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Author Topic: Smart TV  (Read 5172 times)

Weaver

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Smart TV
« on: October 30, 2019, 01:36:49 AM »

Janet has just bought herself a birthday present from me in the form of a small LG ‘Smart’ TV which has a satellite modem in it. She tells me that ‘smart’ means that it can access the internet, I don’t know whether that implies a built-in wireless NIC or wirefully.

She racked up a couple of £40 bills for internet access watching parliament tv and the news on the internet on her iPad recently, so she decided to stop wasting money and get a satellite tv for the kitchen instead; we already have a multi-port satellite dish. So the whole point of it is to save on unnecessary internet traffic anyway.

Are such smart TVs evil?
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Ronski

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Re: Smart TV
« Reply #1 on: October 30, 2019, 06:12:16 AM »

I doubt very much that it has a satellite modem, it's more likely a DVB-S2 satellite tuner for receiving satellite TV transmissions.

The internet connectivity will be via WiFi or hard wired.

I wouldn't consider smart TVs as evil, although if it is voice controlled it will obviously have a microphone.

Perhaps post the model number of the TV.
« Last Edit: October 30, 2019, 06:14:56 AM by Ronski »
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sevenlayermuddle

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Re: Smart TV
« Reply #2 on: October 30, 2019, 07:52:43 AM »

My own main objection to smart TVs is the rapid obsolescence.

They are after all just PCs inside, that have an Operating System, and Apps, that the manufacturers stop maintaining after a few years.  Apps may then stop working, as and when the server end changes.   You can of course continue to use it as a dumb TV, providing terrestrial and satellite broadcasting standards remain compatible.

If you allow the TV to have LAN access, there’s also the security concern of having a PC on your LAN, that is regularly accessing the Internet, but may not be receiving software updates.

That said, there are upsides.   The convenience of built in apps is a big ‘win’, which I acknowledge. :)
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Weaver

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Re: Smart TV
« Reply #3 on: October 30, 2019, 08:09:08 AM »

@ronski I couldn’t think of the word.

I agree with 7LM. This will not be allowed access to my LAN or to the internet.
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sevenlayermuddle

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Re: Smart TV
« Reply #4 on: October 30, 2019, 08:23:25 AM »

@ronski I couldn’t think of the word.

I agree with 7LM. This will not be allowed access to my LAN or to the internet.

I didn’t mean it that strongly.   Risk is probably comparable to, say, smartphones (most smart TVs seem to be just big Androids).   So I do allow access, but access to other systems is restricted by careful permissions controls on the sharing.   Since I use a separate box for accessing home media, mine could actually be put on the guest network, though I can’t remember off-hand whether I did so.
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dee.jay

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Re: Smart TV
« Reply #5 on: October 30, 2019, 08:29:28 AM »

I own a Samsung Smart TV and have done for several years now. I think it's coming up for 6 years old. It does all we ask of it - and it is allowed LAN access because I run a plex server at home. There is a native Plex app that works great on the TV and I've really never had a problem with it.

I believe you can disable updates, and if you were concerned you could always put it in it's own VLAN and firewall off the thing to stop it from getting to things it probably shouldn't be able to, if you were inclined.

My only regret was not hanging onto my previous TV a bit longer and buy a 4K model. I can't justify shelling out for a 4K TV when the one I have is actually still a very nice panel and it's been pretty flawless. Though, I did pay probably too much for it, as it was the flagship model at the time.
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Weaver

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Re: Smart TV
« Reply #6 on: October 30, 2019, 11:16:15 AM »

I have a very large non-4k tv which is just over eight years old. I think 4K might be lost on us since our eyesight is shot, but I don’t know - the quality might possibly be better in sequences that are not very compressible and which look horrible due to the compression now? I don’t know whether there is such a thing as 4k TV over freesat?

I could indeed put the LG TV in its own physical VLAN, as I have VLAN-aware switches, by configuring ports on the switch. I would hate to do this though as that would require the maintenance of a port usage document which would never be up to date as Janet could just plug things into the wrong port at any time. Being able to reassure her now that ‘it’s doesn’t matter - use any port you like’ is worth a lot and I would hate to lose that. And never knowing whether or not she has observed such disciple would make security a foolish dream.

If the TV is wireless NIC-equipped then I could consider putting it into the guest VLAN. Even though Janet could attempt to connect the TV to the main BSS, effective security mechanisms prevent this.

Seeing as smart TVs are generally Android boxes, so I have learned, then that says it all, given that I wouldn’t allow any Android machine onto my main LAN.

I would not be happy putting the TV on a guest VLAN or guest BSS though because it might be a traffic hog, racking up network charges or slowing things down. If the TV gets up to all sorts of background network activities, with or without authorisation then that would not be good; but the presence of the usual apps within the TV would be an encouragement to racking up an internet traffic bill again.
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Alex Atkin UK

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Re: Smart TV
« Reply #7 on: October 30, 2019, 12:21:01 PM »

My own main objection to smart TVs is the rapid obsolescence.

Amen to that.  This is why despite the features in my TV I own a ShieldTV box as well.  It also supports far more audio/video formats.

