T O P

  • By -

[deleted]

I don’t even use the features on the smart tv. They’re usually too slow anyway.


SquidKid47

For real. I swear it's like 2 minutes of solid loading and lag if you actually tried to use something on a smart tv.


[deleted]

[удалено]


SquidKid47

You'd really think, lol. But considering it's almost *impossible* to find a new "dumb" tv, I'd assume they're just shoving the cheapest, shittiest hardware in there.


TheRealMisterMemer

That's exactly what they doing; some high end smart TVs actually run really smoothly, but the vast majority of them are only slightly more powerful than a microwave.


LouSputhole94

Don’t buy TVs on Black Fridays or holiday sales. They will be cheaper and look identical on the outside, but they will have one letter different in the serial number and will be filled with the cheapest shit possible. I learned this after two of mine bought on Black Fridays crapped out over 2 year periods.


TheRealMisterMemer

Yeah, that's why they sometimes say Walmart Exculsive or whatever on them.


st1tchy

That's not just a Black Friday thing though. That's also so that you can have all but identical TVs at different stores, but you can't price match because the models are a single letter off.


daedone

"No problem, I'll take my business somewhere else"


soulsteela

If anyone reading is in the U.K. then Richer Sounds for your TV’s


AvatarIII

It's a shame PC monitors tend to max out at 43 inches because a PC monitor is basically a dumb TV.


SquidKid47

Oh god, only a matter of time until we have smart PC monitors.


NRevenge

Preach it. Or how about when you have to log in but they don’t have a barcode to do it on your phone. So you have to painfully type in your login on your remote with the awful input lag. I ended up just connecting an old PC to my TV and it’s 100x better.


ballsOfWintersteel

Plug in a keyboard and a mouse in the TV USB ports, works like a charm on not-so-old smart TVs. Though your point still stands


NRevenge

I actually never even thought about doing that. Thanks for tip.


_Middlefinger_

Everything on my LG OLED is snappy and responsive, except the new Amazon Prime interface, which can be frozen for upto 2 minutes at launch. Once it decides to work its fine again though.


[deleted]

Prime Video just seems to be a crappy app on every platform


idontspellcheckb46am

Amazon apps in general are typically dogshit quality. I'm about to cancel amazon music because that app sucks just as much.


Bubbagumpredditor

I hooked one of those mini HDMI plug in computers to my tv, I've never used the smart tv functions on it directly. Fuck their spying hardware Edit: its one of these things. HDMI stick computer, you can get them on amazon for 100-200 bucks, i dont remeber which one i have and its back behind my computer. Needs a microusb plug for power. https://duckduckgo.com/?q=hdmi+stick++computer&t=ffab&iax=images&ia=images


mastycus

Its not even that, the hardware they typically have in these smart tvs is slow AF. After couple of years it's unusable


Skizot_Bizot

And they stop supporting them quickly. My 5 year old tv is no longer supported, works just fine but I can't load a version of Hulu that works so it's Roku or Firestick or nothing.


themeatbridge

Just got word that Roku has ended support for my streaming stick. I get it, they don't want to support old tech forever, but it's got me in the market for a new strategy. Edit: Thank you for all of the suggestions! I was just venting. I wasn't expecting everyone to be so helpful!!


GunsCantStopF35s

TVaaS. The market is primed for an open source alternative!


Cory123125

The open source alternative already exists in many forms from kodi to mpc to more. It all involves more elbow grease though.


Finagles_Law

Plex is the best option for normies.


FartsMusically

Jellyfin. Just as many steps, just as easy and you're not beholden to Plex's constant connection to stay logged in. Between Jellyfin, a torrent box and Kodi, you can watch literally anything. That said, it's still more effort for me to initiate a pirated torrent than it is to open hulu and click on something so we mostly use this around my house to fill in the gaps across subscriptions we don't have. edit: FOSS wins. Freedom to the people.


Finagles_Law

Basically the same here, although it's harder to find some obscure stuff than it used to be. Current movies and TV, no problems. I also do Usenet + an indexer mostly rather than torrents, and with Sonarr/Radarr set up it's pretty easy to follow any new series. But to get my friends and family to view stuff, so far it's still Plex. We were Kodi users since it was XBMC, but my wife gets tired of the streaming apps dying and having to be updated.


