Good TV Pairing with a HTPC

[10leej]

So I've been using yhe same Sony L D TV for 10 years now and honestly the 1st Gen HDMI ports on it are starting to give me fits since I last upgraded my htpc which I'm piping through a Yamaha YHT-4950U receiver.

Honestly looking through TVs I really don't want or care for a smart TV as I've always used a dedicated htpc running a customized kodi setup (gentoo based if you need to ask, but shouldn't matter). 

I'm curious if there's still a good "dumb" TV out there or not.

[BiotechBen]

41 minutes ago, 10leej said:

So I've been using yhe same Sony L D TV for 10 years now and honestly the 1st Gen HDMI ports on it are starting to give me fits since I last upgraded my htpc which I'm piping through a Yamaha YHT-4950U receiver.

Honestly looking through TVs I really don't want or care for a smart TV as I've always used a dedicated htpc running a customized kodi setup (gentoo based if you need to ask, but shouldn't matter). 

I'm curious if there's still a good "dumb" TV out there or not.

To my knowledge, "dumb" tvs are getting very hard to find. although in reality, you can have a smart tv that the smart part is terrible to use and just have the tv part. That said, there are some really good TV's out there with good interfaces, and what is going to be the deciding factor is budget and what display technology you want. If you want a refined mini-led that doesn't cost a fortune: the TCL 6 series TV's are pretty darn good value and the Roku interface is a joy to use, and the picture is great. If you want absolute perfection at any cost the G2 is spectacular. There is a Toshiba that is currently only in Europe, one of their cinema displays (I had a second hand 1080p one from 2010ish and it was beautiful even in 2021) and it's absolutely magnificent, but again: only in Europe and very expensive.

[10leej]

6 hours ago, BiotechBen said:

To my knowledge, "dumb" tvs are getting very hard to find. although in reality, you can have a smart tv that the smart part is terrible to use and just have the tv part. That said, there are some really good TV's out there with good interfaces, and what is going to be the deciding factor is budget and what display technology you want. If you want a refined mini-led that doesn't cost a fortune: the TCL 6 series TV's are pretty darn good value and the Roku interface is a joy to use, and the picture is great. If you want absolute perfection at any cost the G2 is spectacular. There is a Toshiba that is currently only in Europe, one of their cinema displays (I had a second hand 1080p one from 2010ish and it was beautiful even in 2021) and it's absolutely magnificent, but again: only in Europe and very expensive.

That's a shame. I see on Amazon spectre makes a few that are ok looking but they don't seem to last. Really my thing is that if I buy a smart TV I'm never really going to give it a network connection.

[BiotechBen]

2 hours ago, 10leej said:

That's a shame. I see on Amazon spectre makes a few that are ok looking but they don't seem to last. Really my thing is that if I buy a smart TV I'm never really going to give it a network connection.

Any particular reason for not having it connected to a network?

I know that at least with the TCL Roku, it has a fully featured Plex app, and has Kodi 19.1 according to the tv I have in my living room right now. I've been thoroughly impressed at how well the Roku platform is supported, and how future friendly the hardware and software support is. I have a 32 in 3-series that I won in a university charity raffle (2017) that was a refurb supposedly, and it still responds snappily (is starting to slow down a little bit but only enough that I only recently noticed) and the software support has been fairly good, it still gets the occasional security update

 

 

I would say: the panel type is going to be dependent on the size of the room and how much light there is going to be. If you want exceptional viewing angles and it's a light controlled room, there's not a whole lot that's better than a QD-OLED  or W-OLED. If it's less light controlled and not a very large room and you'll be looking at it basically straight on most of the time, a good Mini-LED VA panel is going to be a great given the spectacular black levels for LCD panels. Supposedly the VA panels are 178° viewing angle, but the one I have I would estimate to be between 135-150 before the colors start getting noticeably washed out. 

[10leej]

On 10/9/2022 at 3:32 AM, BiotechBen said:

Any particular reason for not having it connected to a network?

