this post was submitted on 07 Jan 2025
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Technology

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Reposting this from here from 2023, after I stumbled across it tonight and it hits hard.

The text in the image:

I love my smart TV. I love the way it takes a long time to boot up because it’s trying to refresh the advertisements on the home screen. I delight in the way it randomly restarts because it’s downloaded an update without asking me, each of which makes the TV slower and slower with every subsequent install. I adore the way it buries the apps that I want to use, and that I use without fail every single time, below the apps that it’s being paid to promote and which I have never touched in my life and would never use without the cold metal of a glock pressed hard against my sweating temple. I am infinitely thrilled by the way the interface lags constantly, due to the need to have one thousand unnecessary animations rendered on hardware ripped wholesale from a ten year old phone. I feel myself borne aloft on wings of pure joy when I am notified that my data will be collected and analysed to determine my usage patterns. Even now I am writing this from a field of beautiful flowers and soft luscious grass as I lie and look up happily at the bright blue sky, smiling happily to know that this is the future of technology

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[–] haverholm@kbin.earth 7 points 1 week ago (1 children)

OT, and I'm usually not the type that comments with gun trivia, but

the cold metal of a glock

Wasn't Glock famously made of ceramic polymer and became popular for evasion of metal detectors?

Sorry for the sidetrack, that single point irks me even if it's way outside my wheelhouse.

[–] Flamekebab@piefed.social 6 points 1 week ago (11 children)

Nope, that's a line in Die Hard 2 that the armourer hated.

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[–] vk6flab@lemmy.radio 7 points 1 week ago (1 children)

For me the icing on the cake on that image is the "Translate" link which makes me wonder how you might translate this into say Klingon or CEO talk or ELI 5.

Other than that, it's a sad state of affairs that we've allowed this to happen unchecked and wholesale across the planet.

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[–] Edgarallenpwn@midwest.social 6 points 1 week ago (5 children)

My 2017 Shield pro is starting to die and I'm dreading getting another TV box. Anyone have good experience with LibreElec or a similar distro? I am thinking of getting some sub $100 USFF from eBay

[–] stephen@lemmy.today 6 points 1 week ago

Another Shield Pro?

[–] dan@upvote.au 4 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

What do you mean by starting to die? Have you tried factory resetting it?

My recommendation is still the 2019 Shield Pro, unless you're all-in on the Apple ecosystem, in which case the Apple TV is pretty decent.

One issue with a PC is that you won't be able to stream 4K or even 1080p content from services like Netflix if you run Linux, as Linux only supports Widevine L3 which is limited to 720p. Widevine L1 is needed for 4K content, and it's only available on more "locked down" OSes (Windows, MacOS, unrooted Android, etc). Of course, that's not an issue if you're using Plex or some other form of non-DRM-protected content.

The HDMI Forum are also blocking open-source implementations of HDMI 2.1, so it likely won't come to open-source Linux drivers for a long time: https://www.phoronix.com/news/HDMI-2.1-OSS-Rejected. DisplayPort is superior to HDMI (as it does basically all the same things except it's an open, free protocol) but TVs tend to not have DisplayPort ports since the major manufacturers are on the board that receives royalties from the usage of HDMI. That's an argument for another day...

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[–] ErsatzCoalButter@beehaw.org 5 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Have a difficult time relating to people who still tolerate this from leisure technology. A screen one can liberate can be found pretty readily at hand for any range of prices in the rust belt but maybe it is different where you are.

[–] Alice@beehaw.org 5 points 1 week ago

Any suggestions? When I moved out I looked everywhere for a dumb TV. The only catch is I'm not willing to downgrade to standard definition.

[–] realitista@lemm.ee 5 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Maybe I got lucky with my Philips oled running Android TV, but it's pretty quick, no ads other than recommended shows from networks, and I can choose which ones. I don't recall it asking about data collection, but whatever the streaming services are doing it already. I like having all the streaming apps built in, then I don't have to manage another device for this. Overall I'm surprisingly happy with it.

[–] filcuk@lemmy.zip 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Fucking ads on my tv home would be an instant refund, unbelievable.
I got no ads on an lg oled, but it's infuriatingly slow.

Isponsorblock can be run on a local docker machine with the original youtube client to make the experience more bearable.

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[–] RatzChatsubo@lemm.ee 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Here is what I do: I use a firetv with Kodi, Plex, Smart tube Next (free YouTube), and various live TV apps. That's it!

Unfortunately there is zero way to disable the home screen in order to run a custom desktop environment and there is zero way to replace the Netflix, primetv, DirecTV, etc. buttons on the remote.

Seems like every year it gets harder and harder to change settings on the TV and all the things I just mentioned not being able to do used to be things you could hack together.

It sucks!

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[–] termus@beehaw.org 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

We have an older 2012 1080p Sony 55" TV. Super thin, still works great. It had a few "smart" things it could do, like local tv guide, weather. Very simple stuff, nothing like streaming apps. Those basic smart things haven't functioned in a while. Support ended for them a long time ago. I've had a negative opinion for smart TVs since then. Having those functions sitting there broken drives me nuts.

We always used some type of streaming box. Started out with some Roku's for a long time that worked okay until they updated them enough to run like shit. Ads were never egregious but you could tell where the trend was going. A friend let me have an older Nvidia Shield TV. It was FILLED with ads for shit we didn't care about. Google Play store shit, Nvidia shit, advertisement shit, AHHHHHHH. It too eventually was updated enough to where everything runs like shit. I looked into a lot of self contained media systems from no names on Amazon, but I just didn't trust them. I could set up a PC to do it all and I'd be fine with it but my wife wants something easy to use.

Sooo I ended up going with an Apple TV. So far it's been really nice. Zero ads on the home screen. It lists the previous content we were watching and then our streaming apps below it, that's it. When you move the cursor over the Netflix or other apps it lists what you previously watched and some recommendations for other shows but it's not in your face or moving anything around to do it. There are some apps you can't remove, but I just made a folder and threw them all in there. It's nice but it's costly at around $140. So far for me, I'd say it's worth it. We only use Netflix, Hulu and Plex on it, but all of them work great. It also supports the Steam Link app. I use it some, but I've started to use Moonlight that is installed on my Steam Link device instead, since the picture and stream quality is a lot better.

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[–] Teknikal@eviltoast.org 4 points 1 week ago

I'm actually quite happy with mine I don't think it's shown me a single ad, the only nuisance is it doesn't stay connected to my WiFi and only joins when I launch an app or something.

Its a Toshiba with Vidaa Os I think, not saying it's perfect it has all the UK channel apps but not Stremio which I would like it to have.

That said it hasn't done a single thing ad wise to annoy me unlike my firetv cube.

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