Author Topic: How to get my senior citz. parents TV without cable? 255$ month cable bill!  (Read 5625 times)

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Offline NiHaoMike

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We did come full circle. Any solid state analog TV at power on shows an image faster than the latest models of a digital one. Shameful, really.
Some (not so) "smart" ones, perhaps. Last year, my dad got a 27" Acer for working from home and that takes about a second to show the image. It was a modern version of what used to be called "HD ready" displays, no capability to play stuff on its own, just a Displayport input and a HDMI input.

Not sure why so many smart TVs take forever to boot, they're pretty much very large tablets and a few milliwatts to keep the RAM contents is no big deal.
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Offline james_s

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I hate the whole concept of a "smart" TV, integrate something with a 2-4 year life cycle into something that should have a 15-25 year life cycle, it makes no sense at all. On top of that, a lot of them now show ads in the menus! The whole reason it's so hard to find a non-smart TV is that the smart ones are subsidized by advertising and data harvesting. I just want a monitor with a bunch of HDMI inputs.
 
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Offline duckduck

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I hate the whole concept of a "smart" TV, integrate something with a 2-4 year life cycle into something that should have a 15-25 year life cycle, it makes no sense at all. On top of that, a lot of them now show ads in the menus! The whole reason it's so hard to find a non-smart TV is that the smart ones are subsidized by advertising and data harvesting. I just want a monitor with a bunch of HDMI inputs.

Agree 100%. They sell "dumb" TVs for commercial use, like in videoconference rooms and to display the menu up on the wall behind the cash registers at the local fast-food restaurant. Warning: the doctors that perform lobotomies on smart TVs drive very nice cars. When you see the price for one of these "dumb" TVs you will make that sound that you make when you jump into an ice bath. I used to chat with the AV guys at my work, commercial TVs/monitors are what they all buy for themselves. I plan on investing in one when my pre-smart-TV-age Sony dies.
« Last Edit: April 03, 2021, 05:19:57 am by duckduck »
 
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Offline tooki

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There are a number of giant “computer displays” that probably can be pressed into service as a dumb TV, and don’t necessarily cost an arm and a leg.
 
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Offline tooki

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I hate the whole concept of a "smart" TV, integrate something with a 2-4 year life cycle into something that should have a 15-25 year life cycle, it makes no sense at all. On top of that, a lot of them now show ads in the menus! The whole reason it's so hard to find a non-smart TV is that the smart ones are subsidized by advertising and data harvesting. I just want a monitor with a bunch of HDMI inputs.
I find it incredible that they now have built in image fingerprinting that monitors the displayed image and identifies what’s being watched, basically the same way Shazam and SoundHound can identify a song via a 3 second recording through a phone microphone. Unfuckingbelievable that that crap is allowed. Even in places (like the EU) where that requires affirmative consent, they sneak it into the EULA consent on setup so people innocently agree to it. Scummy as all hell.
 
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Offline BrokenYugo

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Just buy the cheaper smart TV and block it's MAC in your router?

 Or have we already reached full cyberpunk dystopia where will it get pissy and not act as a monitor without a connection?
 

Offline james_s

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So far anyway, every one that I've seen you can just not connect it to your wifi. Seems like I read somewhere that a majority of smart TVs never gets connected.
 

Offline bson

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I don't think my Cable bill was ever much over $100, but I didn't have any premium sports packages, but did have Showtime and HBO.  I had a DVR in the living room and a dumb unit in the bedroom.  I switched to Sling on a Roku maybe 6-7 years ago, then to Youtube TV on the Roku, and currently YTV with Apple TV 4K.  The ATV4K is mainly for other apps and services though that weren't available on Roku (such as Zwift).  I rotate between Netflix, HBO Max (though I get that free with my AT&T mobile service), Disney+, and CBS All Access.  Apple TV+ (their VOD service; it doesn't have live TV at all) has nothing I'm interested in, so I don't watch it though I currently have it for free for a year with the ATV4K.  (I also get HBO Max free with my AT&T phone service, and one more year of Apple TV+ came with my iPhone.)
 

Offline cdev

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So far anyway, every one that I've seen you can just not connect it to your wifi. Seems like I read somewhere that a majority of smart TVs never gets connected.

Thats what people think..

They may look for a local big cable company AP (not yours) and connect anyway, via that. As long as the TV is plugged in/has power.

And soon with 5G that will be everywhere and it provides enough power to power a small micro and transceiver. This allows devices to phone home without any network or user intervention at all. Unless you gave your entire home an aluminum foil hat so to speak. :)
« Last Edit: April 17, 2021, 01:33:51 pm by cdev »
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Offline cdev

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Smart TV is dumb, IMHO.


