Proof that software as service/cloud based, will never work for long term ...

[Mr. Scram]

I'll have to disagree. Many manufacturers, such as Samsung, LG, Sony, NEC, Philips and others produce commercial displays without the "smart" nonsense and many of them are actually reasonably priced. You generally will pay a bit more as they are displays which are designed for continuous operation or have other improvements over consumer models but even still, it's not unusual to find large commercial 4K displays for well under AUD$2000.

Most of those aren't OLED. LG has them but I don't think those are anywhere near the $2000 mark.

[Red Squirrel]

I'll have to disagree. Many manufacturers, such as Samsung, LG, Sony, NEC, Philips and others produce commercial displays without the "smart" nonsense and many of them are actually reasonably priced. You generally will pay a bit more as they are displays which are designed for continuous operation or have other improvements over consumer models but even still, it's not unusual to find large commercial 4K displays for well under AUD$2000.

Exactly, the so called Professional Displays:

https://www.samsung.com/hk_en/business/smart-signage/professional-displays/

https://pro.sony/en_HK/products/professional-displays

https://business.sharpusa.com/Professional-Displays

https://www.philips.com/content/dam/b2c/category-pages/2017_USA_Range_Brochure.pdf

https://panasonic.net/cns/prodisplays/

Of course they are not going to cost the same as most of the SmartTVs, probably 2x or 3x more, but they are better constructed and the panels are better (handpicked no defects, best levels and colour reproduction, the others that are less capable are used in consumer tvs and PC LCDs).

Those are probably going to be hard to find for a consumer though especially outside of the states.  Lot of stuff geared at industrial/commercial use does not tend to be easily available in regular stores or websites.

[Halcyon]

I'll have to disagree. Many manufacturers, such as Samsung, LG, Sony, NEC, Philips and others produce commercial displays without the "smart" nonsense and many of them are actually reasonably priced. You generally will pay a bit more as they are displays which are designed for continuous operation or have other improvements over consumer models but even still, it's not unusual to find large commercial 4K displays for well under AUD$2000.

Most of those aren't OLED. LG has them but I don't think those are anywhere near the $2000 mark.

Sure, but you can go shopping around for what you need. You probably won't find many OLED commercial displays on the market due to the image retention/burn-in that they suffer. I'm just demonstrating that professional/commercial displays are plentiful and reasonably affordable. When I bought my TV/display for my living room, I shopped around for a commercial monitor instead of a traditional TV. I ended up settling with a Philips unit. Very few bells and whistles. All it needs to do is display an image and display it properly with high quality. It does that one job very well.

[Black Phoenix]

Those are probably going to be hard to find for a consumer though especially outside of the states.  Lot of stuff geared at industrial/commercial use does not tend to be easily available in regular stores or websites.

True but this as you stated and right, are not equipments tailored to be sold to the common end consumer who wants to hook up a HDMI box and watch Netflix or have a Plex Streaming Server at home.

This are equipments suited for companies to be used in video walls for monitoring and for commerce Ad showing. And it interests to people like us, EE and ITs who have different needs. And most of us work in companies who had a sales department and for sure can try if you want to own one to the manufacture to sell one as a test with the chance to buy more in the future if it fulfils the need. That's how I bought most of the test equipment I own and also IT equipment, just calling out companies in name of the company I worked in the moment (of course with the authorization from the higher ups) or asking the sale department "friend" to ask for quotation in the resellers and manufactures who worked with.

That way you can get sometimes a healthy discount and even some times they provide with samples for you to test and if it's what you need you just need to ask how much will cost you to keep it, and normally that includes a minimum of 10% discount. My 289 was bought that way, my Zenbook was bought that way, my old workstation parts were bought with 20% discount on the final price because it was a reseller/distributor we worked a lot and had an account with for years...

If you really want one, and don't have the problem to pay a little more that the normal run of the mill TV sold on Walmart, you will find a way.

[Mr. Scram]

Sure, but you can go shopping around for what you need. You probably won't find many OLED commercial displays on the market due to the image retention/burn-in that they suffer. I'm just demonstrating that professional/commercial displays are plentiful and reasonably affordable. When I bought my TV/display for my living room, I shopped around for a commercial monitor instead of a traditional TV. I ended up settling with a Philips unit. Very few bells and whistles. All it needs to do is display an image and display it properly with high quality. It does that one job very well.

