Sm0rt Tvs

[tp4tissue]

This is so dum..  Tp4 has been able to use dat Tv so hard, he's crashed it twice today...

Have you guys crashed your tvs  or is it just TP ?

[yui]

i had a dumb tv crash quite often on me, it was overheating after one to one and a half hour of 1080p 60Hz from the pc... it was an hd tv meant to display only 480p 30Hz reliably. and crashing android devices i do it daily so not that hard

[jamster]

I simply can't understand why anyone connects their TV to the internet in the first place, rather than use a HTPC/controller stick, but realise that I am in a tiny minority.

[nathanchere]

I simply can't understand why anyone connects their TV to the internet in the first place, rather than use a HTPC/controller stick, but realise that I am in a tiny minority.

I was once in your camp but having Android built into the TV with a decent modern processor that can handle 4K x265 etc is really nice. I install Kodi, remap the piece-of-**** Netflix button to launch Kodi and basically don't use any of the other 'smart' features. It's not a huge difference but having everything smoothly integrated in one device is the "last 10%" for me. That said, I would not waste my money on any 'smart' TV which comes with some garbage OS like Tizen or WebOS, or which has a walled garden / heavy lockdown on what apps you can install. As for spying fears (valid), I physically disable/disconnect the microphone. Beyond that I'm no more concerned than with other "IoT" devices.

[tp4tissue]

Kodi's good enough for SDR stuff, buhhhh it's not got a strong HDR performance unless it's used on PC w/madvr.

[tp4tissue]

I simply can't understand why anyone connects their TV to the internet in the first place, rather than use a HTPC/controller stick, but realise that I am in a tiny minority.

The majority of peeps can't play HDR off their PC, so they have to rely on devices that decode it natively.

[Protato_Tubby]

I simply can't understand why anyone connects their TV to the internet in the first place, rather than use a HTPC/controller stick, but realise that I am in a tiny minority.

Do manufacturers sell dumb TVs anymore?

[tp4tissue]

Do manufacturers sell dumb TVs anymore?

Give me dat precious data.

On the Roku app, which you have to install , there's a a setting that says, don't sell my data. Kekekeke

If you buy the tv/ that option's not even listed, it's only in the app.

[yui]

Do manufacturers sell dumb TVs anymore?

Give me dat precious data.

On the Roku app, which you have to install , there's a a setting that says, don't sell my data. Kekekeke

If you buy the tv/ that option's not even listed, it's only in the app.

well to be sure just not give it internet access and well it wont steal your data...

[tp4tissue]

well to be sure just not give it internet access and well it wont steal your data...

Unfortunately that's not how it works.  Samsung was caught red handed connecting to ANY unsecure wifi connection and sending off user data INCLUDING screencaps to their home server.

State brand Tvs have also been known to silent update w/out your home connection. Their botnet is large.

[Findecanor]

The only "TV" to get is an extra large computer monitor with HDMI in and audio out. All interaction is with the set-top-box's remote anyway.

[yui]

well to be sure just not give it internet access and well it wont steal your data...

Unfortunately that's not how it works.  Samsung was caught red handed connecting to ANY unsecure wifi connection and sending off user data INCLUDING screencaps to their home server.

State brand Tvs have also been known to silent update w/out your home connection. Their botnet is large.

nothing a soldering iron and utility know can't fix, if there is no antenna there is not unauthorized wifi connection

[jamster]

I simply can't understand why anyone connects their TV to the internet in the first place, rather than use a HTPC/controller stick, but realise that I am in a tiny minority.

I was once in your camp but having Android built into the TV with a decent modern processor that can handle 4K x265 etc is really nice. I install Kodi, remap the piece-of-**** Netflix button to launch Kodi and basically don't use any of the other 'smart' features. It's not a huge difference but having everything smoothly integrated in one device is the "last 10%" for me. That said, I would not waste my money on any 'smart' TV which comes with some garbage OS like Tizen or WebOS, or which has a walled garden / heavy lockdown on what apps you can install. As for spying fears (valid), I physically disable/disconnect the microphone. Beyond that I'm no more concerned than with other "IoT" devices.