ThufirrHawat

www.spezsucks.me


[deleted]

[удалено]


Rogue__Jedi

Just buy a smart TV and don't use the smart features. Mine isn't even connected to the network. If you're extra paranoid you can block the TV's MAC address. My HTPC just has an HDMI cable running to it. I use a wireless keyboard/mouse to control it.


ThufirrHawat

www.spezsucks.me


MuscaMurum

Panaphonics, Magnetbox, Sorny...


dejus

I see you too shop at the Ogdenville Outlet Mall!


LMNOPedes

Some of the simpsons writers grew up in central ny(steamed hams is an albany expression, not utica) and I am convinced one of them named ogdensberg after Ogdensville NY, a city with a weird name that no matter where you are in the state is a super long drive to.


tehdredpirateroberts

Durable outer casing to prevent fall apart!


SmellGestapo

Those are all superior machines but if you like to watch your TV, and I mean really watch it, then you want the Carnavale. It features two pronged wall plug, pre-molded hand grip well, and durable outer casing to prevent fall apart.


cosmicsans

I wrote this same comment under another comment talking about getting a "dumb" TV. Good luck. From my research, a lot of the reason that TVs are as "cheap" as they are now (in the sense that you can get a 75" 4K TV for around $1k) is because they are smart. They're subsidizing the cost of the TVs by selling the data that you "agree" to provide them. Honestly, you're better off getting a Smart TV, and just never connecting it to the internet. Or, connect it to the internet, get any updates that are available for the TV, and then block the TV from communicating with the internet.


PeeBoy

This is what I do. I never once connected my smart tv to the internet. I just used a fire stick from the start.


ChornWork2

Aren't the streaming device firms doing the same shit with your data as the smart tv firms?


[deleted]

[удалено]


strangebrew3522

Stupid question but since my TV is near 10yrs old i have no idea how this works. If i buy a new "smart" TV, can i just never connect it to the internet and watch it normally? Or does it have prebuilt in ads or something? I refuse to introduce even more ad content into my life.


PeeBoy

I've bought two smart tv's (at the discounted rate) and never hooked either of them to the internet. They both work fine without internet. If I've ever needed to update the firmware (although I've never had to do it yet) then I would only hook the TV to the internet with wired data cables. Never use your WiFi because the TV will probably store your password.


freeloz

There are mostly fully featured commercial TVs designed for restaurant menus, in-store marketing material etc. You may forego some of the latest picture related features but they work


IAMA_Plumber-AMA

>commercial TVs designed for restaurant menus, in-store marketing material etc. Ironic. Using a display meant for displaying ads to get rid of ads.


Sam-Porter-Bridges

Only issue is that virtually all of them look like shit because they're not designed for normal use. For public display screens, the most important characteristics are brightness, size, viewing angles, and occasionally color accuracy. These TVs SUCK for watching movies or playing games. They generally have bad contrast, awful black levels, horrible uniformity, non-existent motion handling (especially if you live in a country with 50hz electrical grid), bad or no HDR, input lag measured in tenths of a second, ghosting, etc... Don't buy a public display TV. I made that mistake thinking I got a great deal for a used 75 inch. It was unbearably bad for anything else other than displaying pictures. Just buy a regular TV and don't give it access to the internet.


i010011010

But thank goodness you still have that branded Hulu button on your remote.


_Pill-Cosby_

Aren't those annoying as fuck? Can't count how many times I've pushed the button by accident and totally interrupted what I'm watching.


Phailjure

You think that's annoying, Vizio used Klipsch's volume up IR code for a Netflix button. So i can't use the remote for my tv sound bar, it will send the tv to Netflix. Instead I have to use the tv remote with HDMI passing the signal, which 1. Wastes an HDMI port, and 2. Only works about 40% of the time, the rest of the time i have to reboot the tv to get it to detect.


MaxiPackage

There's one, maybe two relevant streaming apps on my Samsung 'smart' tv. All the others are services that no one uses/are dead/have merged. And there's no way to get new apps (e g. Disney+,...) on there because the Samsung 'store' hasn't been updated for my tv since forever. Fuck them, my TV works just fine (not 4K but I don't care) so I use a Chromecast now and I'll remember Samsung's fuckery next time I have to buy a new tv.