I think the point was that enterprise screens or signage don't offer a proper substitute for the current smart TV offerings. You'll need to compromise on more than one quality to lose the cursed smart part. I wouldn't buy anything not OLED for example. The technology is there and good enough.

[Mr. Scram]

True but this as you stated and right, are not equipments tailored to be sold to the common end consumer who wants to hook up a HDMI box and watch Netflix or have a Plex Streaming Server at home.

This are equipments suited for companies to be used in video walls for monitoring and for commerce Ad showing. And it interests to people like us, EE and ITs who have different needs. And most of us work in companies who had a sales department and for sure can try if you want to own one to the manufacture to sell one as a test with the chance to buy more in the future if it fulfils the need. That's how I bought most of the test equipment I own and also IT equipment, just calling out companies in name of the company I worked in the moment (of course with the authorization from the higher ups) or asking the sale department "friend" to ask for quotation in the resellers and manufactures who worked with.

That way you can get sometimes a healthy discount and even some times they provide with samples for you to test and if it's what you need you just need to ask how much will cost you to keep it, and normally that includes a minimum of 10% discount. My 289 was bought that way, my Zenbook was bought that way, my old workstation parts were bought with 20% discount on the final price because it was a reseller/distributor we worked a lot and had an account with for years...

If you really want one, and don't have the problem to pay a little more that the normal run of the mill TV sold on Walmart, you will find a way.

Buying personal items at a discount from an existing business relation is getting into murky territory. Many companies have rules against this and in some sectors it's straight up outlawed.

[Red Squirrel]

True but this as you stated and right, are not equipments tailored to be sold to the common end consumer who wants to hook up a HDMI box and watch Netflix or have a Plex Streaming Server at home.

This are equipments suited for companies to be used in video walls for monitoring and for commerce Ad showing. And it interests to people like us, EE and ITs who have different needs. And most of us work in companies who had a sales department and for sure can try if you want to own one to the manufacture to sell one as a test with the chance to buy more in the future if it fulfils the need. That's how I bought most of the test equipment I own and also IT equipment, just calling out companies in name of the company I worked in the moment (of course with the authorization from the higher ups) or asking the sale department "friend" to ask for quotation in the resellers and manufactures who worked with.

That way you can get sometimes a healthy discount and even some times they provide with samples for you to test and if it's what you need you just need to ask how much will cost you to keep it, and normally that includes a minimum of 10% discount. My 289 was bought that way, my Zenbook was bought that way, my old workstation parts were bought with 20% discount on the final price because it was a reseller/distributor we worked a lot and had an account with for years...

If you really want one, and don't have the problem to pay a little more that the normal run of the mill TV sold on Walmart, you will find a way.

Buying personal items at a discount from an existing business relation is getting into murky territory. Many companies have rules against this and in some sectors it's straight up outlawed.

Yeah even without a discount most companies will not let employees buy stuff through the company for personal use.  They usually have policies against that.  Even stuff that's being discarded is often not allowed to go to employees.  Sometimes it is, but it tends to be a really gray area and be hush hush.

Would be nice if sellers of this sort of thing just had a shopping cart interface like any other site though.  It's not that hard to setup, even if they only sell a few to consumers, it does not cost anything extra to make it available.

[CatalinaWOW]

True but this as you stated and right, are not equipments tailored to be sold to the common end consumer who wants to hook up a HDMI box and watch Netflix or have a Plex Streaming Server at home.

This are equipments suited for companies to be used in video walls for monitoring and for commerce Ad showing. And it interests to people like us, EE and ITs who have different needs. And most of us work in companies who had a sales department and for sure can try if you want to own one to the manufacture to sell one as a test with the chance to buy more in the future if it fulfils the need. That's how I bought most of the test equipment I own and also IT equipment, just calling out companies in name of the company I worked in the moment (of course with the authorization from the higher ups) or asking the sale department "friend" to ask for quotation in the resellers and manufactures who worked with.

That way you can get sometimes a healthy discount and even some times they provide with samples for you to test and if it's what you need you just need to ask how much will cost you to keep it, and normally that includes a minimum of 10% discount. My 289 was bought that way, my Zenbook was bought that way, my old workstation parts were bought with 20% discount on the final price because it was a reseller/distributor we worked a lot and had an account with for years...

If you really want one, and don't have the problem to pay a little more that the normal run of the mill TV sold on Walmart, you will find a way.