I know that at least with the TCL Roku, it has a fully featured Plex app, and has Kodi 19.1 according to the tv I have in my living room right now. I've been thoroughly impressed at how well the Roku platform is supported, and how future friendly the hardware and software support is. I have a 32 in 3-series that I won in a university charity raffle (2017) that was a refurb supposedly, and it still responds snappily (is starting to slow down a little bit but only enough that I only recently noticed) and the software support has been fairly good, it still gets the occasional security update

 

 

I would say: the panel type is going to be dependent on the size of the room and how much light there is going to be. If you want exceptional viewing angles and it's a light controlled room, there's not a whole lot that's better than a QD-OLED  or W-OLED. If it's less light controlled and not a very large room and you'll be looking at it basically straight on most of the time, a good Mini-LED VA panel is going to be a great given the spectacular black levels for LCD panels. Supposedly the VA panels are 178° viewing angle, but the one I have I would estimate to be between 135-150 before the colors start getting noticeably washed out. 

I strongly abhore iot devices I can't control or guarantee the security of and when runniong a roku on my network which uses a fairly strict pihole setup as a DNS server the roku device effectively DDOS's my poor Pi 3. So really I just dont want to connect it and not even have to deal with it broadcasting a wireless signal if I can avoid it since I run and mess around with HAM radio signals quite often.

Sure the platform is great, but I trust Roku less than I trust Google in terms of security and honestly would just prefer the smaller footprint. It's really kinda just a reduyndant device doing nothing when I have a htpc setup I've used for years at this point and prefer to use specifically because I can hook up steam's remote play feature.

[BiotechBen]

3 hours ago, 10leej said:

I strongly abhore iot devices I can't control or guarantee the security of and when runniong a roku on my network which uses a fairly strict pihole setup as a DNS server the roku device effectively DDOS's my poor Pi 3. So really I just dont want to connect it and not even have to deal with it broadcasting a wireless signal if I can avoid it since I run and mess around with HAM radio signals quite often.

Sure the platform is great, but I trust Roku less than I trust Google in terms of security and honestly would just prefer the smaller footprint. It's really kinda just a reduyndant device doing nothing when I have a htpc setup I've used for years at this point and prefer to use specifically because I can hook up steam's remote play feature.

Understandable, if you run a tight security ship,having something that you aren't explicitly in control of can be disheartening. 

 

Additionally, they aren't wifi only, they do have rj45 ports so that you don't have Wifi signals bouncing all over the place.

 

Finding a "dumb" tv is going to be hard, if you want one without wifi or a smart interface you'll need to look at older TV's. If you want a suggestion for an older tv that's absolutely beautiful picture: 42RV530U. It's an 8-bit panel with "14-bit digital video processing" and really makes the argument for 1080p UHBR instead of 4K LBR. It does have black frame image insertion/frame interpolation, but the only way I found out was with a high speed camera. It's from Toshiba's regza cinema display series, and man is it a beautiful display (and can be color calibrated)

3 hours ago, 10leej said:

honestly would just prefer the smaller footprint.

Could you elaborate, not sure I understand what you mean. 

[10leej]

 

40 minutes ago, BiotechBen said:

Could you elaborate, not sure I understand what you mean. 

Basicslly I dont want to plug my computer into another computer (yamaha receiver) that plugs into another computer (hdmi interface drm controller) that plugs into another computer (smart tv)

[BiotechBen]

20 minutes ago, 10leej said:

 

Basicslly I dont want to plug my computer into another computer (yamaha receiver) that plugs into another computer (hdmi interface drm controller) that plugs into another computer (smart tv)

You're gonna have the HDMI DRM controller in any tv that you plug an HDMI cord into. I'd challenge you to find a Non-chinese market tv that doesn't have a DRM controller. 

 

TV's are little computers and have been since the first non-crt came out, and I'd even argue that crt's we're little computers. 

 

 

Out of curiosity: what is your audio setup for the Yamaha receiver? Is it like a 7.1.x setup?

[10leej]

2 hours ago, BiotechBen said:

Out of curiosity: what is your audio setup for the Yamaha receiver? Is it like a 7.1.x setup?

Just this kit

[BiotechBen]

2 hours ago, 10leej said:

Just this kit

Nice, are you using HDMI passthru or optical for the sound?

[10leej]

7 hours ago, BiotechBen said:

Nice, are you using HDMI passthru or optical for the sound?

hdmi is handled by the PC to the sound system all the sound system feeds the TV is just the video