I recently decided to get a 40" set and decided that I wanted a dumb TV, precisely because of IoT shenanigans. I’d much rather plug in any smarts that I want. There was a very nice Sharp unit at my local store that fit the bill nicely, with three HDMI inputs. I’m running a Raspberry Pi-based media center with my MythTV system and HDHomerun over-the-air tuners feeding it.
Even with only over-the-air signals, my DVR scoops up more things than I can keep up with.
SiliconDust makes three different versions of the HDHomerun (not counting the commercial/industrial versions): the Connect, the Extend, and the Prime. The Connect and Extend work with over-the-air antennas, while the Prime is a cable tuner with a CableCard slot. All of them stream their signals over your LAN. The Prime, of course, is subject to all the DRM crap that cable inflicts via the CableCard, and the now-obsolescent Windows Media Center is one of the few things you can use to watch channels marked copy-never or copy-once.
The over-the-air tuners work nicely with MythTV or TVHeadend, or you can watch using a DLNA-equipped device, or an app that supports UPnP (such as VLC).
The difference between the Connect and the Extend is that the Extend has H.264 transcoding hardware built in, better for streaming over Wi-Fi. The Connect just sends the MPEG-2 bitstream that it collects from the TV station.
Does it have “apps” for things like Netflix or Youtube, or do you just manage over-the-air with this, and just plug another device into your tv for other streaming content.
What baffles me in this case(and a lot of other cases involving Android devices); is how difficult it is to get a system image out of the vendor.
Google provides them for Nexus(presumably now for ‘pixel’, since ‘Nexus’ has been taken out back and shot) devices; and a few others do here and there; and obviously 3rd party ROMS are distributed as system images; but most Android vendors provide OTA updates and “Here’s how to do a ‘reset’”; and absolutely nothing else.
If you had the system image for this device(likely a few GB at most); and a fastboot connection, you could reflash the system and be on your merry way in short order, no muss, no fuss. But no. It’s like the days when Wintel vendors liked to pretend that Windows install disks were some kind of controlled substance; except that there are no ‘generic’ Android installers; so you can’t just get official Google media and tell the vendor to shove off.
No, the HDHomerun itself is strictly a streaming tuner. They do offer viewer apps (and are working out one that can live with CableCard DRM for the Prime users), but VLC will happily stream programming from over-the-air stations or non-DRM cable channels. IMO, it’s one of the few connected “things” out there that’s actually worthwhile…
Though your TV can be reached by javascript running in your browser. Right now your router can be hacked if you left it to the default password by advertising.
People who want Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Hulu, and other media services without plugging in another $50-$200 device into a power supply and port, grandpa?
I have a Mac Mini running Plex Media Server (and their player locally) with a drobo disk array plugged into it. That said, when I just want to watch Netflix, I use the app on my TV or my Playstation. Easy peasy for the latter two.
You realize that a 27 inch decent monitor costs more than most 40 inch or greater TVs? You’re “easy” solution costs more than just getting a decent HDTV.
Obviously the cheapest option is to just go to Best Bait-and-switch and buy whatever crappy TN or VA panel is on sale. Sometimes getting something you will be happy with requires you to spend more. Simplicity can be worth paying extra for. So can a good IPS screen that won’t make you want to tear your eyes out. So can a screen that is actually small enough to blend into the room nstead of dominate it.
Besides, if you do research, get a list of discontinued high quality IPS panels in the size you want, and search Ebay, then you can get something that meets your needs, is excellent quality, and doesn’t cost all that much.
There are an awful lot of assumptions about what is good and what people want in that reply. I have a 44 inch TV and it doesn’t dominate the room at all. It is also about an inch thick, runs apps, and has a lot of HDMI ports for things. Seems simple to me and cost me about $750 a couple of years back.
