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Comment by solarkraft | Hacker News Reader

My Samsung TV (LCD) is fairly quick to start up. I think slow startup times are generally a case of bad software.

TVs do not need software beyond the minimum of firmware needed to drive the thing.

See: Monitors.

But as long as consumers keep buying them with the software, because they want to watch Hulu and YouTube and Netflix directly without purchasing an extra device (not unreasonable for the average consumer), TVs will come with the software.

You can argue all you want but the market always wins.

As long as consumers have basically no choice to avoid a smart TV, they’ll keep buying them whether they want the smart part or not.

(I agree you’re generally correct, but at this point we don’t even have a choice)

You're free to buy digital signage if you want, and some people do. You do have a choice.

But it's just not what most people want. Most people really do want their TV to natively run streaming services.

Signage exists, but it takes a lot of effort and research to buy compared to a “normal” TV. Normal stores just don’t have non-smart options, I bet most people don’t even know it exists.

I know several people who love not having to use extra boxes due to their smart TVs, I totally get it. I just wish it hadn’t pushed out all other options, especially on the high end where subsidies from deals are less necessary.

Best Buy sells dumb tvs (their in-house brand, "Insignia"), and their brick-and-mortar stores always have a bunch in stock. Options are limited to 32, 40, and 43" displays, though.

Oh really? I had no idea.

Yep. I've needed a bunch of dumb tvs this year (don't ask) and they're what I landed on. Best Buy overnight delivered a half-dozen ~$100 tvs to my doorstep for free (I bought them one at a time), and I also grabbed some off the shelves at two nearby stores.

Also, as far as I can tell, I just can't get a commercial display equivalent of one of the recent oleds sans smart crap.

Digital signage is getting a lot of smart features too, it's just a bit behind the consumer and hospitality markets.

Can you point me in the right direction so that I as someone that didn't know this exists up until now could learn enough to know what and where to buy?

Technically correct and actually wrong :-).

TVs do need software beyond the minimum to support the price asked. TVs are a cut throat, low margin, business. And the only way to eek out a bit more margin is to have some "feature" that makes your offering marginally better than your competitor's offering. That margin can be the difference between a going concern and going out of business.

So from the manufacturer's perspective they do "need" that extra software. Until someone establishes the 'spyware free, dumb tv" market that will continue to be the case I'm afraid.

> Until someone establishes the 'spyware free, dumb tv" market that will continue to be the case I'm afraid.

Well, there is Sceptre. Unfortunately they don't seem to be available outside US.

Insignia also makes spyware-free dumb tvs. They're Best Buy's in-house brand, which means you can at least get them in all of N.A. (maybe the same for Sceptre, I don't know). The last time I checked, they only had models up to 43". Probably meets the demands of the kiosk-mode market.

They also don't sell OLEDs.

As a counterpoint, I buy Sony TVs exclusively because they do a much better job of tuning the panel. They don't even make the panel. Sony just slaps Android on it. I'm definitely not the only one there. Sony has been known for their color accuracy for a long time now.

(Sony TVs even have a pretty decent user accessible API)

> (Sony TVs even have a pretty decent user accessible API)

Do you have a link where I can find out more about this? Google is failing me.

The API is the same as what they have for the "professional displays". You can set a key on the TV and then use that to authenticate.

https://pro-bravia.sony.net/develop/integrate/rest-api/spec/

I have a monitor that takes an absurd amount of time to turn on, like 5-10s

Would you please name and shame this monitor?

Mine's Acer V223HQL. It takes ~5 seconds to power on.

This is my disagreeable take, but the reason UIs are always slow is because slow UI imposes less cognitive load on users, and also developers. You're doing less, that's less work for your brain. Only very few impatient vocal minority wants quicker responses. I care, but clearly I don't belong to the majority.

I have an Acer Ultrawide that takes an absurd amount of time to wake or mode switch. Literally enough time for me to say out loud "I hate this monitor, it takes an absurd amount of time to wake"

NEC MultiSync PA Series PA311D-BK-SV 31.1" UHD

Honestly thou zero shame. I absolutely love the monitor and won’t replace it till nec makes a good oled. it looks amazing easy on my eyes with zero fatigue perfect colour and made a great replacement for my nec Pa271w which I’ve had going on 15? years now and somehow it’s still looks better then most monitors of similar specs from today

Unless they enshittyfi I will continue getting nec monitors because while they are expensive they don’t make my eyes hurt like others

My monitor is very simple, 3 buttons: on/off, and backlight +/-, no OSD, no scaler, one input. And it still takes a few seconds to display something.

I guess the OS, GPU and monitor are doing all sorts of back and forth before the monitor finally gets the signal it needs.

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