You could check out https://plasma-bigscreen.org/ I never used it my self but it looks quite cool
this post was submitted on 29 Aug 2023
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Super cool! Thanks for making me aware of this project.
I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that the hardware inside Smart TVs is far too piecemeal and random for anyone to be able to develop for more than one type of television set.
I mean, just look at the troubles AOSP offshoots like LineageOS have. They support a large number of devices, but that large number is literally just a drop in the fucking bucket of how many phones actually exist out there.
Each one of those phones has different hardware and needs different hardware drivers, which is why each phone generally has a different set of maintainers. The same would be an issue with these Smart TVs.
It's something that is feasible but feels like a waste of resources when you can just not connect your Smart TV to the internet and use a Roku/FireStick/Raspberry Pi running Kodi or go out of your way to purchase one of those commercial monitors that don't have any Smart TV bullshit in them.
At this point my next TV is just going to be a big monitor plugged into a fanless PC, or the functional equivalent (all smart features disabled, HDMI input only) if I can't find something I like at a good price. A monitor will have better picture, refresh rate and response time as well.
+1 for HTPC. The safest easiest way to use a TV. Steam big picture works very well with this.
Go with the second option. Those "features" make consumer TVs more affordable
Fuck smart tvs. I only use tvs by plugging in my laptop via hdmi. It's only a matter of time before smart tvs start reporting people for stuff like watching pirated content or voiding TOS's with adblockers.
You may also want to consider a projector. Though those are also starting to get smart features...
Only janky solution I know of is to use a Raspberry Pi (or other computer) to run Kodi or Android TV. You can then point your TV's DNS to a PiHole or other DNS filter to stop tracking/ads.
I wouldn't call this a janky solution at all. The jank is the "smart" TV itself. I use an Nvidia shield to get the most out of my 4k OLED TV, but otherwise do pretty much the same thing. I put my TV on a VLAN that doesn't have Internet access, too.
The only jank thing about this is that you can't get rid 100% of the ad/spyware on the tv...
You can by not connecting it to your network
Samsung TVs are known to connect automatically if they detect an open network, and some ISPs have an open network on all their routers, so you can't even guarantee that!
Or just don't connect the TV to the Internet at all.
This is how I've used Smart TVs since 2014, I assure you this is completely normal and not jank 🤣
I too, am curious. There's apps my TV won't let me uninstall and it's running out of memory.
Yes lmao. I have a decent Sony TV and for some reason they only bothered to put 4GB of internal storage in the thing. Like what? It runs AndroidTV
I don't keep it hooked to the internet though so it doesn't bother me, but it seemed dumb. It comes out the box with basically no free space.
Surprised noone has hacked Vizio's yet. Shame.
Because Fuck Vizio, that's why
I use my steam deck docked as a Home Theater PC (HTPC) with a remote with a gyroscopic mouse and full keyboard on the back, and I love it. YouTube with ad block, jellyfin media server, and videogames
Can it output 4K HDR/DV and Atmos and stuff?
I don't have a 4K TV or surround sound, but people online seem to report both work
Hmm, I wasn’t able to output either just now after installing the Stremio flatpak on my SteamDeck. But I was able to get lossless 7.1 audio, which is nice. No Atmos, unfortunately.
Get a decent android device like the shield and install whatever you want on it. Fuck anything that is on tv os.
what about webos?
Fuck that, too.