however "universal" TV main boards for replacements... And these may have more documentation available? Maybe?