Sony launches new version of the best cheap 4K Blu-ray player that drops the streaming tech – but the price looks odd (www.techradar.com)
from cm0002@lemmy.world to homevideo@feddit.uk on 14 Mar 19:50
https://lemmy.world/post/26844799

#homevideo

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empireOfLove2@lemmy.dbzer0.com on 14 Mar 19:55 next collapse

I hope we’re not paying more for a player that does less…

You are and will be, as the cost of hardware in “smart” devices (and the reason that non-smart TV’s no longer exist) are subsidized with on-device advertising and massive data collection/reselling.

HobbitFoot@thelemmy.club on 14 Mar 22:14 collapse

Yeah. Part of me wonders how much of a premium that making a TV dumb would be and if there is a large enough market that would buy into it.

empireOfLove2@lemmy.dbzer0.com on 15 Mar 03:37 next collapse

They already exist. You just have to look for “signage displays” or “commercial TV’s”, they come with all the smart crap stripped out.

fox2263@lemmy.world on 15 Mar 08:19 next collapse

Sadly they don’t make OLED signage I don’t think.

empireOfLove2@lemmy.dbzer0.com on 16 Mar 17:42 collapse

Yeah, I haven’t seen any of that either, probably because OLED burn in and limited brightness lifespan would make them basically unserviceable as static or even slideshow displays.

LukewarmToddy@feddit.uk on 15 Mar 08:36 collapse

Iiyama screens are some of the best commercial screens. Unfortunately commercial screens usually lack the plug in and play features on domestic tellys, which can be a right faff

wewbull@feddit.uk on 15 Mar 11:36 collapse

Plug and play features like…

Plug an HDMI cable in and watch?

Prox@lemmy.world on 15 Mar 13:07 next collapse

I’d imagine they mean features like HDMI CEC, input-based picture mode memory/adjustment, support for high-quality audio (like Atmos), etc.

LukewarmToddy@feddit.uk on 15 Mar 18:24 collapse

Not quite; using USB storage, which people do, remembering last input, little things like that which you take for granted on a consumer telly but isn’t easy to use on these commercial screens

thrawn@lemmy.world on 15 Mar 07:45 next collapse

Why not purchase one subsidized by ads then just not connect it to the internet? Seems like a win-win

wewbull@feddit.uk on 15 Mar 11:35 collapse

…because there’s no guarantee it will work without internet.

thrawn@lemmy.world on 15 Mar 12:04 collapse

Can you provide an example of one that only works online? I have never heard of that.

wewbull@feddit.uk on 15 Mar 12:12 collapse

I’m not sure we’re there yet, but we’re certainly in the “nag banners on a frequent basis” realm on TVs. Not technically unusable, but practically unusable.

thrawn@lemmy.world on 15 Mar 12:19 collapse

Fair, but I don’t think we should want to pay a premium for a dumb TV in fear of a hypothetical future. Perhaps worthwhile if it ever happens, but until then buying a subsidized smart TV and keeping it dumb seems fully better to me.

wewbull@feddit.uk on 15 Mar 12:27 collapse

Disagree. You have to vote with your wallet. It’s not like the manufactures aren’t going to continue down the road they’re on. The only thing that will stop them is losing sales because of this crap.

thrawn@lemmy.world on 15 Mar 12:57 collapse

You’d pay more money for a something you can do free right now, just in case a hypothetical product in the future does that?

Just thinking, I bet capitalism is ready and willing to provide if there are a lot of likeminded. I expect the current TV manufacturers would make smart TVs internet-only if a dumb TV company succeeded, then undercut that company with slightly cheaper dumb TVs of their own, Amazon style. That’s a win-win for them: they get to charge more for what we have for free currently, and demand more advertisement money since the audience of the cheaper smart TV is now captive. Their profit margin would still be higher than the dumb TV company because they’re already making them, too.

I don’t see a version of events where existing manufacturers lose if this happens. This feels like a road to hell paved with good intentions.

Edit: to be clear I’m very much on your side with “fuck the tv makers and fuck advertising as a whole”. I just truly fail to see how this could be anything but free market research for the existing manufacturers and an acceleration of the enshittification (hey, an accurate use!). I’m quite open to alternative theories.

pupbiru@aussie.zone on 16 Mar 18:55 collapse

we need an OpenWRT but for TVs

jordanlund@lemmy.world on 14 Mar 20:15 next collapse

My number 1 requirement is being able to disable HDR, my sets don’t implement it correctly and HDR content is unwatchable because of it.

The only fix is to disable it on the device as the sets don’t have that option.

thefartographer@lemm.ee on 14 Mar 20:29 collapse

Now I’m genuinely curious: what if you get a super-old and cheap HDMI cable? I’m talking like HDMI 1.2 or 1.4. What are the chances that your tv will be able to process whatever resolution video but not receive enough information to interpret HDR?

Or, it’ll likely be more like running gigabit from a cheap router over Cat3 or paired Cat1 where the high frequency generates so much noise on the low-quality unshielded twists of cable that it struggles to assign any standards and you end up with nothing.

jordanlund@lemmy.world on 14 Mar 20:35 collapse

The cable would still need to do 4K though…

thefartographer@lemm.ee on 15 Mar 01:04 collapse

I think 1.4 does 4K @30Hz. Anyway, I could have sworn most TVs have the ability to turn off HDR, or at least have picture modes incompatible with HDR. Loophole, baby!

jordanlund@lemmy.world on 15 Mar 04:19 collapse

Yeah, Samsung not so much. The non-HDR picture is vibrant and gorgeous. The HDR is dark, muddy, and unwatchable.

Fortunately all the devices I have feeding them have the option to disable it.

Example:

HDR On:

<img alt="" src="https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/821b1f07-97e8-40e1-b359-8e399808f84b.jpeg">

HDR Off:

<img alt="" src="https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/f58e03df-143d-4374-9441-dd2bb607533f.jpeg">

LukewarmToddy@feddit.uk on 15 Mar 08:38 next collapse

Leia eye rolling HDR in the top pic…? 😜

keyez@lemmy.world on 16 Mar 21:02 collapse

My LG TV was similar and I had to go digging in the settings to mess with brightness, backlight and black detail. Anything that was dark on HDR was just black and I had to go in and up the black detail and brightness/contrast settings

jordanlund@lemmy.world on 16 Mar 22:45 collapse

Yup, unfortunately with Samsung, the only thing that works reliably is disabling HDR.

daggermoon@lemmy.world on 16 Mar 19:24 collapse

Does it play CD’s too? I’m in the market for a new player.