As a home theater nerd, I’ve hated “smart TVs” since my first flat screen in 2009.
I’m IRRATIONALLY disappointed that there isn’t a Framework 55 I can configure with literally just 1 HDMI 2.1 port, no speakers, and whatever the best panel is from Samsung Display.
Despite standards, all the OEMs manage to completely screw up the process of having a central AVR handling multiple devices.
Handshakes? MAYBE
ALL the features you paid for working? NOPE
Consistent behaviors? HELL NO
I swear it’s like cable companies are almost out of the stone age with their set top box UI and TV’s are like “Hold my beer”.
I literally want to pay for the screen quality, not a bunch of stuff that is fine for most people (Except for smooth motion).
I would so hard give Framework more of my money of their next product category is a dumb and/or modular TV.
Could they design a TV that will accept a FW13 mainboard? Could they design a (cheaper) FW13 mainboard with an low-end (Arm or maybe Atom/Celeron) SoC on it that will enable both a “Google TV” module for the TV but also a low-power low-budget variant of the FW13?
Yeah I’m firmly in the “smart tvs are stupid” camp. Always been of the opinion that any “smartness” should be brought in by the consumer and not packaged. That basically applies to all smart devices, including cars.
I’ve been looking around for a decent dumb 65" tv for the boardroom at work and just can’t find anything other than displays that are double the price of a projector. Knowing my end users I can hardly trust them to press the on button on the current setup, let alone navigate a smart tv interface.
A Framework Panel with customisable IO cards would be a god send, doesn’t need sound or anything fancy, I just want to display things.
You should try being the AV guy in a scientific establishment - these guys just don’t read the instructions pasted to the wall beside the ON switch. A colleague of mine got very frustrated because nobody would read the instructions and then call him up when he was half way across campus, and of course, all such calls were ‘URGENT’ because they hadn’t allowed enough time to set up for their video conference.
No, this wasn’t a case of using tech, it was a case of a roomful of PhDs of several disciplines just not reading the instructions. The higher qualified they were the less likely they were to read anything that told them what to do.
The catch is that there would be no extra dollars. Smart TV makers get a lot of income from selling your data, so much so that a dumb TV would likely cost MORE than a smart TV. The loss of that income stream would exceed the reduction in cost of the TVs.
Vizio has released financial data that makes it clear in their case. Vizio barely makes any money selling TVs. Nearly all their profits come from selling customer data.
When I go to the cinema, it has a big screen. I don’t like sitting at the front because the screen is too big and I cannot take in everything. Also, the back of a cinema is too far away. There is a sweet spot somewhere in the middle. Similarly, sitting in my TV room at home. There is a sweet spot distance away from it. Similarly for a laptop screen watching a movie, there is a sweetspot distance away.
If I had a laptop screen that did HDR and could exactly match the various movie/tv frame rates (24, 25, 30 fps etc), i would probably ditch the TV and just use a laptop.
Periodic reminder that I still want a dumb and/or modular TV.
I think a modular TV that would accept existing framework main boards would be very cool. And you could then release a new optional main board in the same FW13 form factor but with a typical smart TV SoC preloaded with one of the Smart TV OS’es and make it an optionally-smart-TV with upgradable brains.
And nerds like me could run their own media center software like Kodi on their already existing FW13 main boards.
Small problem: I’m not sure how you would incorporate low-latency HDMI/DP inputs on the existing main boards.
I do think a repairable monitor with a slot for a mainboard would be neat. Personally I’d prefer if the mainboard is optional (I’d rather not spend a few hundred on a mainboard that would really be mainly there for switching hdmi inputs), and have, say, a fw13 edp cable to connect it that way.
That would also leave 4 full ports (well 3 excluding power) to use the mainboard for a home theatre pc
Additionally, the TV itself could have expansion ports for its own i/o. USB-C for power delivery naturally (a quick google search shows the average tv draws 50-200W of power, I’m sure framework could make one that takes the 60W adapter, or worst case the 180W adapter so no proprietary power cables), and custom display outputs (with a regular tv youre stuck with only the outputs it gives, if it only has 3 HDMI and you need 4, you’ll need to find an adapter, expansion cards means you can pick and choose, and community projects will give some of the other types like vga or scart etc.).
They could either make an optional smart tv os either in-house or partnered with someone else (emphasis on optional), having the option there might bring down the price but if the laptops are anything to go by, the freedom to do whatever you want and upgrade it is enough to justify a price hike for this customer base (myself included), but I would say that it should be mandatory to have an option for just an input switcher (would be named “ports 1-X” if they used expansion cards, plus the edp one if that idea was implemented too)
