Smart TV's are not so smart.......

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sdavisnz

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#133874 6-Nov-2013 13:59

Hey Guys,

This should be in a tv or smart tv thread, but i could not find one.

As you guys might know i work for a major electronics retailer and i have some words on smart tv.

Smart TV's Are just not as smart as you think, i just wanted to educate you all on some smart tv functions,

Browsing the web
when browsing the web on a smart tv scrolling down the page is very jumpy and not very good on the eyes, its kinda like pressing "page down".
its just not like browsing like being on a computer

PremierLeaguePass - EPL and general web video.
samsung and lg support flash, great but the only problem is that the cache is limited to only 2.5GB in most brands, which means when the cache is full the flash codec crashed, eg, watching a movie on tvnz on demand or a game on premier leauge pass the app will crash after about 35mins.

TVNZ on demand - samsung smart tv
no control over bit-rate streaming - it dynamically chooses a bit-rate for you which usually results in a completely dodgy picture.

Apps
smart tv programmers really need some app development training. at present this is my biggest bugbear- the apps run sooo slowly.
eg, youtube app on a smart tv takes about 70 seconds to load - compare that to a apple tv - 2-3 seconds.
along with the fact that they freeze and are very limited - the tvs have dual core and quad core processors - they just havent implemented it right.

what TV Manufactures should do........
Put a x86 or x64 processor - like a intel mobile procesor into a tv, decent ram, put a 80g ssd in, give us some usb ports,
load up your smart tv software - but keep you boot-loaders unlocked - so geeks can put windows or linux on it.

Solution for now
HTPC or an old laptop with windows, linux with a media centre console is ideal, there are plenty out there.
some greats are - windows media centre - plex app, xbmc, play-on, myth tv - just to name a few.

roll on the comments.......
Cheers,

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#928161 6-Nov-2013 14:46

Agree partly with you, however:
Web Browsing - not something I would choose to do on a TV, using a standard remote is a pretty awful way of navigating something designed for a keyboard/mouse or touch screen.

PLP/Flash - Flash is a pretty horrible buggy thing (one reason Apple have never supported it in iOS). Maybe these websites should get with it and move to HTML5, or something else. That said, PLP (especially) should have developed Smart TV apps (for Sammy, LG, Sony Pana etc).

TVNZ On Demand, surely the bit rate setting is not the fault of the TV manufacturer, that is something the App should have in its settings.

Apps: Youtube on my Samsung F series loads up in about 5 seconds I think (if that). Plex loads in about 2 seconds. It has a dual core CPU.

What TV Manufacturers should do, I agree with you - they should beef them up and put a HDD inside, but that increases the cost and decreases competitiveness. 'Most' people (except users of this forum) don't really care about those sort of features. I'd be interested to see what Apple does when (if) they release a TV. That would be the kind of thing that could reshape how Smart TV is done.

EDIT: ooh, something else: The manufacturers should agree on a common 'language' for app development/Smart TV OS. That would really make it take off.

reven

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#928167 6-Nov-2013 14:58

agree with browsing...

i have a 2013 dual core samsung tv and a 2012 single core samsung BR Player, the speed difference is incredible. the 2013 I find is very fast, youtube is seconds <5. the apps are subjective, some apps might be terrible but netflix and plex are excellent, netflix is especially good.

regarding not setting bitrate, i agree with this, you shouldnt be able to, most users wouldnt understand it, it should just use smooth streaming and dynamically change, netflix does this.

personally I think once google tv really takes off that will be all you will need in the tv, however until then samsung smart tvs are pretty great IMO and i have completely ditched HTPCs and running everything via apps on my tv.

trig42

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#928168 6-Nov-2013 15:00

Slightly OT reven, How did you get Netflix running on your Samsung (how did you download the App?)

reven

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#928172 6-Nov-2013 15:03

trig42: Slightly OT reven, How did you get Netflix running on your Samsung (how did you download the App?)

when I first turn on my tv my router was set to use unblockus so it thought I was in america, so I didnt really have to do anything. However you can't use apps from different regions at the same time, so I can run tvnz on demand. There is a keycode you can use to change region, however when you do this, it deletes all your apps and downloads the base ones for the new region (so you cant download tvnz, change to us, download netflix and have both).