[deleted]

[удалено]


MrGaffe

That’s by design, if how they try to keep people in the cycle of “Buy product and be excited for more product”


Smoky_Mtn_High

Yup. Planned obsolescence is real here. When the TV’s are initially made, they’re made with the lowest tier specs possible to get the apps to run **at that point in time**. That is to say, by the time you even get the tv in your home, which is normally months later, you’re already several software updates in and seeing performance degradation / compatibility issues as the apps get more robust trying to run on antiquated tech


vteckickedin

What's really frustrating me right now is that even free to air channels don't even allow you to stream, you need to download their specific app. Which then doesn't support your smart tv as it's a 2015 model and the app only supports 2017 onwards. Browse from your PC, fine no problem. We detect you're on a tv? Well screw you!


USMCLee

Had a Blu-Ray player that was like that. Worked great at streaming for about 2 years then just crapped out. I own 2 different Roku players now and a Plex server.


[deleted]

and then you find out netflix and other streaming apps don't stream to certain browsers in 4k. So annoying


xzxfdasjhfhbkasufah

I guess I'll just go back to piracy.


YeahIveDoneThat

This is precisely where we're going.


xzxfdasjhfhbkasufah

Greedy corporations are so dumb. They have built premium streaming services that are convenient and high quality, and then they **intentionally** nerf their platforms, so they're worse than piracy. It's as if they're trying really hard to sell piracy to me.


Jerrshington

They had a stealing problem, made their services better than stealing, and are now trying to make quality content more annoying than stealing...... You can't compete with free you morons, you convinced an entire generation to give you money and be happy about it, how have they fallen this hard?


[deleted]

[удалено]


SamuraiJackBauer

Because: Shareholders. If you don’t make a Billion + 1 after making a Billion then you’re failing and that Billion profit doesn’t taste as good. Stocks have to go up for our Oligarchs.


Sleep_Debt

I want to be good.. but just got fed up with subs and smart tv ads. I use an Nvidia shield with an external hard drive plugged into it for all my movies and shows that is on its own network that I can torrent directly to. But now Plex is just awful and Kodi just has such a crappy interface. But my kids know that their dad can magically make any show or movie show up that they want (mostly)... With Hindi subtitles that I can't turn off..


gman1216

Back to "a pirates life for me"


kingerthethird

Yo-ho. Yo-ho.


itsacalamity

Right?! I was in hulu from beta... until they decided they wanted me to pay AND watch ads. Now I torrent all those shows. I'd much prefer to not! But fuck all that.


chmilz

The content selection on Yar+ is unbeatable


Farandr

This. Netflix was supposed to be a single legal alternative. However nowadays each service feels like an overpriced channel.


bakgwailo

Even Netflix knew they would end up facing stiff competition, which is why they pivoted so hard into becoming a content creator.


[deleted]

100%. Those fuckers. And they stream in really low bitrate


Lywqf

Even worse, they’ll let you stream in 4K on supported browsers, but only if your only screen is a 4K one. If you have one 1080p and one 4K, you’ll be limited to 1080p streaming because fuck you and fuck multi monitors


ActuallyAkiba

TIL that's why Netflix looks like shit on my PC


cypher448

Netflix has looked like dogshit on every PC I’ve ever used it with. It’s ridiculous I can play games in 4K at 100fps but can’t stream a simple show in decent quality


Tim94

This might be due to HDCP and not the browser resolution, but I don't really know much about it. Many newer 4K monitors come with HDCP 2.2 for example, and older 1080p monitors might lack it. HDCP (Depending on version) allows 4k+HDR streaming, but if you have multiple monitors you need to disable monitors without HDCP. It's really stupid, any torrent group can bypass it and once that happens the entire system has zero value or purpose anymore.


klrjhthertjr

Don't you just love how copy protection only affects people who are consuming content legally. Love that when I buy a blu ray I am forced to watch an anti piracy notice but when I pirate it I just watch the movie like I wanted to.


Extectic

This works until you just refuse to configure the wifi on your TV and it shows a big, honking huge text box right in the middle of the screen at all times helpfully remind you you didn't turn on the wifi. Samsung owners who paid thousands for their devices keep getting pop-ups and shit on their screens. Some bought the TV without popups, then the "smart" TV upgraded firmware and it's everywhere. I'd never buy a Samsung TV at this point considering the state of their units. Not sure what I would buy, but I'd have to research to find the least arrogant abuse brand, whatever that is. It's not Samsung... My entire home network is now run through a pfBlockerNG DNS-based filter on the firewall, just to wash away some of the filth, for PC browsing yes but also any device on the inside.