Buying personal items at a discount from an existing business relation is getting into murky territory. Many companies have rules against this and in some sectors it's straight up outlawed.

Yeah even without a discount most companies will not let employees buy stuff through the company for personal use.  They usually have policies against that.  Even stuff that's being discarded is often not allowed to go to employees.  Sometimes it is, but it tends to be a really gray area and be hush hush.

Would be nice if sellers of this sort of thing just had a shopping cart interface like any other site though.  It's not that hard to setup, even if they only sell a few to consumers, it does not cost anything extra to make it available.

I think this depends a lot on local tax laws and the like.  I worked for a company that actually encouraged employees to book personal travel through the company and get the corporate discount on airfare, rental cars and lodging.  The logic was that their discount was based on volume and additional volume reduced their costs.  From a legal and ethical standpoint it isn't different than the employee discount offered by many companies.

This could be very different if the corporate channel avoided sales or VAT taxes, or if the corporate channel specifically had different warranty and support provisions than the consumer channel goods.

[Mr. Scram]

Yeah even without a discount most companies will not let employees buy stuff through the company for personal use.  They usually have policies against that.  Even stuff that's being discarded is often not allowed to go to employees.  Sometimes it is, but it tends to be a really gray area and be hush hush.

Would be nice if sellers of this sort of thing just had a shopping cart interface like any other site though.  It's not that hard to setup, even if they only sell a few to consumers, it does not cost anything extra to make it available.

The discount is an issue. Giving you personal perks may influence or cloud your judgement when ordering for the company or when choosing between competitors. The definition of bribery is "the act of giving or receiving something of value in exchange for some kind of influence or action in return". You don't want any doubt about your motives. As mentioned before these things are explicitly banned or regulated in some sectors for exactly those reasons.

[PlainName]

Even stuff that's being discarded is often not allowed to go to employees.

The main reason for that (it's a biggy in retail) is because your employees start deliebrately wasting stuff so it's discarded and they get it cheap, or taking care of the cardboard packaging (so they can snaffle it) instead of just ripping it off and getting the job done quick. It's also simpler all around if you don't exclude edge cases, hence this sort of rule sometimes applies where it perhaps logically wouldn't.

[SiliconWizard]

I'll have to disagree. Many manufacturers, such as Samsung, LG, Sony, NEC, Philips and others produce commercial displays without the "smart" nonsense and many of them are actually reasonably priced. You generally will pay a bit more as they are displays which are designed for continuous operation or have other improvements over consumer models but even still, it's not unusual to find large commercial 4K displays for well under AUD$2000.

Most of those aren't OLED. LG has them but I don't think those are anywhere near the $2000 mark.

Large OLED panels are still hugely expensive. Smart crap included or not, a typical and worthwhile 55" OLED TV set is currently more around $3000. You can currently find ones at $2000 or so (LG for instance), but those are the really bottom-end of the OLED series and I've read many bad reviews about those.

Now if you're fine with a 4K LCD IPS panel, there's currently the ACER EB550K, a 4K, 55" LCD IPS panel as a raw monitor, that can be had for about 900€ currently. Sure you can find TV sets with similar panels (although usually not IPS nor as fast, this one is 4ms) for less than that, but not by a huge margin either.

[Mr. Scram]

Large OLED panels are still hugely expensive. Smart crap included or not, a typical and worthwhile 55" OLED TV set is currently more around $3000. You can currently find ones at $2000 or so (LG for instance), but those are the really bottom-end of the OLED series and I've read many bad reviews about those.

Now if you're fine with a 4K LCD IPS panel, there's currently the ACER EB550K, a 4K, 55" LCD IPS panel as a raw monitor, that can be had for about 900€ currently. Sure you can find TV sets with similar panels (although usually not IPS nor as fast, this one is 4ms) for less than that, but not by a huge margin either.

The LG OLED screens are quite popular as they provide great value for money. LG has pretty much dominated the OLED market from the start. The price can vary quite a bit but should be somewhere between the 1K and 2K mark. Can be closer to 1K if you look carefully.

[Halcyon]

Sure, but you can go shopping around for what you need. You probably won't find many OLED commercial displays on the market due to the image retention/burn-in that they suffer. I'm just demonstrating that professional/commercial displays are plentiful and reasonably affordable. When I bought my TV/display for my living room, I shopped around for a commercial monitor instead of a traditional TV. I ended up settling with a Philips unit. Very few bells and whistles. All it needs to do is display an image and display it properly with high quality. It does that one job very well.

