Upgradeable Smart TV SoC?

[cloneman]

So, like most tech nerds I'm aware that many builtin features on a SmartTV can be laughably bad. You'd think they'd at least put something as powerful as a Raspberry Pi in there, but nope, "because reasons" they want to save the 20$ and they feel customers will not buy their TV if it costs 20$ more than a competitor's TV. The average customer is ignorant on benchmarking TV software.

I recently helped someone pickout a Sony X900F TV, a "budget high-end" model. I made my decision because the upscaling and response rate had good reviews. Also, it had built-in chromecast, so I thought, even if the the builtin Smart Apps suck, I can just Cast Everything.

 

I certainly was not disappointed. The built in WiFi was mediocre and the ARM SoC was total crap. If I want to use this TV for  casual gaming or running Android apps, I'm going to have to buy a 3rd party box, because it's slow as balls.

 

Anyway, just a thought experiment. Wouldn't it be nice if TV's came with an expansion card where you could completely replace the chip that handles the Smart TV features? I mean, especially Sony, they could totally sell you an overpriced PlayStation 3 "card" to put in there.

 

I really dislike products out there in the wild that are so slow or broken that they are basically useless. The market is flooded with mid-tier products that have major limitations. Sure, next year's model will be slightly better. Who cares. I want to make it better now, without wasting one of the built-in HDMI ports and having another device to plug into a power outlet.

[Jurrunio]

That will be a lot more time and effort since it's not just the hardware (changing to socket), but now it also has to be able to boot and work with varying combinations of hardware, which itself leads to performance loss #console_optimization

[doomsriker]

Back in my day we just plugged in an external box when we wanted an upgrade  . But in all seriousness it would be a cool idea. Hard sell though with how thin TVs are getting nowadays. 

[cloneman]

3 minutes ago, doomsriker said:

Back in my day we just plugged in an external box when we wanted an upgrade  . But in all seriousness it would be a cool idea. Hard sell though with how thin TVs are getting nowadays. 

That's true, everyone loves their ridiculous half-assed non-rotating wall mounts so they won't tolerate a bulging piece at the back of the TV.

I mean, I think if you added something that people actually want it could sell. An upgrade to the built-in WiFi. An NES mini. etc.

[Donut417]

TV manufacturers have no reason to improve. Amazon, Roku, and Apple, not to mention the shit loads of Android TV boxes already have the market. They probably figure you will just buy one of those options. Personally I would like them to remove the Smart options. Save the customer money. The customer can buy what ever Smart stick/box they want. 

[Paul Siu]

Most consumer are not tech savvy. My mom for example can't even figure out how to switch input on the TV. The segment that wants to upgrade component are the techy who are small in number. The trend is towards appearance over functionality, so equipment becomes sleeker, thinner, and less repairable/upgradable. Manufacturer rather that you throw out the old component and buy an entirely new component.

 

The path to upgrade would be to use the existing system. For example, if your tuner is terrible, you could buy a new tuner and output it over hdmi. If your reception is terrible, replace the tv's internal app with a roku or firestick, or chromecast.

 

Paul

 

[cloneman]

On 11/18/2019 at 8:38 AM, Donut417 said:

Personally I would like them to remove the Smart options. Save the customer money. The customer can buy what ever Smart stick/box they want. 

At this point the smart features are actually a subsidy on the TV. The TV company gets paid to include useless apps on their device. If they made a TV without them it would probably be more expensive

[Zodiark1593]

On 11/18/2019 at 5:38 AM, Donut417 said:

TV manufacturers have no reason to improve. Amazon, Roku, and Apple, not to mention the shit loads of Android TV boxes already have the market. They probably figure you will just buy one of those options. Personally I would like them to remove the Smart options. Save the customer money. The customer can buy what ever Smart stick/box they want. 

I'd imagine the "smart" bits are a pretty small chunk of the overall cost. So long as the SoC has the components to decode video in hardware, you don't really need much in regards to raw performance. Some cheap Cortex A7s or A53s to handle the OS and application. A low end GPU, probably a Mali part. Driving a basic UI at 4K isn't difficult so long as you refrain from overlapping lots of transparent layers. Maybe a DSP block to handle upscaling and post processing.

 

Video playback can get away with well under 1 GB of RAM. Add a cheap flash chip to boot from, and you're pretty much done. Software probably costs a fair bit to develop and maintain, though at the volumes TVs are sold at, it makes little sense to hold back here either.

 

Consider that a Raspberry PI 4 possesses a lot more CPU power, boasts similar connectivity and can handle 4k H.265 video playback for all of $35, it would be easy to imagine the "smarts" coming in at less than $20 for the hardware. Would it make a lot of sense to introduce another sku without the "smart" hardware?