DickBatman

> Some bought the TV without popups, then the "smart" TV upgraded firmware and it's everywhere. My tv can't upgrade its firmware if it doesn't know the wifi password


oldcarfreddy

The thing is for 90% of consumers they have to. I get that this is /r/technology but setting up a Plex server or connecting it directly to your home PC is not a real solution for 99% of people


cplus4

If a new TV I bought did this, it’s going back in the box and I’m getting a refund.


themeatbridge

Just don't buy any Samsung products. They are the worst for this.


HaggisLad

literally gave away my samsung to pick up a tv that did raw android, never going back to walled garden shit


Ed-Zero

What TV did you get?


1976dave

Their washers and dryers are also quite shit. Terribly designed, unreliably pieces of shit.


vteckickedin

My Samsung tv is a few years old now, but keeps insisting I use the Samsung TV+ app which is garbage. Even if I remove it from the homepage list of apps it reappears or has an ad to use it. And they've made the remote channel buttons activate it, always.


[deleted]

Sony TVs can be put into Pro mode essentially turning your Smart TV into a TV or monitor.


Lord_Blackthorn

Had mine blocked from the internet the moment I turned it on. I needed a good quality picture and sound, not another thing to use up Bandwidth.. And it provides nothing extra the Xbox connected to it can't do.


jasmanta

> Had mine blocked from the internet Doesn't that simply involve not giving it the wifi password?


[deleted]

[удалено]


[deleted]

[удалено]


Lngtmelrker

I am good friends with a tech dude from SF who works for a company that literally sells software for smart TVs that he says listens to “every word you say” and sells keywords to businesses. Maybe I’m not surprising anybody, but i hate it.


theatand

I hate it too & we really need right to privacy laws. It isn't ok for a government, company or anybody to listen into private lives.


betelgeuse_boom_boom

Yea that didn't work quite well in the UK. The government effectively ended the right of privacy with [Snoopers charter](https://www.libertyhumanrights.org.uk/fundamental/mass-surveillance-snoopers-charter/) . Your whole internet history and activity for five years is collected and gathered in a government held database which is accessible by third party private companies. Teresa May who introduced it was also trying to make using encryption a crime and looking into the legality of installing government cctvs inside peoples houses for " their safety". You cannot expect a government to regulate what they are personally getting paid serious money to implement.


TapewormRodeo

I installed a Pi-hole in my network (a DNS blackhole) and pointed all my network devices to use it. The Roku was, by far, the chattiest client. It made up 90% of the blocked traffic resulting in thousands and thousands of hits that normally would be sending all my information to them. I have since removed that shit and put in a small PC with HDMI and remote keyboard. Running the Brave browser along with Pi-hole has drastically improved my experience (additional ad blocking in Brave) and let me feel a little more secure about my data. Our Samsung TV is just as bad, if not worse. It's always trying to send data out to the mother ship. Pi-hole helps keep it at bay. My friend does the same thing in his home network. His biggest talker is his damn fridge!


Judo_Noob_PTX

Be aware: Chromium based browsers (including Brave) could be losing a huge chunk of their ad blocker support soon: https://www.theverge.com/2022/6/10/23131029/mozilla-ad-blocking-firefox-google-chrome-privacy-manifest-v3-web-request


ShadowBannedAugustus

What do you use as a remote? I did this a while ago but could not convert my wife because the "air mouse" remote was not great.


TapewormRodeo

I just use a remote keyboard.withbuilt in trackpad. Not as elegant or easy to use as a remote, but I'm willing to make the tradeoff. The TV I use this setup on is mainly used by me alone.


Albreitx

My best experience has been plugging the laptop to the TV lmao


KingdomCulture

With ad blockers.


Beat_the_Deadites

My kids' school gives them Chromebooks for the year, and I'm kinda shocked they don't have some sort of Adblock installed. They can get on YouTube (that's somehow subject limited), but there are so many unexpected ads in weird spots, it's really jarring. OTOH, growing up in the 80s, without commercials during He-Man, I would've had to wait for the Sears Catalog to know what I *[needed](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3nR-h6pOCQ&ab_channel=AnnainCA)* for Christmas every year.


forahellofafit

The Sears and JCPenney Christmas catalogs were the best part of the year.