I think the point was that enterprise screens or signage don't offer a proper substitute for the current smart TV offerings. You'll need to compromise on more than one quality to lose the cursed smart part. I wouldn't buy anything not OLED for example. The technology is there and good enough.

That comes down to your personal preference and what you're after. In some ways you're compromising on quality or features by buying consumer-grade. For example, most consumer models won't come with RS-232 or Ethernet control (increasingly important for home automation/home theatre set ups). Personally, I deliberately wanted a non-OLED display with non-smart features, to me, that wasn't a compromise at all (quite the opposite in fact). As with most things, you get what you pay for.

[Mr. Scram]

That comes down to your personal preference and what you're after. In some ways you're compromising on quality or features by buying consumer-grade. For example, most consumer models won't come with RS-232 or Ethernet control (increasingly important for home automation/home theatre set ups). Personally, I deliberately wanted a non-OLED display with non-smart features, to me, that wasn't a compromise at all (quite the opposite in fact). As with most things, you get what you pay for.

I'm all for enterprise grade but combining that with OLED and somewhat affordable doesn't currently seem attainable. Being stuck with outdated technology that never was great doesn't seem appealing either.

[BravoV]

Yet another fine example ...

-> Spectrum Kills Home Security Business, Refuses Refunds for Owners of Now-Worthless Equipment

Just worry if the abandoned devices, posed a security risks for unawared owners.

[Mr. Scram]

Yet another fine example ...

-> Spectrum Kills Home Security Business, Refuses Refunds for Owners of Now-Worthless Equipment

Just worry if the abandoned devices, posed a security risks for unawared owners.

I love how their solution is essentially having the customer dig himself into another third part dependent hole.

[bd139]

Probably got a cash backhander for that advice. I know a company that bought a competitor and just closed them down instantly just so they could move the customers over to their inferior product to milk them. They also charged them an expensive migration fee.

[Rick Law]

Not completely the same but related:

A message appears on your TV: Netflix will no longer be available on this device

[Updated 11/8/19] Netflix has announced that due to technical limitations, as of December 2, 2019, the Netflix streaming service will no longer be
supported on several consumer electronics devices, including some from Samsung. This change will impact select 2010 and 2011 Samsung Smart
TV models that were sold in the U.S. and Canada. Affected devices will receive a notification reflecting this change.

https://www.samsung.com/us/support/troubleshooting/TSG01203568/?CID=afl-ecomm-cjn-cha-092118-52057&cjevent=4c0bfd9a026511ea8052014e0a180512

My WD-TV set-top box was one of the affected.

I have been waiting for a reason to cut Netflix anyhow - don't like them, they are too political.  So I was glad to cut them out.  Youtube long since cut support for that.  Now the only job it does is for DVD on ISO, and an old version ofTuneIn which has ads other than whatever the radio station put out - I rather like that.

[bd139]

Sony did that to me years ago. YouTube went. Now I just steal all my content.

[Halcyon]

Now I just steal all my content.

Copyright infringement doesn't amount to stealing/larceny (according to Australian courts). It's a civil matter between you and the content creators. 

[bd139]

That’s good to hear. Getting quite litigious here. The media companies are tracking peer IP addresses on torrents these days and contacting the ISPs who send you an email. Three strikes policy apparently.

This was enough that modify my behaviour slightly. Good job there  are so many third party streaming services though that you just hit one and it’s TLS end to end and various browser plugins to pull the raw stream meh. There are some advantages to the cloud after all 

[Karel]

cough...vpn...cough

[bd139]

VPN isn’t really a solution. They’re all shonky as fuck and run by morons. Also your behaviour on the end of it betrays you (cookies etc)

[BravoV]

Yep, don't be too complacent with VPN, just because the provider "claimed" they won't betray their customer.

Essentially the provider says ... "Trust us, because we said so ...".

[bd139]

VPN providers have to pay for traffic and transit which means it's expensive to run a VPN service. They are a race to the bottom industry at the same time so every cost cut and corner is cut. That leads to shitballs such as NordVPN who:

Get hacked and sat on it for months: https://techcrunch.com/2019/10/21/nordvpn-confirms-it-was-hacked/

Use dubious and unethical endpoints for traffic exits: https://medium.com/@derek./how-is-nordvpn-unblocking-disney-6c51045dbc30

Fucking nightmare companies.