However, anything on local tv i want to watch I can just record (shamless plug: using the nextpvr app for samsung im writing :P) and watch later, and well i watch netflix most nights.

trig42

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#928194 6-Nov-2013 15:19

Nice, I like your NextPVR for Samsung app, looking real nice.

Do you know of a way to get the TV to go straight to the App (rather than scrolling through available apps). That would be really cool for setting up Harmony Remotes. I don't think it's possible, but would be a nice feature for a smart TV - ie load a specific App from a keypress.

wasabi2k

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#928197 6-Nov-2013 15:23

I like my TV to be a dumb screen.

I replace my TV maybe every 3-5 years. In that time media player hardware has changed significantly.

I am happy to replace a $100 roku for new stuff, not my $3000 TV.

That and TV makers appear to employ the worst software and UI developers in the universe to write their stuff and there are SFA 3rd party apps out there.

Not to mention youtube in SD, not HD. Blech.

reven

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#928198 6-Nov-2013 15:24

samsung have this notion of a "Ticker App", but to my understanding ticker apps are only small windows that can be shown on top and cannot be a full app, and only ticker apps can be auto started. which is kinda a bummer, but not a huge biggie, takes errr like 3-5 keypresses to start an app (depending where its listed in your app list),

smart hub + down + ok

so you could program a harmony remote to do that.

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sdavisnz

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#928200 6-Nov-2013 15:26

wasabi2k: I like my TV to be a dumb screen.

I replace my TV maybe every 3-5 years. In that time media player hardware has changed significantly.

I am happy to replace a $100 roku for new stuff, not my $3000 TV.

That and TV makers appear to employ the worst software and UI developers in the universe to write their stuff and there are SFA 3rd party apps out there.

Not to mention youtube in SD, not HD. Blech.

Love This Reply!!!!

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reven

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#928213 6-Nov-2013 15:34

wasabi2k: I like my TV to be a dumb screen.

I replace my TV maybe every 3-5 years. In that time media player hardware has changed significantly.

I am happy to replace a $100 roku for new stuff, not my $3000 TV.

That and TV makers appear to employ the worst software and UI developers in the universe to write their stuff and there are SFA 3rd party apps out there.

Not to mention youtube in SD, not HD. Blech.

sure, i wouldnt want to replace a $3000 tv every 3 years either, however if you're in the market for a new tv, decided for a smart tv vs non smart i would go for smart (but not all smarts are the same, i would only go for samsung atm). I just got really sick of fiddling with separate boxes trying to get a perfect all in one solution, I had xbox for netflix, raspbmc for local, couldnt really get live tv working on the pi, tired of a HTPC all in one since I had to maintain the box and things would crash when you couldnt be bothered with it.

and those additonal stuff did become expensive, i spent money on
- htpc, first one cost me around $2.2 k i think, $600 was just on the nice case, this was about 8 years ago
- mac minis, nice boxes, good htpcs, around $650-$850 i think
- shuttle type computers, these were around $1200
- raspberrypis, cheap $120ish once you added everything up (remotes, power, case, sd etc)
- universal remotes, $250 at the time

so over the years i spent a lot of money on htpcs, so a $1800 50" LED smart tv is pretty good IMO considering it can replace all the additional crap I had. but yes bring on google tv (or android in tvs)

Jaxson

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#928245 6-Nov-2013 15:57

trig42: Agree partly with you, however:
Web Browsing - not something I would choose to do on a TV, using a standard remote is a pretty awful way of navigating something designed for a keyboard/mouse or touch screen.

PLP/Flash - Flash is a pretty horrible buggy thing (one reason Apple have never supported it in iOS). Maybe these websites should get with it and move to HTML5, or something else. That said, PLP (especially) should have developed Smart TV apps (for Sammy, LG, Sony Pana etc).

TVNZ On Demand, surely the bit rate setting is not the fault of the TV manufacturer, that is something the App should have in its settings.

Apps: Youtube on my Samsung F series loads up in about 5 seconds I think (if that). Plex loads in about 2 seconds. It has a dual core CPU.