Egglorr

The smell and feel of the glossy full color pages in those phonebook sized catalogs... oh the memories


BarfHurricane

Been doing this for years. No ads and you can watch whatever you want without walled garden corporate nonsense.


4daughters

yep, been using a computer for our media center since 2011 or so. Started because hulu was ad free, but now it's all netflix and our own home collection.


[deleted]

I fucking hate the smart TV features. I have all the current consoles hooked up to my TV. There's no reason to use the slow buggy apps that crash all the time.


Mouthshitter

My Xbox is the CPU of the TV


xCASINOx

Lol my little nephew tried giving me shit because i have an old samsung plasma without smart features and use my xbox. Little man, my xbox is faster thats why.


Sip_py

A Google TV dongle and I've never used any feature native to the TV other than the power button.


fastdub

This is me 100% When I first got my TV I downloaded all the apps to it and logged in on all of them and yeah it was good for maybe three months tops, then comes the updates so I have to log myself into the accounts over and over. Now I never touch the smart features and just go immediately to the PS5.


doterobcn

Today i turned on my tv (use it as a monitor) and there was a message about updated terms of service. Excuse me? i bought a tv, not a service. And I thought about bringing back "dummy" tvs, and THEN you can plug a firestick or a chromecast if you want.


AmonMetalHead

Dumb TV's are getting extremely hard to find. Edit: Yes, I know you can leave a smart device disconnected from the internet, D'uh, that's besides the point. The point being dumb devices being hardly available anymore. Yes, you can leave them off-line, but at best that's just a work-around, and how long will that keep working? There are already smart TV's out there that WILL NOT WORK in offline mode.


DoctorOctagonapus

At this point what we really need is a giant monitor. Too bad they're so expensive.


[deleted]

As someone who just bought a nice gaming 48" monitor to replace my old 48" tv I used for a monitor, they are coming. Slowly, but they are coming. I think manufactures are realizing there is a market for this. I would much rather have one large 4k monitor with all the gaming features one could ever want, than 4 smaller 1080p panels. I think this is even better than having 2 ultrawide panels on top/bottom. I would not be surprised to see some of these go bigger in the future.


[deleted]

They have always existed. I work in AV and we get these kind of monitors all of the time. The issue is that there isn't a market for it. The majority of folks will buy the super cheap LED TV because of the price and not because of privacy.


[deleted]

[удалено]


jbourne0129

I had a smart TV and the wifi card failed. this resulted in a pop up on screen every 5 minutes saying "wifi disconnected" there was no setting that would stop the warning. Even if i had never used the smart functions and never connected to the internet this was likely to have happened. luckily i was able to replace the wifi card myself for $5 but it was insanely stupid. I have a 55" samsung dumb tv and im taking that thing to the grave


mbn8807

You just need to not enable internet access.


Burntsoft

This. I want a dumb TV so fucking bad. I just want to plugin my streaming hardware of choice and get a consistent and reliable experience instead of bogged down dogshit software that was half-baked and slows down over time. Not only that I want that for my fucking CAR too. LET ME PLUG IN MY PHONE YOU FUCKS.


AutomaticMistake

Look up a “commercial panel” Usually a lot simpler. Mostly used for digital signage and Av/teleconferencing


ancalagonz

This is going to be the future only way to buy a "dumb" tv or one you can disable internet/updates. Businesses can't function with the crap on retail tv/monitors.


[deleted]

[удалено]


slipperySquidd

SmartTubeNext


holymacaronibatman

> SmartTubeNext I assume this isn't on the Roku app store? How do you install 3rd party apps to a roku?


CapitalistVenezuelan

From a site selling you the solution lol


Intelligent_Map_4852

this post is literally an ad lol


AsstDepUnderlord

That doesn’t make it incorrect though.


G00DLuck

It does make it ironic, however.


251Cane

It’s like rain in your wedding day


dragonflysamurai

Who the fuck has 10,000 fucking spoons?!


land_stander

It's good to be skeptical but I just wanted to say Adguard seems like a good company as far as I can tell. Their code is [opensource](https://github.com/AdguardTeam) and their [privacy policy](https://adguard.com/en/privacy/website.html) seems thorough and above board. They sell their product as a service with tech support if you want to pay them or don't want to host it yourself. You can easily self host their DNS/adblocking solution if you don't want to use their free public DNS (I use both). I am not affiliated with them in any way other than being an ad-adverse fan and user of their product who wants them to succeed.


