Home theater PC
this post was submitted on 05 Oct 2024
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Privacy
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You don’t have to get a smart tv at all. TVs do not need to be smart. If you search ‘business monitor’, you will find large quality displays such as used for corporate signage. The one issue is they often have only a few inputs, but that is easily addressed and worth it to avoid the completely unnecessary hassle of a TV too smart for your own good.
My two cents
Plug it into a HTPC, install Firefox and ublock Origin. Now you can watch YT without ads on a big screen in the living room. You’re welcome.
Just don’t connect it to the internet.
This is the way. I have an LG and bought one for my parents. Do the initial sign up/registration, then turn off Internet access. I actually thought mine was broken when I got it, but it was just my pihole blocking it. Temporary whitelist for setup, smooth sailing since.
That's generous of you. If I'd mistakenly bought one that wouldn't work without ever having a network connection, I'd be returning it and demanding my money back. Hasn't happened yet, though.
Won't work without setup?
It was required for setup, and the latest update shoves ads at you.
I used to be a fan of LG TVs (we have 3 of them, last model is a 2021 Nanocell). Because of this alone LG will never see my money again. Thanks for the warning.
But you can just block all the ads on the home screen with pihole. Then you can still use the native TV apps. It's a win-win.
If you turn off Internet access then your parents can't stream.
I would be careful of anything ‘smart’.
I would avoid anything built into the TV.
- Its starting to be used for spying on you
- The chip they come with are usually not that good unless it's a high end TV.
- They are building ads right into the TV themselves.
I would not connect the TV to the internet and use a external media player. Either a Nvidia shield or an Apple TV is your best bet.
You can also try building a media player yourself using a small computer.
Note - The self made media player will be more limited in terms of apps available, unfortunately, as well as streaming quality from some of the streaming services.
We need this info added to an FAQ. This question comes up frequently.
My advice is never use a smart tv of any kind.
Use a third party device like an apple tv or roku, hell even a bluray player with apps on it.
Then get what ever TV you like and never let it see the internet.
I personally like Visio, but any mid grade display is fine.
I got a cheapest Android smart TV and never connected it to the internet. On HDMI1 there is Amazon Firestick for the occasional Netflix use. On HDMI2 there is Kodi for every day watching. Because of how modern TVs work, both these extra boxes can be steered with the TV remote.
Isnt Roku just as bad as the web TV systems? Amazon fire is bad too.
Yes and no. This is for parents, so ease of use is a huge factor.
The processors in smart TVs are often crap, plus who know what updates and monitoring they are pushing on you.
With a dedicated media device you only have one company to deal with. Personally, I use my playstation for everything, but for my mom a Sony bluray with the apps works fine.
At the end of the day, they'll want netflix, amazon, youtube, hbo max, etc, and you get a way better experience with a media player vs smart tv. Sony is a known evil as it were, their hardware is good, and they generally don't fuck up firmware updates.
It is getting harder and harder to find a dumb TV though.
They didn't say that....they just said not to hook whatever smart TV they get to the internet.
I mean, they say both things.
My advice is never use a smart tv of any kind.
If you want a true dumb TV, buy a commercial grade display made for digital signage. Bit more expensive, but designed for 24/7 operation and has none of the smart tv fat.
I have considered looking into this. Building one's own TV might be the move.
Have you done it, and if so, any tips?
No, I work in corporate AV, so I'm buying higher end digital signage for most applications at work.
NEC and Philip's I've been using lately, but they are just the cost effective ones now. LG, Samsung, Sony, all make good displays.
Digital sign usually dont have any smart apps, and if they do you can fully disable them.
They also have all the advanced features you could want. Serial and TCP api, multiple ports of various formats, auto on with sync detect, etc.
For personal use, my last three have been Visio from Costco, and while it has the apps, I just never connect to the internet.
I have seen guides online to open up a display and disable the smart elements, but that seems overkill to me.
One thing to watch for, I've heard but haven't witnessed that many displays are getting way more aggressive about auto connecting to wifi for sharing data and updates. If someone has unsecured wifi near by etc.
I have a WebOS tv and the answer is: just don’t. It’s open source in a similar way Android is, spy’s on you, has way less apps available and can’t/is really bad at basic shit
I heard that https://libreelec.tv is pretty good
Its good if everything you need can run from Kodi. It uses its own Linux distribution in the background, so you won't really be able to install anything else unless you build it.
Then run it in a container under a better distribution if you desperately need to put neofetch on your HTPC. Or run the other distro in a container under libreelec since I’m pretty sure it supports them.
Absolutely this. Depending on how you use it though, make sure you have a VPN and private DNS setup on your router
Why do you need private dns for?
If Kodi is used to watch movies and TV shows for free then you'd want to protect your internet traffic from unwanted eyes
Isn't a dns included in most vpns?
To control what can be accessed.
Having your own DNS enables you to block ads on every device in your network.
PiHole makes my smart TV more responsive, because it can't get crap to load into the home screen.
Everything is really bad. But sadly it is nearly impossible to buy a normal TV these days. Just buy any SmartTV, and get yourself a MiniPC with the Linux Distro of your liking.
Buy a retail display screen. Totally dumb.
LG WebOS doesn't have good support for things like Jellyfin. If you want to ever build a library of media and let them have easy access to it, then WebOS is gonna suck, so will Samsung's Tizen. But all the Android TVs have access.
Don't know if you're interested in that kind of thing, but figured I'd share it in case it was a factor.
The only other alternative is a commercial display.
This is untrue. You can use Jellyfin or Kodi natively on LG WebOS on the TV and stream whatever you want locally. You have to grab it from the homebrew channel or sideload it. It's a little bit of a process though. Nothing crazy. But it works!
Edit: you can also get YouTube without ads off Homebrew.
Yeah, sideloading it requires getting a development code from the company, jailbreaking your machine, then installing a full development environment...
Not what I'd call user friendly.
Meanwhile, on something like the FireTV stick, if someone gives me the URL to an APK, I can install it.
Rooting (assume you meant this by jailbreak8ng) is not required for this process. Only some apps reauire root. Kodi and the youtube adfree apps don't require root.
https://github.com/jellyfin/jellyfin-webos
Anyone is welcome to read the instructions. Tell me that doesn't look like a nightmare for grandma to set up.