Disabling ads is easy, don’t connect it to the internet ever
Any way to connect it to an internal network so I can still cast from local devices? Otherwise it’s just going to exist plugged into a laptop.
Something like a chromecast would be the easiest solution.
Me personally, I just like having a media pc hooked up to my tv. I bought an amazon fire tv cause it was fairly cheap for 4k and its never been hooked up to the internet.
You probably can give it a static ip through your router and block any access to the internet for it. Could even set up pihole to block the ads from coming in to any device. That said, it’s possible the TV has built in ads or error messages to show in place of the ads when offline/blocked, or may just not even work if offline for longer than x minutes/hours/days
I think a PiHole wouldn’t work cause the ads come from the same place as the videos
I have an old Intel nuc that I could slap a hard drive in. It wouldn’t have to handle all traffic, right?
That’s how I handled my “smart” TV - I had a spare minipc from my old homelab, threw Linux on it and plugged it into the HDMI port.
It has never connected to my network, despite the BestBuy employee insisting it would need firmware updates for better picture.
You may use it as a display and connect it to a Raspberry Pi (or other mini-PC) with Kodi on it.
Smart TVs can also scan the input from their hdmi ports and relay that to advertisers.
Sure, break it’s routing. You can give it a fake DNS server (like a pihole that blocks everything), you could set up routing rules that block everything not addressed in the network ip range, there’s a ton of ways I can think to do it off the top of my head. It might require some tinkering though
Eventually they are going to require Internet on all TVs, it’s only a matter of time
it’s standard here in sweden to deliver TV over internet these days, TV can fuck itself sideways and die
You can possibly use a cheap chinese TV Media Box (about €35 for a decent one from Aliexpress) to stream Live TV over the Internet and then just connect it to the TV via HDMI.
In my experience those things aren’t loaded with crap and have no Ads (for some, there are even things like libreElec if you want to get full control of it) plus it makes engineering sense to keep the smarts separate from the dumb TV (the actual dumb part of a TVs lasts a lot longer than the typical period between video streams moving to newer and better encoding methods - and decoding of those is done in hardware, not software - so if the smarts are in a separate cheap box, it’s a lot cheaper to get support for newer kinds of video streams a few years down the line and keep the TV than to replace the whole TV just to get the newer video stream decoders)
Personally I use a Mini-PC with Linux and Kodi, but Mini-PCs are more expensive, require more expertise to set up and I do a lot more than just streaming live TV with it.
Serious question: what’s the mechanism of this? I can think of a few it might be but I honestly don’t know:
- Is it that 99.9% of the market wants smart TVs and there’s not enough demand for dumb TVs to support a production run?
- Is it that existing companies can somehow block smaller upstarts from entering the market, and then they decided as a cartel to end dumb TVs?
- Is the NSA infiltrating TV companies to force this product line choice?
- Is there a new law requiring that all TVs get smart?
- Some mechanism I haven’t thought of?
I’ve heard some will seek out open wifi in the area. I wouldn’t be surprised if they start having cellular data capability soon just for the ads and reporting back to corporate.
“fun” fact: most modern cars have over a dozen sim cards because various components relay statistics, etc. to their respective manufacturers.
They don’t sell good TVs that aren’t Smart anymore. You could get a monitor but that comes with size, featureset and price limitations.
Even monitors are getting “smart TV” features these days… ostensibly so they can push non-consensual ads there, too.
I’m leaning toward a projector hooked up to a mini pc for my next living room ‘tv’.
I only ever use mine for movie nights or special occasions anyways so it’s always dark when I use it.
Any other regular viewing I usually do on my pc.
Where are you buying a non-smart TV in 2024? Genuinely asking for some links to something bigger than 32" and that is not a $3,000 “commercial display panel”.
Yeah, but some new tech won’t work at all if you don’t.
Plenty of people aren’t aware of that, and when you’re buying shit, it often obfuscates that fact.
Most people will buy shit having no idea the thing will require you to connect it to your wifi.
e: television is only one of the things. It’s getting harder to name things that don’t require this.