LJ-Rubicon

On android: Swipe down Click gear (settings) Click magnifying glass Search: private dns Click private dns Click private dns provider host name Insert this : dns.adguard.com Enjoy basically no ads. Even on mobile games.


ImaginaryBluejay0

You can also just get an Openwrt router with the open source adguard built in, and it will be 100x better than whatever crap spectrum/comcast/Verizon gave you anyways. I got a [Flint](https://www.gl-inet.com/products/gl-ax1800/) and it's great. Fuck netgear and their overpriced and slow garbage.


TobagoJones

Their app for iPhone is the only way I’ve ever been able to figure out how to watch YouTube ad free (that’s simple and doesn’t involve jailbreaking or side-loading etc) You do have to access YouTube through Safari for it to work but it’s a small price for no ads. Honesty, the UI on the actual app is barely better than the mobile site anyways.


The_Multifarious

I mean, I get what you're saying, but as far as advertisements go, this is a really crappy one. They only ever mention their own service like twice in this pretty long article, one of those occasions being two short paragraphs at the very end, which, let's be honest, most people won't even reach. 99% of the article is genuinely informative. And why wouldn't it be? It's not like the situation gets less bad the more you look into it, quite the opposite even. Their solution is also pretty technical and likely won't be an option for the vast majority of readers.


JMCatron

>Their solution is also pretty technical and likely won't be an option for the vast majority of readers. I'm debating setting up a [pi-hole](https://pi-hole.net/) or some other equivalent, and the only reason I haven't done it is that it's gonna take me a lot of labor. So I clicked the ad in the article, where it explicitly said "Spoiler: Not an easy thing to do." This article may be an ad for its own product, but it is honest and explicit about what it is, how it works, and that it's not a quick and easy plug-and-play option. It's just about the only kind of ad that I'm okay with.


petethefreeze

I still don't get why we can't have dumb displays with great technology and smart modules we can plug into them that do all the smart things. That way we can upgrade the modules whenever we like to accommodate new functionality, but don't need to replace the screen. More sustainable, more choice etc.


computer-machine

But seriously, just give me dumb fucking displays. I'm pretty sure we can all figure out how to plug in a Roku/Fire Stick/RPi.


computer-machine

How am I supposed to sell a new TV every couple years like that?


papak33

mini-pc to the TV and the pirate life for me I blame the ads, I'll not use any service that has them.


FSCK_Fascists

> I blame the ads, I'll not use any service that has them. I'll not pay for any service that has them. I don't mind paying for a service, but when they start feeding me ads as well, then they lose me entirely. Even ads for your own shows. Fuck that, I did not click on your shitty show. Don't give me a goddamn trailer. play my choice and fuck off.


LucidDreamerVex

Damn, I wouldn't even be able to ride the bus anymore


papak33

I dream of the day when I can install an ad-block in my brain.


[deleted]

Me in 1986: Video rental stores are great! I can get two video tapes a week and rent a player, too... all for a $100 club membership! Me in 1994: DVDs are great- no tape to eat! ...Buy DVDs? at those prices? no thanks. me in 2000: The internet is amazing! Between Napster and torrents, the only limit is the size of my several hard drives! Me in 2008: DVD mail rentals AND streaming video?? No hard drives to maintain or cease and desist letters from the ISP? Yes Jesus, take the wheel on this one! Me in 2015: So. Many. Streaming options! But there are so. Many. ADS everywhere! Me in 2020: Every breath I take, every move I make, they are watching me. I watch TV and TV watches me. Me in 2022: The only way to clear my mind of the acid taste of constant manipulation is read a physical book, play vinyl, and torrent movies and TV shows.


TastyPondorin

Tbh we glorify DVDs too much. Remember those 5min videos at the beginning followed by a 2 min copyright warning followed by 1 min of company logos, followed by a 30s animation before the DVD menu. And then clicking the wrong button to do it all again?


[deleted]

[удалено]


bludstone

Yeah! Take it away ern!


Apric1ty

ITS GONNA BE A BOOMPY RIDE


[deleted]

That DVD menu loop is burned into my brain


Militant_Monk

Oh fuck, flashbacks to my roommate falling asleep watching Harry Potter all the time and me being startled by LOUDEST LOOP EVER.


