Comment by thrwawy283 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by thrwawy283 | Hacker News Reader

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The thing that really bothers me are all these "AI" technologies in my new LG oled tv that don't actually get used. All of them to reduce "crushed" images, correct color, improve blurriness in motion scenes, etc are only used when not using HDMI/PC hookup. My feeling is they're used when viewing things streamed on Netflix/Hulu/HBOMax/etc. But I spend most of my time using the TV as a computer monitor. I'm in a niche group, but this was my only option for large-format oled.

I wish they did more with HDMI, even though HDMI is being phased out. I want to hook up my computer and have the computer gain an ethernet link from the TV, even though the TV is wirelessly connected to my router. The TV should be a "dock" that includes a 2nd monitor. I have a wireless controller reciever plugged into the USB port on the TV. I want that to give input to my computer from it. I also want my computer to charge while being hooked up to my TV. I think the only answer is this TV should have type-c and do all those things as a dock, but it's frustrating that we're 1 step behind.

I wish I could watch a program, while showing my computer hdmi input picture-in-picture. Hell this thing has 4 HDMI inputs on the back, let me do each input to a quarter of the screen. Another niche use..

Don't even get me started on the ads. Doesn't make sense to keep the TV on when my computer is locked for long periods of time, so I generally come back, turn on the TV, and unlock the computer. First thing I see is fucking ads. Takes 2 clicks on the remote to dismiss but it colors my experience that they're always pushing another $30 or $40/month service when I first see things onscreen. They know you can't get this quality elsewhere so they're happy to push you ads. And the telemetry, my god. It's my $3k TV!

Most TVs are still waiting to support the next hdmi standard so you can do 120fps & hdr simultaneously.

The 2 things that did impress me were this LG tv supporting both Miracast and Airplay with /no/ hoops to jump through. It just worked. I do wish I could "cast" things to the TV, and that's like pushing a link to it where the TV navigates to that stream and plays. No other device has to stream or push the video to the TV, it does it itself in the Chomecast paradigm. That would be nice.

</rambling>

There is never going to be a single product that has a great display, a great casting solution, a great app solution, a great privacy solution, a great input solution, a great docking solution, a great selection of leading edge technology, a great content mixing solution, and whatever else you could want at a great price. Apart from such a thing inherently needing to cost an arm and a leg it needs to outdo every best of breed, it's just not possible.

On the other hand what is possible is buying a great display (link a 120 Hz HDR OLED), buying a great dock (thunderbolt 4 doing power, ethernet, and more), buying a great app/casting solution (like a Shield TV providing Android apps and Chromecast casting), buying a great multiview HDMI matrix, and so on and connecting them to the TV with the advent of HDMI CRC making it so you never have to manually adjust sources (excluding the multiview case where you want to see PiP versions of multiple sources at once in which case there is no adjusting outside adjusting what is PiP'd). This all comes with the upside when you want a better display or a new technology comes along you don't have to replace all $$$$ of it at once.

I was mostly remarking on the lack of (significant) innovation. I'd say the best feature here has been airplay/miracast for drive-by screen sharing from my sister/mom/dad on their iPads or phones.

For what we pay, I wish they'd consider some of these niches rather than startup ads or an AI that looks at what you're viewing and suggests other channels mid-viewing. Creeeeeepy.

>I wish I could watch a program, while showing my computer hdmi input picture-in-picture. Hell this thing has 4 HDMI inputs on the back, let me do each input to a quarter of the screen. Another niche use..

I've seen some business monitors that will show a 2x2 grid of your inputs. I think you can get some sort of device/box to add this feature to existing screens.

I really wanted this feature a few years ago, but hadn't thought about it lately. I wanted to turn a 65" 4K TV into 4 1080p monitors, basically. When a PC is hooked to it, I run i3wm, but this doesn't handle cases like someone hooking up a game console or another PC and wanting to show both. Maybe with some capture cards you could display other inputs in mpv.

If we could put our own software on TVs or swap out the boards with more hackable ones, that would be cool. Just buy a dumb display with speakers and let the free software community handle the rest.

The new LG C2 OLEDS have PIP. It's demonstrated in this video https://youtu.be/FrVJLlzQcQw

Even my 2017 C7 has it, but it's pretty clunky - no overlay and only two small screens next to each other, and it's pretty slow to enter/leave that mode as well, maybe 3s of black screen before it enters or exits that mode (I think it's called multi-display).

I wouldn't use it, but it's there.

Personally I don't want the TV companies experimenting with more networking options, because I know they'd only use it for evil.

When looking for Monitors with these options, I found the term "PBP" (Picture-Beside-Picture) useful for searching.

LG has one, the 43UN700, which also has a serial port for controlling picture-input layout options, and sound-source. It has a mode for showing any4of6 inputs at the same time, and a bunch of layout options for any2of6 ( Top/Botton, Left/Right, Main/PiP) inputs. Sound output can only come from active sources, though. My only "software gripe" up to now. It comes with a ton of cables, but NOT the required RS232C (looks like audio-jack) adapter. Hrmpf.

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