^FU
Surgeons generally initial their incision site pre op; one of the general docs I worked with had the initials “HA”, and would do laparoscopic surgeries with 3 port sites… so our patients would roll in with “HA HA HA” written across their abdomen. Always got a kick out of it! ^_^
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/01/13/doctor-branded-liver/
Yeah that was pretty fucked up. Psychopath got caught literally branding a patient’s liver.
Pre-op, surgeons use a skin marker (washes off after a few days) to confirm the correct site, and will sometimes even write “NO” or put an “X” over the same site on the other side. If you go in for surgery on your left leg, then wake up with you left leg still fucked up and a bunch of stitches on your right leg… yeah not a good situation. And it’s happened. There are a TON of redundant checks now to prevent wrong-site surgeries, but people get tunnel visioned and still manage to fuck up every now and then. I was even in a case where we had a close call - cataract surgery. We did all checks, heard and read “left eye” probably 20 times just in the OR. Shit’s all good and we’re ready to start: “Uh… Doc? You just draped the right. This one’s left.”
It was the only left eye that day, all the others were right. So even despite all the checks, our monkey brains still find a way sabotage us.
But that’s also why we do shit as teams, so when one of us fucks up, there are like 4 others there to call us out - hopefully in time to prevent any harm.
Yeah they do it with a marker when the patient is awake. Like “this is the surgery I’m doing on you, you cool with that? Ok I’m initialing that we are doing the right thing here”
Like for an amputation they’ll mark the leg while the patient is awake “yes I want this one removed”
Here’s another doctor that branded women’s uteruses with the initials of his school.
https://www.wave3.com/story/1141325/nine-women-want-to-join-lawsuit-against-surgeon-over-branding/
Yea branding can be legit for navigational orientation purposes during arthroscopy procedures, but they really need some cool universal orientation design, not dude or school initials.
Something like Prince’s symbol, that the patient chooses. Way cool private organ art.
And patient consent.
Get your shit together, docs.
Same.
-BS
I equate Samsung TVs with HP printers. I would rather go without than have to put up with their nonsense.
We should form a club. Would be great to avoid some of this insidious bullshit. Ads on a TV I paid for and subscription to my own printer. I hope both companies fail.
Actually, like HP printers, the older models are great. I have a 10-15 yo or something Samsung 1080p 50" flat screen that I found at the garbage. Been using it for a bedroom tv for 2 years already and it’s awesome.
I wouldn’t buy a new Samsung TV now to save my life.
I was dumb enough to buy a Samsung 4k curved monitor, 6 months in the front fell off, literally. The screen literally fell out of the frame. Sanding it back was only allowed in the original box which I threw out because I lived in a tiny apartment. Took 3 months of daily calls until they decided to send me a box. Sent the monitor in, and recieved a repaired on one month later where they replaced the motherboard, buttons and other stuff but failed to glue the screen back in. sent it back again, now in the kept box, and got a new one that at least works.
You’ve not bought an HP since 2010 or before. HP is worse than Samsung so much worse
Maybe I’ve been lucky, but I bought an HP M476DN in 2015, and no problems using non-oem toner, toner top up, etc. No subscription nonsense, no firmware upgrades nobbling things. Maybe I’ll regret posting this when HP find out but it doesn’t owe me anything nearly 10 years later…
My Odyssey G7’s panel also fell off 2 weeks before the end of the warranty.
In addition to that, the Odyssey series also has a weird issue where if certain conditions are met, the entire screen will dip in brightness and display horizontal lines. It’s very distracting. They’re aware of the issue (as many people have reported it) but they aren’t doing anything to fix it. I won’t be buying another.
I don’t want any smart TV. If I want a smart TV I’ll hook my own computer up to it.
I’m happy with my cheap Sceptre tv. It isn’t for everyone, but I have no need for smart TVs. I’ve never had one, and I don’t want one.
My cheap ass Sceptre has a beautiful 4K picture which I rarely use anyway. My kids watch YouTube on my switch most of the time. I think I seen a 4K video once when I hooked my Steam deck up to it. It was pretty, but I don’t have time for TV with these babies anyway.