There's the kicker, I don't trust IoT devices anyway... you know the saying, the "the S in IoT stands for Security!" and simply assume that Android OSes on TVs are probably ancient and unpatched.

I do make a slight concession to practicality, there are exactly 4 IoT devices, on their own VLAN walled off from the rest of my network.

[yui]

There's the kicker, I don't trust IoT devices anyway... you know the saying, the "the S in IoT stands for Security!" and simply assume that Android OSes on TVs are probably ancient and unpatched.

having had some experience with that, yes, they are often, my company just bought 3 brand new tvs running Android 7 with an unpatched Chrome...

I do make a slight concession to practicality, there are exactly 4 IoT devices, on their own VLAN walled off from the rest of my network.

although not everyone is capable of going that far, even me, a network nerd, do not yet have a managed switch capable of vlan... so take a guess to everyone who do not care about network.

[tp4tissue]

digging out the wifi antenna isn't easy on all tvs.  And you risk bending the panel/chassis when disassembling

[jamster]

There's the kicker, I don't trust IoT devices anyway... you know the saying, the "the S in IoT stands for Security!" and simply assume that Android OSes on TVs are probably ancient and unpatched.

having had some experience with that, yes, they are often, my company just bought 3 brand new tvs running Android 7 with an unpatched Chrome...

I do make a slight concession to practicality, there are exactly 4 IoT devices, on their own VLAN walled off from the rest of my network.

although not everyone is capable of going that far, even me, a network nerd, do not yet have a managed switch capable of vlan... so take a guess to everyone who do not care about network.

Huh, my company runs an entirely separate network for things like TVs (as in, a separate internet line from the ISP), no way would we ever connect them to the network that our desktops are on.

I have only been running VLANs (in the most Neanderthal way possible) for a month, because I am not a network nerd. Before that, I just used two separate physical switches coming out of different network ports on my router. The IoT/crap switch (5 port $15 DLink) was connected to router eth2, and my LAN switch was connected to router eth1.

[yui]

Huh, my company runs an entirely separate network for things like TVs (as in, a separate internet line from the ISP), no way would we ever connect them to the network that our desktops are on.

it would be nice if we could do the same here, but peoples want to be able to wirelessly connect to the tv...

I have only been running VLANs (in the most Neanderthal way possible) for a month, because I am not a network nerd. Before that, I just used two separate physical switches coming out of different network ports on my router. The IoT/crap switch (5 port $15 DLink) was connected to router eth2, and my LAN switch was connected to router eth1.

i do not know how your VLAN are set up so i can't comment on that but if you did not have a special router and settings your system would just have acted as if it was one big switch

[jamster]

i do not know how your VLAN are set up so i can't comment on that but if you did not have a special router and settings your system would just have acted as if it was one big switch

It's very clunky.

Firewall has two internal-side ports. One is for my normal LAN (eth1), one is for dodgy IoT ****e devices (eth2). Rules prohibit any traffic between eth1 and eth2.

The managed switch just has it's ports split either into VLAN A or VLAN B.

eth1 has a cable going into one of the VLAN A ports.
eth2 has a cable going into one of the VLAN B ports.

So instead of trunking, I am just pretending the switch is two entirely separate devices, and it needs two physical cables from the firewall.