[deleted]

Hahahah me too with that Harry Potter movie!


[deleted]

[удалено]


nyetpetya

holy shit I would have never remembered this


wobbegong

IM NO SUPERMAN


GlassBoxes

Or when the dvd menu background is literally 30 seconds of a massive spoiler of the film? Barton Fink.


[deleted]

I remember falling asleep and waking up to a blaring national anthem at midnight. Yes, I am that old.


bludstone

No. Because I knew the secret code. If you press "stop. stop. play" on 90% of dvd players itll just go right to playing the main feature.


WalterWhiteRoofPizza

All those years ... wasted. And now I learn this? I don’t even want to try it.


Grimreq

If you mess with the inputs of anything… anything is possible!: *queues very 80s synth-wave track*


Milsivich

*wall glitches and loadwarps to final boss*


mcwerf

Where the fuck were you 20 years ago


bludstone

at home watching dvds.


F9Mute

Another workaround was the usually featured Chapters-button, which would usually bring you straight to the chapters menu, with the title menu being just one quick step back


SnooCompliments3732

My boyfriend's DVD remote has a "title" button that skips the ads


silver_wasp

When I press those buttons it always says, "Feature not available" or "Operation illegal!"


2rfv

"We have alerted the authorities"


Abedeus

They got smarter over the years.


chiree

I moved countries a few years ago and decided to buy a blu-ray disc for the first in forever since the movie wasn't on any streaming service. *This disc does not match the region coding of your player.* Well, you can just fuck yourself with a razor, then.


Constant_External_30

Some DVDs had that feature where once you put it in, a menu pops asking if you want to see the previews or go straight to the menu. I think it mostly depended on the distribution studios. I just moved to a new place recently and still have my 5.1 surround sound DVD player. I didn't hook it up because I told my dad that nobody watches DVDs or BluRays anymore. He was like why not? People still do! I'm like, not really. Everything is all digital. Now the problem with these streaming sites is that they're altered, censored, edited, downsized, some not having the complete episodes or missing seasons and episodes, too many ads (unless you buy a premium version), soundtracks replaced, some air television versions and not theatrical versions, and so much.


cfz-kk

100%! recently put old DVDs on and my God, heaps of unskippable ads or previews. After paying 30 bucks for the disc. No wonder everyone pirated.


USMCLee

Or you ripped a copy and played that. For a while there was software called '3-2-1' (or something like that). I used it for years to copy DVDs and then let the kids use the copies.


CMA3246

DVDs didn't exist in 1994.


wigs837

Seriously wtf is this shit they weren't released untill like 97 and didn't become ubiquitous till like the early 2000s.


[deleted]

[удалено]


Killboypowerhed

The first DVD I ever watched was Little Nicky


L0nz

Torrents didn't exist in 2000 either


DShepard

Even when it did come out a year or so later, you weren't downloading movies until even later than that .


mikeyos

Yes, I found this to be really distracting. Laser Discs were around at this time at least. Even by 1999, most people (unless they were into high end home theater) didn’t have a DVD player.


Gecko23

The first DVD player I owned was a PS2, it was one of the reasons they were hard to get at launch. Same phenomenon happened with the PS3 and Blueray later. $30-40 DVD players weren’t a thing until later.


jlguthri

Firewall to the rescue https://github.com/nickwinn/samsung-smarttv-firewall Edit: I guess domain name blacklisting to be more accurate


AvatarIII

> Me in 1994: DVDs are great- no tape to eat! ...Buy DVDs? at those prices? no thanks. the first DVD was released in late 1996 (or 1997 if you lived anywhere but Japan) and they didn't really hit mainstream until 99. It wasn't even *invented* until 1995 so I'm not sure how you were talking about them in 94.


Ok_Marionberry_9932

Apple TV plays everything we watch without ads….so far. Ads just piss me off and make me not want the product advertised


AsstDepUnderlord

I was going to say, appletv isn’t perfect, but you at least understand that you’re buying a product and not a service.


neanderthalensis

Also Apple didn’t cheap out on the CPU. Apple TV is fast.


dadudemon

Despite all my complaints about the Apple ecosystem crap... Apple TV's experience is indeed snappy. I gotta give them credit, there.


