3 ms·

What really drives me nuts is smart TVs with 100mbps Ethernet connections. When I bought a tv we looked in vain for gigabit Ethernet.

navigate8310 5mo ago
It is futile to expect the TV to be smart and support all sorts of apps and hardware only to be abandoned by the manufacturer years down the line. The only correct way to buy a TV imho is to hunt for a dumb but excellent display properties and get a streaming device such as Google TV Streamer, Apple TV or DIY x86 HTPC.
- cwel 5mo ago
  >DIY x86 HTPC ARM slander was not warranted
  - Dylan16807 5mo ago
    Are there DIY Arm boards that make a good HTPC? Do they have hardware video decoding?
    - ihsw 5mo ago
      Your best bet is going to be Raspberry Pi devices: https://github.com/blakeblackshear/frigate/discussions/18431 https://github.com/blakeblackshear/frigate/discussions/18431 You can try Googling around for bespoke products but they will almost exclusively come from China and they will be very overpriced due to the soldered RAM.
izacus 5mo ago
TVs are made with BOM of like 10$ for the SoC, so it's the cheapest crap available. Then again - none of the streaming services are streaming at anything remotely close to 100Mbps so I doubt they consider it necessary to upgrade to GbE.
hamdingers 5mo ago
Unfortunately we're the weird ones for wanting to stream >100mbps content. My 2020 LG CX has a USB 2.0 port and I get ~300mbps with a gigabit adapter, if the TV you ended up with has a USB port it's worth a try.
- kiririn 5mo ago
  What >100mbps content is there? 4K bluray just needs a bigger buffer to handle >100mbps spikes (Kodi for example offers this) and Moonlight/Apollo/etc is well into diminishing returns
  - hamdingers 5mo ago
    4k blu-ray remuxes break 100mbps for long enough to cause problems on my TV, unless I use either wifi or the USB adapter. Others have done investigations showing in some movies the bitrate will exceed 100mbps for minutes at a time. 1. https://www.reddit.com/r/PleX/comments/eoa03e/psa_100_mbps_is_not_enough_to_direct_play_4k/ https://www.reddit.com/r/PleX/comments/eoa03e/psa_100_mbps_i...
Sohcahtoa82 5mo ago
With what feels like weekly posts about someone being shocked their smart TV is showing them ads, I'm surprised you looked for gigabit for your TV. I've had a smart TV for over 5 years and never connected it to the Internet.
- tombert 5mo ago
  I connected my Samsung TV to the WiFi for the first time two weeks ago because I wanted to play with the multi-screen-view thing, and it didn't appear to work with two HDMI cables. It has not shut up asking me to update the fucking thing. Every time I turn the TV on, about twenty seconds later an update prompt will pop up, and it will not go away until I actively dismiss it. This happened even after disconnecting and forgetting the wifi. Never again.

navigate8310 5mo ago

It is futile to expect the TV to be smart and support all sorts of apps and hardware only to be abandoned by the manufacturer years down the line. The only correct way to buy a TV imho is to hunt for a dumb but excellent display properties and get a streaming device such as Google TV Streamer, Apple TV or DIY x86 HTPC.

cwel 5mo ago
>DIY x86 HTPC ARM slander was not warranted
- Dylan16807 5mo ago
  Are there DIY Arm boards that make a good HTPC? Do they have hardware video decoding?
  - ihsw 5mo ago
    Your best bet is going to be Raspberry Pi devices: https://github.com/blakeblackshear/frigate/discussions/18431 https://github.com/blakeblackshear/frigate/discussions/18431 You can try Googling around for bespoke products but they will almost exclusively come from China and they will be very overpriced due to the soldered RAM.

izacus 5mo ago

TVs are made with BOM of like 10$ for the SoC, so it's the cheapest crap available. Then again - none of the streaming services are streaming at anything remotely close to 100Mbps so I doubt they consider it necessary to upgrade to GbE.

hamdingers 5mo ago

Unfortunately we're the weird ones for wanting to stream >100mbps content. My 2020 LG CX has a USB 2.0 port and I get ~300mbps with a gigabit adapter, if the TV you ended up with has a USB port it's worth a try.

kiririn 5mo ago
What >100mbps content is there? 4K bluray just needs a bigger buffer to handle >100mbps spikes (Kodi for example offers this) and Moonlight/Apollo/etc is well into diminishing returns
- hamdingers 5mo ago
  4k blu-ray remuxes break 100mbps for long enough to cause problems on my TV, unless I use either wifi or the USB adapter. Others have done investigations showing in some movies the bitrate will exceed 100mbps for minutes at a time. 1. https://www.reddit.com/r/PleX/comments/eoa03e/psa_100_mbps_is_not_enough_to_direct_play_4k/ https://www.reddit.com/r/PleX/comments/eoa03e/psa_100_mbps_i...

Sohcahtoa82 5mo ago

With what feels like weekly posts about someone being shocked their smart TV is showing them ads, I'm surprised you looked for gigabit for your TV. I've had a smart TV for over 5 years and never connected it to the Internet.

tombert 5mo ago
I connected my Samsung TV to the WiFi for the first time two weeks ago because I wanted to play with the multi-screen-view thing, and it didn't appear to work with two HDMI cables. It has not shut up asking me to update the fucking thing. Every time I turn the TV on, about twenty seconds later an update prompt will pop up, and it will not go away until I actively dismiss it. This happened even after disconnecting and forgetting the wifi. Never again.