[yui]

and you are saying you are not a networking nerd nicely done, you also could only use one cable with multiple vlan and a proper router/firewall (trunking in cisco terms, well i needed to check online because it has been way too long i have not used vlan).
i was talking about your old system maybe acting as one big switch.
and to be honest does not sound that clunky to me, having 2 vlan on the 2 ports allow for maximum speed, if you had 10 it would make sense to trunk them and propagate them between switches but for a small setup you just lose redundancy. (if you were to trunk and aggregate you would be able to lose a port or cable, pretty useless at the home level )
and i hate that trunking can also be to aggregate... quite annoying for communication above when i say trunk i mean the cisco term, so putting multiple VLAN through one link, and when i say aggregate i mean to use multiple links as one

[nathanchere]

Unfortunately that's not how it works.  Samsung was caught red handed connecting to ANY unsecure wifi connection and sending off user data INCLUDING screencaps to their home server.

...any citation for this? I just did a quick search and couldn't find anything substantiated about it. If this is legit then it's enough that I would stop buying anything at all from Samsung, 'IoT' or otherwise.

[yui]

Unfortunately that's not how it works.  Samsung was caught red handed connecting to ANY unsecure wifi connection and sending off user data INCLUDING screencaps to their home server.

...any citation for this? I just did a quick search and couldn't find anything substantiated about it. If this is legit then it's enough that I would stop buying anything at all from Samsung, 'IoT' or otherwise.

truth be told i do not buy anything from samsung because it is over my budget anyway, and having seen the packets go every which way when you put a consumer grade network printer i would tend to believe that yeah the happens. went to professional and it is way less chatty on the network (both Lexmarks)

[jamster]

and you are saying you are not a networking nerd nicely done, you also could only use one cable with multiple vlan and a proper router/firewall (trunking in cisco terms, well i needed to check online because it has been way too long i have not used vlan).
i was talking about your old system maybe acting as one big switch.
and to be honest does not sound that clunky to me, having 2 vlan on the 2 ports allow for maximum speed, if you had 10 it would make sense to trunk them and propagate them between switches but for a small setup you just lose redundancy. (if you were to trunk and aggregate you would be able to lose a port or cable, pretty useless at the home level )
and i hate that trunking can also be to aggregate... quite annoying for communication above when i say trunk i mean the cisco term, so putting multiple VLAN through one link, and when i say aggregate i mean to use multiple links as one

Trunking? VLAN Tagging? 892.11q?  I am not sure which. If I was a proper nerd, I would be using it. But the risk of me doing some config error is almost guaranteed.

I should definitely be using it though- way more elegant than using extra ports and cables, and I am short on ports as it is. Got to get a bigger switch as soon as finances improve, but fanless, PoE, managed switches in 12-16 port options seems a bit of a no-man's land. There are some options, but not many, and generally silly pricing so need to look secondhand.

[ddrfraser1]

Don't know if anyone said this already but with my roku tv half the screen goes fuzzy and the only way to fix it is to unplug it while it's on and plug back in after 1 minute. Just like fixing the internets.

[yui]

Trunking? VLAN Tagging? 892.11q?  I am not sure which. If I was a proper nerd, I would be using it. But the risk of me doing some config error is almost guaranteed.

it is part of the fun, no?

I should definitely be using it though- way more elegant than using extra ports and cables, and I am short on ports as it is. Got to get a bigger switch as soon as finances improve, but fanless, PoE, managed switches in 12-16 port options seems a bit of a no-man's land. There are some options, but not many, and generally silly pricing so need to look secondhand.

i saw old 16 ports but i think pretty much all managed switches are rack mount, if you got the space to spare old HP rack mount switches are cheap even in GB speed and can run pretty quiet by replacing their fans by noctuas (HP V1810-24G is even fanless). if you really have a lot of space old HP VL and GL modular switches are very cheap for the number of ports you get but loud and rather big

[jamster]

Trunking? VLAN Tagging? 892.11q?  I am not sure which. If I was a proper nerd, I would be using it. But the risk of me doing some config error is almost guaranteed.

it is part of the fun, no?