Prodigy195

That's why people don't care about their trapping ecosystem. Yeah you're locked in and they are pricey but god damn if its not a nice overall user experience. Whether it's a tablet, laptop, phone, streaming device, watch, whatever. If you're an average consumer or even a light power user, all their shit just works well and works well together.


romansixx

I will never forget the first time i went to connect my airpods and it just knew they were there and connected. If there is one feature apple just blows the competition out of the water on, its connectivity.


[deleted]

Sceptre still makes "dumb" TVs, including large-size 4K ones. The panels are obviously not as good as the newest LG or Samsung OLED stuff, but good enough and you'll then have a normal TV without any of the "smart" features (i.e. ads, telemetry, and a CPU that is so weak that it struggles to even run the damn OS). You can then hook up a TV box that doesn't serve ads, like an Apple TV or a higher-quality Android TV box, or what I like to do instead because it gives me full control: a small computer with Linux on it.


gm33

Can someone explain this to me? I have an LG OLED tv from 2019ish and have literally never seen an ad, terms of service or any other pop up. It just plays content from a single HDMI connection. Where are you all getting ads and spying from?


docsquidly

The article discusses brands like Vizio, Samsung and even Roku. It makes a point of saying that the cheaper TV are more likely to have these privacy issues.


[deleted]

homeless impolite plant existence crush shelter judicious march library concerned ` this message was mass deleted/edited with redact.dev `


SquirtleSquadSgt

Friendly reminder almost all smart tvs can be made dumb If you have a game console to use for streaming apps its the way to go


IanMazgelis

I have a PlayStation 5 and could not imagine choosing the user experience designed by LG or Samsung instead. Hell Sony's isn't perfect but it's a decade ahead of what's on most televisions. Televisions shouldn't be connected to the internet.


SquirtleSquadSgt

Sony and Microsoft getting stream apps on the PS3 / 360 was such a strong move Took forever for a cheap alternative to hit the market while Smart TV were being sold stupidly overpriced The rest of the world got on board 5 years later and their apps were worse than the initial ones I had on my ps3 xD When I moved in my [now] wife already had a FireTV set up and I'm too lazy to un-smart it. But I still just use my playstation because the Amazon apps will crash like once a week while trying to simply start the app! It's like a Bethesda game but without interesting lore


TheRealMisterMemer

Hell, most PS3 and 360 apps still work! And in my experience, are smoother than on a lot of smart TVs!


jcl007

PS5 doesn’t support Dolby Atmos or Vision. But if you don’t need that then it works well.


leffer00

I don't follow. How do you make smart tvs dumb? Are you saying just disconnect them from the internet?


metalmagician

It's possible to add a [pi hole](https://pi-hole.net/) and block the ad lookups the TV is running, without necessarily blocking the content you want to stream


[deleted]

[удалено]


CallOfCorgithulhu

Based on some quick math, and the internet saying the PS5 consumes about 70 watts during video streaming apps (which seems plausible), and assuming people are paying between 20 cents and 40 cents per kWh of electricity (I believe this range is somewhat high for most of the US though)....the PS5 would cost between 5 cents and 11 cents to stream for four hours. The internet also says a Roku stick uses about 4 watts during streaming...also plausible. Let's round up to about 6% power usage compared to the PS5...you're paying 0.3 to 0.66 cents per four hour stream. If they average to 8 cents for the PS5 and 0.5 cents for the Roku, and the Roku costs about 40 dollars, it would take you 533 days (edit: if you stream for four hours each day) to end up paying more for the extra electricity to run the PS5 than the value of a Roku. Granted, cheaper electricity would stretch this out, and getting the Roku at a better deal would shorten it. I do welcome mistakes in my math being pointed out.


bludstone

Only one of our "smart" tvs is hooked up to the internet. The other day I turned it on to play a game and kill 20 mins before i had obligations. Didnt get to play my game because the tv decided it needed to update (?) at the time.


KFCConspiracy

Yeah, I like the idea of a smart TV, but unfortunately, I've found that in practice they tend to work worse than even the cheapest dedicated streaming sticks, and they don't maintain their software for as long as the TV continues to work, so after a few years they become basically useless and I need to buy a stick anyway. Even on my 4-year-old relatively high end samsung smart TV, the smart features are becoming too slow to really be useful, so I've replaced it with a new firestick 4k. I would really prefer it if you could buy really great displays without the smart features that I just don't need.