Using TVs built-in apps does save some electricity though.
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renluop

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Re: Smart TV
« Reply #8 on: October 30, 2019, 12:55:44 PM »

I think, we are pretty well down the road to SMART only, bar for cheapo models.
As  with inbuilt SATNAVs, the technology I believe is less likely to be updated than separate tech. IMVHO a STB also gives much more flexibility to what can be recorded or watched too.

These days for something good it seems it has to be 4k, whether at the size there is any viewing benefit; some say 50" minimum. Doesn't  matter no room is left to sit and watch.
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sevenlayermuddle

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Re: Smart TV
« Reply #9 on: October 30, 2019, 01:12:59 PM »

I’ve personally been underwhelmed by 4k.

There seems to be very little material available, other than Amazon etc home brewed series.

I did watch Good Omens in 4k, after accidentally subscribing to a free trial of Prime.   It looked very sharp but altogether too ‘hard on the eyes’.  Somehow not quite right, almost like CGI.  I suspect the producers, in an effort to make 4k look “different”, might be resorting to other tricks, maybe altering things like vibrancy and contrast and in the process, deviating from what actually looks natural.

The one thing I like about 4k is for displaying still photos, if captured on a decent camera.  It’s quite nice, when some point of detail in a photo catches your eye, to be able to simply walk right up close to the screen to reveal further detail.
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Ronski

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Re: Smart TV
« Reply #10 on: October 30, 2019, 01:18:50 PM »

My own main objection to smart TVs is the rapid obsolescence.

Amazom are bringing out a JVC Fire TV, television, no need for a prime subscription either,  the apps on that should stay up to date.

This will not be allowed access to my LAN or to the internet.

Your smart TV has just become dumb, but at least Janet can still watch TV on it.

I've have various Fire TV boxes which I rarely use, my main device for my cinema room is my Nvidia Sheild TV box which has been excellent and despite now being quite old it's still receiving core OS updates.
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sevenlayermuddle

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Re: Smart TV
« Reply #11 on: October 30, 2019, 02:07:22 PM »

the apps on that should stay up to date.

How so?

Surely the Apps will only stay up to date if the App developers choose to carry on releasing updates for older versions of Fire TV?   

Seems to me more likely, as (say) BBC build a new version of iPlayer, they’d want to take advantage of all the lovely features of the very latest Fire TV, and would have limited inclination to make the new app backwards compatible with old Fire TVs.

Apols if I’m missing something.   Fire TV is one of the very many things, that I know absolutely nothing about. :-[
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meritez

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Re: Smart TV
« Reply #12 on: October 30, 2019, 07:35:16 PM »

LG TV's use WebOS, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebOS as was on the Palm Pre.

Anyway, the internal storage tends to be garbage, only 1GB user available, system firmware updates are regular, though the single band WiFi4 card is pretty rubbish, so hard wire it if possible.

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Ronski

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Re: Smart TV
« Reply #13 on: October 30, 2019, 07:52:27 PM »

How so?

Because the underlying O/S is Android, not LG webOS or Samsung's Tizen or some other OS . App developers primarily target iOS and Android, yes Fire TV does have some differences but it's still Android, but I'm sure it's much easier to allow for those differences than port an app to a completely different OS.


Quote
Surely the Apps will only stay up to date if the App developers choose to carry on releasing updates for older versions of Fire TV?   

Seems to me more likely, as (say) BBC build a new version of iPlayer, they’d want to take advantage of all the lovely features of the very latest Fire TV, and would have limited inclination to make the new app backwards compatible with old Fire TVs.

Apols if I’m missing something.   Fire TV is one of the very many things, that I know absolutely nothing about. :-[


The first Fire TV was released in 2014, I have one of these and BBC iPlayer and Netflix still work fine some five years on, not sure how often the apps update though. To be honest I hardly ever use the Fire TVs now, generally using my Nvidia Shield TV, which often has OS updates. Perhaps in my statement I should have put the apps are more likely to be updated.

Out of interest I looked at what version of Android the Fire TV runs, the older ones are on Android 5, newer 4K ones on Android 7, whilst the Shield TV (launched 2015) is currently on Android 9.

Bottom line is I think being Android (rather than Web OS or Tizen) makes it easier for app developers to update, and therefore more likely to stay updated.



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sevenlayermuddle

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Re: Smart TV
« Reply #14 on: October 30, 2019, 08:06:24 PM »

Can’t speak for Android.   But...

As an iOS App developer, I can testify that it is actually quite difficult to release Apps , or App updates, that run on significantly older versions of iOS.

Apple from time to time set rules, dictating that from specific dates, all new Apps must be built with a specific version, or later, of the SDK.   Each version of the SDK is, in turn, capable of building for a range of iOS versions.   You can go back maybe two or three years, it varies, but it’s not infinite.

Devs can set a flag to say that, when a new App version is incompatible with an older iOS, but an older version of the App already exists, then users of the old iOS will still be able to install the old version of the App.   That keeps 99% of users happy, but does mean that updates for older versions tend not to happen.
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