this post was submitted on 06 Apr 2024
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So, any recs. on good dumb tvs?
I'm upgrading to a projector soon, but also would love a few screens with actual buttons on the device incase of the inevitable remote loss.
I'm personally thinking of just plugging a decently capable little media PC into the display, using KDE's "big screen" interface with KDE Connect as a remote. I'm pretty sure I could train my family on that...
Roku is so scummy.
This is my thought:
Good enough laptops are about $200, and Linux is free.
Then there are fairly good projectors for like $80 or less that have hdmi, av, rgb, etc. with an led bulb.
So, grand total about $300 for a massive screen and zero ads.
Um. You and I have a very different idea of "fairly good". The only good projector I've used (at work, not my own) cost $12,000. It's overkill for a home theatre, but not by a wide margin.
If you want a projector as bright as a TV you could buy for 20 bucks at a goodwill store, you need to spend quite a bit of money on it... especially if you also want decent black levels and of course significantly larger than a cheap LCD (otherwise why get a projector).
You also forgot sound. Good speakers aren't cheap either. And you definitely don't want the sound coming from the projector itself. Or from your laptop speakers.
Unless you're trying to achieve 4K on a projector, you definitely don't need a $12k model.
Similarly, sound is dependent on the user. I've used many projectors that had decent speakers. Yes, speakers can be expensive, but not outlandish unless you're going for an audiophile set, but then you're going to drop money either way because most TVs don't have movie theatre level speakers.
I'm just interested in having a big enough picture without paying a fortune or having unskippable ads while I play Horizon: Forbidden West.
An $80 projector works just fine for me.
I'm not trying to build a theatre or anything here.
"dumb TV" is really just a commercial display. Usually the image isn't as good as a consumer display unless you really want to spend some money. For a decent display that won't wreck your bank account take a look at NEC displays. I have some in the field that are over 10 years old and used daily. Some even have compute modules you can add if you want your PC built into the display.
All I found in a cursory search were commercial displays. But I'll keep looking.
I've got a 30"? VISIO that's over 13 years old and doing just fine. I'd love to get another something of that quality; planned obsolescence sucks.
Haven't bought a TV in 12 years, out of curiosity - if you're not using the smart features of the TV would not connecting it to the network not be the best solution?
For my current use, (mostly screen sharing) I think it has to be connected.
Also, I think most smart tvs require regular updates or they "won't work".
It's worth a shot though, I'll have to look into it.