I should definitely be using it though- way more elegant than using extra ports and cables, and I am short on ports as it is. Got to get a bigger switch as soon as finances improve, but fanless, PoE, managed switches in 12-16 port options seems a bit of a no-man's land. There are some options, but not many, and generally silly pricing so need to look secondhand.

i saw old 16 ports but i think pretty much all managed switches are rack mount, if you got the space to spare old HP rack mount switches are cheap even in GB speed and can run pretty quiet by replacing their fans by noctuas (HP V1810-24G is even fanless). if you really have a lot of space old HP VL and GL modular switches are very cheap for the number of ports you get but loud and rather big

Space is the last thing I have over here, unfortunately. My equipment 'cabinet' is tiny, my existing switch is 20cm wide and perfectly sized for the space. Would never fit anything rackmounted. I've found a suitable models that are around 25cm wide and fanless (brocade/juniper/cisco).

[tp4tissue]

Do you guys think the Tcon board gets hot?  It doesn't have a heatsink over the main chip. assuming this is a pretty low powered board.

I've rigged 120mm fans to blow into the rear slits, but  thinking maybe cut bigger slits. or use a bigger heatsink over the main cpu..

Main CPU heatsink is just a crimped piece of metal, but it's glued on, may have to cut it. hrrrm....

[Coreda]

Unfortunately that's not how it works.  Samsung was caught red handed connecting to ANY unsecure wifi connection and sending off user data INCLUDING screencaps to their home server.

...any citation for this? I just did a quick search and couldn't find anything substantiated about it. If this is legit then it's enough that I would stop buying anything at all from Samsung, 'IoT' or otherwise.

There was a big thread on this at Hacker News not too long ago. Several discovered themselves this to be the case in the comments (the connecting to open Wi-Fi networks part). The only way around it was physically removing the network device.

User data collection is ingrained in smart TVs by this point (mostly from apps) but yeah, it's crazy what lengths they'll go to just to remain connected. Someone was quoted as saying the devices have only come down in price due to being offset by such big data.

[nathanchere]

Unfortunately that's not how it works.  Samsung was caught red handed connecting to ANY unsecure wifi connection and sending off user data INCLUDING screencaps to their home server.

...any citation for this? I just did a quick search and couldn't find anything substantiated about it. If this is legit then it's enough that I would stop buying anything at all from Samsung, 'IoT' or otherwise.

There was a big thread on this at Hacker News not too long ago. Several discovered themselves this to be the case in the comments (the connecting to open Wi-Fi networks part). The only way around it was physically removing the network device.

User data collection is ingrained in smart TVs by this point (mostly from apps) but yeah, it's crazy what lengths they'll go to just to remain connected. Someone was quoted as saying the devices have only come down in price due to being offset by such big data.

This is the closest I could find:

https://thehackernews.com/2015/02/smart-tv-spying.html

which is still ****ty but no surprises there and not as heinous as what was described in what I was seekin citation for. So at this point it just looks feasible but still like FUD and hearsay.

[yui]

i am not sure how it is FUD given that this article pretty much says they are all risks, usually FUD is used by Microsoft to remove their competition but it targets someone, this would include any products so including yours... and it is not really hearsay either given that it was proven and even for Samsung official, it just is a fact that there is big money to be made so they will do everything to get their hands on that data, including illegal practices, just need to look at windows 10 to see examples of both (windows 10 being free and the forced update and telemetry even when disabled)

[nathanchere]

"I read somewhere" - heresay. Again, link?

Connecting to any open wifi and transmitting info is another level beyond sending over a connection you set up. Unsubstantiated = FUD

[yui]

"I read somewhere" - heresay. Again, link?

Connecting to any open wifi and transmitting info is another level beyond sending over a connection you set up. Unsubstantiated = FUD

i thought you were talking about the article... sorry. but still the FUD term is only ever used in term of "marketing" and very few company ever used it, pretty much exclusive to Microsoft and IBM, and random user saying that he read something somewhere is not FUD, he is not trying to disrupt a company, and even if he did he does not have the weight to do so, he will not cause fear uncertainty and doubt in the mind of millions when buying their next tv. y'all need to stop taking everything to the extreme, as long as you doubt all information online and do a tiny bit of research you are safe from FUD there is a reason it has not been used successfully since about 2008,

[Coreda]

This is the closest I could find:

https://thehackernews.com/2015/02/smart-tv-spying.html

which is still ****ty but no surprises there and not as heinous as what was described in what I was seekin citation for. So at this point it just looks feasible but still like FUD and hearsay.