I wouldn't ever buy one. They should pay you.

They may have to register themselves via DHCP or similar with their mother ship, so to speak. Maybe establish a VPN tunnel to upload their proprietary data.

That is a money stream for the company that sells it. Probably lowers the price of the hardware somewhat.

ATSC version 2 I think is two way. Wonder what happens if you dont connect it to the net? Does it use radio?

We did come full circle. Any solid state analog TV at power on shows an image faster than the latest models of a digital one. Shameful, really.
Some (not so) "smart" ones, perhaps. Last year, my dad got a 27" Acer for working from home and that takes about a second to show the image. It was a modern version of what used to be called "HD ready" displays, no capability to play stuff on its own, just a Displayport input and a HDMI input.

Not sure why so many smart TVs take forever to boot, they're pretty much very large tablets and a few milliwatts to keep the RAM contents is no big deal.
« Last Edit: April 17, 2021, 01:32:07 pm by cdev »
"What the large print giveth, the small print taketh away."
 

Offline NiHaoMike

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They may look for a local big cable company AP (not yours) and connect anyway, via that. As long as the TV is plugged in/has power.
Would be interesting to hack one of those smart TVs to flood the telemetry with junk or even better hijack its connection for your own use.
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Offline james_s

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Would be interesting to hack one of those smart TVs to flood the telemetry with junk or even better hijack its connection for your own use.

That could end up being a crime, you'd want to carefully check the laws to make sure you won't get charged with perpetrating a DOS attack or something.
 

Offline NiHaoMike

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That could end up being a crime, you'd want to carefully check the laws to make sure you won't get charged with perpetrating a DOS attack or something.
If it's not connected to your own network, it won't be connected to your IP address. If you really want to be safe, buy the TV secondhand with cash and do the work from some place other than home. There's also an element of plausible deniability in that you were triggering the telemetry repeatedly when it's supposed to be offline so you can figure out where it's storing that information if it does. (Most likely it doesn't try to connect to neighboring wireless networks, that itself can be illegal in some areas especially if those networks are encrypted.)
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Cryptocurrency lesson 0: Altcoins and Bitcoin are not the same thing.
 

Offline Zero999

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That could end up being a crime, you'd want to carefully check the laws to make sure you won't get charged with perpetrating a DOS attack or something.
If it's not connected to your own network, it won't be connected to your IP address. If you really want to be safe, buy the TV secondhand with cash and do the work from some place other than home. There's also an element of plausible deniability in that you were triggering the telemetry repeatedly when it's supposed to be offline so you can figure out where it's storing that information if it does. (Most likely it doesn't try to connect to neighboring wireless networks, that itself can be illegal in some areas especially if those networks are encrypted.)
If you buy it second hand, you can pretend it came pre-hacked and you have no idea why it's doing it.
 
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Offline Ed.Kloonk

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That could end up being a crime, you'd want to carefully check the laws to make sure you won't get charged with perpetrating a DOS attack or something.
If it's not connected to your own network, it won't be connected to your IP address. If you really want to be safe, buy the TV secondhand with cash and do the work from some place other than home. There's also an element of plausible deniability in that you were triggering the telemetry repeatedly when it's supposed to be offline so you can figure out where it's storing that information if it does. (Most likely it doesn't try to connect to neighboring wireless networks, that itself can be illegal in some areas especially if those networks are encrypted.)
If you buy it second hand, you can pretend it came pre-hacked and you have no idea why it's doing it.
It doesn't always have to be second hand to contain malicious behavior.
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Offline rsjsouza

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It doesn't always have to be second hand to contain malicious behavior.
And here I was, thinking this was the actual behaviour of most of the new "smart" appliances... :-DD
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Offline cdev

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For a long time Ive been reading about how new wireless technology will enable a new generation of devices which can run off the power they collect from RF in a typical metro area's electrosmog, as its called.

There are lots of designs for wearable computing devices that embed antennas that harvest RF to produce (tiny amounts of ) DC, by rectification.  Could be fed into a buck-boost converter to produce voltage high enough to charge a battery and produce a much stronger (but very brief) signal. If its synchronized via GPS to be timed very accurately the signal could carry any kind of generic data, (for example, tracking pets like cats that maintain multiple "owners" in order to maximize their incomes. ) and brief high power blits could travel very far.
« Last Edit: May 20, 2021, 02:05:52 am by cdev »
"What the large print giveth, the small print taketh away."
 


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