What TV Manufacturers should do, I agree with you - they should beef them up and put a HDD inside, but that increases the cost and decreases competitiveness. 'Most' people (except users of this forum) don't really care about those sort of features. I'd be interested to see what Apple does when (if) they release a TV. That would be the kind of thing that could reshape how Smart TV is done.

EDIT: ooh, something else: The manufacturers should agree on a common 'language' for app development/Smart TV OS. That would really make it take off.

Good post! I could just +1 it but it deserves more of a mention.

Browsing on these things, including the PS3 etc is a dog. Apps are where it's at and I was disappointed the new PS4 didn't allow for this. Smart TV's are the same, in that you're limited to whatever apps the manufacturers choose to offer.

eg TVNZ on demand used to have 2 different quality settings but this went on the PS3. Youtube on my PS3 plays for a short period and then buffers for ever so it's unusable, despite doing some cool integration with smartphones/ipads etc to que the next video up.

sdavisnz

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#928255 6-Nov-2013 16:13

trig42: Agree partly with you, however:
Web Browsing - not something I would choose to do on a TV, using a standard remote is a pretty awful way of navigating something designed for a keyboard/mouse or touch screen.

PLP/Flash - Flash is a pretty horrible buggy thing (one reason Apple have never supported it in iOS). Maybe these websites should get with it and move to HTML5, or something else. That said, PLP (especially) should have developed Smart TV apps (for Sammy, LG, Sony Pana etc).

TVNZ On Demand, surely the bit rate setting is not the fault of the TV manufacturer, that is something the App should have in its settings.

Apps: Youtube on my Samsung F series loads up in about 5 seconds I think (if that). Plex loads in about 2 seconds. It has a dual core CPU.

What TV Manufacturers should do, I agree with you - they should beef them up and put a HDD inside, but that increases the cost and decreases competitiveness. 'Most' people (except users of this forum) don't really care about those sort of features. I'd be interested to see what Apple does when (if) they release a TV. That would be the kind of thing that could reshape how Smart TV is done.

EDIT: ooh, something else: The manufacturers should agree on a common 'language' for app development/Smart TV OS. That would really make it take off.

tvnz on demand - is the fault of the tv manufacturer (samsung) - they made this app......

youtube- have you updated to latest firmware - our f series used to load youtube in 5 secs, now its over a minute with the latest firmware.

common language/OS - This would be great - google should have a shot at it.....

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michaelmurfy

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#928294 6-Nov-2013 16:49

I've got 2 smart TV's - a Sony 32" bought about 4 years ago now and a LG 55" 2012 model. I've just got a Raspberry Pi hooked up to the Sony but it does the basics fine on it's own. The LG is a bit crashy when it comes to the YouTube app but the other functions are fine. Web browsing on the TV is normally a very slow experience (my Sony has a web browser and BOY is it slow!)

Depends on the TV, but once it's getting a bit old it's easy to add a cheap media centre like a Raspberry Pi to enhance it's features again.

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DarthKermit

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#928336 6-Nov-2013 18:23

I have a Samsung LED LCD TV (unsure of the model without checking). It has Smart TV functions, but to be honest, I never use them.

Whatifthespacekeyhadneverbeeninvented?

scuwp

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#928366 6-Nov-2013 19:31

Got a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse for ours. Made things a lot easier to use, but there is no point comparing the web/app experience to an HTPC or other computer. I am sure things will get there but for now I brought a TV because I wanted a TV. If it can do a few extras then cool. Personally we use the YouTube and On Demand apps quite regularly and have no issues at all.

Lazy is such an ugly word, I prefer to call it selective participation

EhsanV

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#928460 7-Nov-2013 06:46

Hi guys

My first post on GZ ever!!!!!!

So I strongly dislike (!!!!!!) Smart TVs for all the reasons above and more. Many of my mate have "upgraded"

to different models of these not-so-smart devices and I am yet not to be disappointed by a single of those.

I now want to turn my own older TV to a smart one by attaching a laptop\tablet to it. I was juggling with the idea of using an old laptop or buy a new tablet with HDMI output.

any suggestion, experiences or new ideas are much appreciated.

Cheers

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