Not thehackernews.com, Y Combinator's Hacker News (news.ycombinator.com), which is what it typically refers to among tech circles.

Found the threads I'd mentioned.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21002745
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21657930

In it one can find the articles discussed about smart TV data collection and users' first-hand experiences (one example) of TVs connecting automatically to open Wi-Fi networks. Also the quote about cheaper TV prices being offset due to data collection was from Vizio's CTO, also linked in one of the two topics.

[tp4tissue]

I just noticed this tcon board is unshielded,  shouldn't tcons be shielded ?

[yui]

I just noticed this tcon board is unshielded,  shouldn't tcons be shielded ?

i have seen plenty of screen with it unshielded, if they use 3 or more layer in the PCB they likely have 2 unbroken ground layer on either side of the sandwich as shield, making an external shield mostly useless, the motherboard on your pc deal with much faster and sensitive signals and mostly is not shielded.

[tp4tissue]

I just noticed this tcon board is unshielded,  shouldn't tcons be shielded ?

i have seen plenty of screen with it unshielded, if they use 3 or more layer in the PCB they likely have 2 unbroken ground layer on either side of the sandwich as shield, making an external shield mostly useless, the motherboard on your pc deal with much faster and sensitive signals and mostly is not shielded.

Perhaps these are the ---BAD---- Screens.

[absyrd]

My Sony smart tv is always updating and rebooting and ****. It is quite annoying.

[jamster]

My Sony smart tv is always updating and rebooting and ****. It is quite annoying.

Quite easily solved by disconnecting it from the internet, permanently!

[tp4tissue]

Quite easily solved by disconnecting it from the internet, permanently!

Only doable on tvs with a seperate wifi chip, or removable wifi antennas. not easy on all tvs.

[yui]

I just noticed this tcon board is unshielded,  shouldn't tcons be shielded ?

i have seen plenty of screen with it unshielded, if they use 3 or more layer in the PCB they likely have 2 unbroken ground layer on either side of the sandwich as shield, making an external shield mostly useless, the motherboard on your pc deal with much faster and sensitive signals and mostly is not shielded.

Perhaps these are the ---BAD---- Screens.

well if i went to the extent of opening it it is because there was a problem, but from my experience, screens with vesa mounting will always have a shield as the vesa holes are tapped into it while others will often not, including samsungs and dell screens. my theory being that those are not actually shields but structural metal that also double as a shield

[nathanchere]

This is the closest I could find:

https://thehackernews.com/2015/02/smart-tv-spying.html

which is still ****ty but no surprises there and not as heinous as what was described in what I was seekin citation for. So at this point it just looks feasible but still like FUD and hearsay.

Not thehackernews.com, Y Combinator's Hacker News (news.ycombinator.com), which is what it typically refers to among tech circles.

Found the threads I'd mentioned.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21002745
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21657930

In it one can find the articles discussed about smart TV data collection and users' first-hand experiences (one example) of TVs connecting automatically to open Wi-Fi networks. Also the quote about cheaper TV prices being offset due to data collection was from Vizio's CTO, also linked in one of the two topics.

Thanks for the links. It still doesn't have actual evidence but I just bought a Samsung TV on black Friday sale, I've set up an unsecured honey pot access point and will see what comes up. If there's any shifty business it willl he getting returned.

[jamster]

What am I missing here, what's with all the discussion about physically ripping out bits of TV?

[tp4tissue]

What am I missing here, what's with all the discussion about physically ripping out bits of TV?

They is 2 sm0rt.