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Comment by tombert | Hacker News Reader

Things like this are why I kind of despise the "smart TV" movement.

I can't blame people for using them, they're convenient as hell, but at some level I have trouble seeing why the TV needs to have the computer built into it. To me, a TV should be a more-or-less "mechanical" device that does one thing and one thing only: display video.

Obviously, though, this only defers the error over to AppleTV or AndroidTV or whatever computer you have plugged in. I guess with the (admittedly awesome) advent of streaming-all-the-things, stuff like viruses are an inevitability.

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In my experience, a SmartTV can stream and HAS ONE REMOTE. Every family member who is not an IT professional has struggled deeply with any TV/AV setup where two or three remotes are needed. This same customer is also not going to have an easy time on their own setting up some yet another third party universal remote.

You know, that's a pretty fair point. I guess not seeing that as an issue is a consequence of an engineer running AV setup at home. More remotes = more to lose.

None of my stuff seems to do this, but isn't there something for HDMI that allows bidirectional stuff to allow a device to control the volume and whatnot?

CEC. It's nice, but if and only if all of the relevant functions on your device can be controlled from the TV remote. My Sharp dumb TV (actually a Hisense since Sharp quit the US market) has several buttons that ought to be sent to a device but aren't, which limits CEC's usefulness with my Kodi setup. I ended up putting an IR receiver in the box (a Raspberry Pi running OSMC) and using an RC6 remote instead.

And if it does't all work then that is even more cognitive load on the user: "you can use remote A for everything devices A and B do, except functions C-D, for those you need to use remote B, but use A for everything else, got it?"

>Every family member who is not an IT professional has struggled deeply with any TV/AV setup where two or three remotes are needed.

What a terribly decadent life we've found ourselves living.

Having one remote is a huge advantage that a lot of people overlook. Most people don't want to think, "Oh, I'm using the Roku, which remote is that?"

It sounds dumb, but it is a major barrier for both of my parents. I ended up just switching them both to Harmony remotes that I preprogrammed, which is far from ideal and most people won't want to do that.

It used to be that the youngest child had an honest job, acting on voice commands and adjusting the controls. It seems like people won't be happy until this experience is fully replicated with automation...

More seriously, I've found that a bluetooth keyboard with built-in pointer is my favorite remote. I treat the TV as a monitor and operate MythTV or Firefox to go to Netflix or Pandora from the couch.

I confess, I do have a second remote to control the audio. I could never tolerate the sound of built-in speakers in any TV. My media computer sends the video to the TV via one HDMI connection and digital audio to the hifi receiver via another HDMI port. So, I change volume as well as other downmix or night-mode options on the receiver, leaving the PC audio settings constant.

What resolution does Netflix stream at with Firefox?

I think I read that it is limited to 720p for Firefox on Linux (probably for DRM reasons). For the most part, it looks as good to me as typical 720p or 1080i ATSC over-air broadcasts. And, I'd say both look better than the typical digital cable or satellite TV I've seen elsewhere.

I have a 1080p TV, but the only time I've really cared is certain 1080i PBS shows, with natural landscape scenes deinterlaced via MythTV. Otherwise, 720p seems fine. It feels to me that every provider is optimizing their compression levels for an audience who is less picky than me. Usually, I am bothered more by inconsistent compression than absolute resolution.

> To me, a TV should be a more-or-less "mechanical" device that does one thing and one thing only: display video.

Because a lot of regular people don't think of a TV as a "big monitor" (the way HN does), they think of a TV as a the thing that shows Cable / Netflix.

The best thing about Roku TVs, for example, is that a normal person won't accidentally break them most of the time. No more calls from parents about "is it on the right input" or "did I use the right remote" or "which cable goes where" or "how do I get back to the main menu" or "why does this remote have a volume icon, but not actually change the volume".

Fixing all of that is excellent UX for the average person (read: not HN users). And excellent UX is worth money.

Yeah, as I said, I get why the SmartTVs are popular. They serve a purpose, they're hella convenient. I guess the inner-engineer inside of me has problems with close-coupling.

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