Linux-Friendly, Internet-Enabled HDTVs? 277
mrchaotica writes "I'm in the market for a new HDTV (in the $1200-or-slightly-more range, as I won the extended-service-plan lottery and have a Sears store credit). Several of the TVs I've looked at have various 'Internet TV' features (here are Samsung's and Panasonic's). Some manufacturers appear to be rolling their own, while others are partnering with Yahoo (maybe in an attempt to create a 'standard?'). Moreover, these TVs also tend to run Linux under the hood (although their GPL compliance, such as in Panasonic's case, may leave something to be desired). Finally, it's easy to imagine these TVs being able to support video streaming services (YouTube, Netflix, Amazon, etc.) without a set-top box, but I don't know the extent to which that support actually exists. Here are my questions: 1) Is this 'Internet TV' thing going to be a big deal going forward, or just a gimmick? 2) Which manufacturers are most [open standard|Linux|hacker]-friendly? 3) Which TV models have the best support (or best potential and community backing) for this sort of thing?"
Youtube on your TV? (Score:5, Insightful)
The quality would be so bad at that size, would you even want to watch?
"It's just around the corner" (Score:3, Insightful)
First it was the TV and the Computer. Now it's the TV, Computer and/or the Internet. Convergence doesn't actually happen - they just keep adding items to it.
Whatever happened to... (Score:4, Insightful)
Not what I would used to select a TV (Score:3, Insightful)
The technology in this area is changing very quickly, anything you get this week will be superseded quickly. Pick a TV based on the picture quality, power consumption and number of HDMI connections.
Re:Whatever happened to... (Score:3, Insightful)
If all you want is HD playback and HDMI, $100 is way too much to spend. That stuff is coming built-in on $80 motherboards now-days. A $50 video card can do all that just fine.
Re:It's a TV!! (Score:2, Insightful)
You don't deserve that insightful rating. -1 ignorant is more like it.
As the question explained, a lot of current model televisions have full-blown computers in them that are already running full-blown operating systems, in some cases, they are already running linux in a locked-down tivoized format (GPLv3 is looking more and more prescient). Most of the top-of-the-line models have ethernet ports and embedded support for video serving from places like youtube, netflix, hulu and yahoo. It is absolutely reasonable to wonder just how well these systems will work with linux systems on the same lan - for example, will it stream video from a local mythtv server, or are you stuck with only the officially approved video sources? Can you remotely control it (power on, change channels, change volume, etc) via a socket connection or maybe an internal webserver? Can you use it to browse samba or nfs shares and display jpgs, play mp3s and mkvs?
IF a microwave, lamp or alarm clock had an ethernet port and functionality well beyond traditional models of such, then it would also be perfectly reasonable to ask just how well all that extra functionality interfaced with linux and open standards.
Re:Save your money (Score:3, Insightful)
The only issue with the "a console is cheaper than a PC, buy it instead" is that most of the time, you still want a PC - so it becomes "buy it as well".
Re:Not what I would used to select a TV (Score:2, Insightful)
As a historical example, there were TVs with built-in VHS and/or DVD players, but the other stuff got obsolete long before the TV did.
everything changes (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Its called Windows 7 Ultimate (Score:3, Insightful)
Since Windows 7 Ultimate would probably cost more than the TV, I'll stick with Linux thanks.
Fancy TV vs. TV+PC for computerish features (Score:3, Insightful)
If I were spending that kind of money on television, I'd get a more basic high-resolution TV and if I want to add general-purpose-computer-type features, I'd use a computer to get them, because the computer's going to be much more flexible and extensible in the future than a locked-in TV feature set. That still probably means you're going to spend a couple of hundred dollars upgrading your video card, so you can get 1920x1080 or more at high speed, and then you'll probably find yourself adding a TV tuner card to run MythTV, and then probably adding another terabyte or two of disk because mythTV filled up your current disk, etc., so it's not clear you'll actually save any money, but you'll get a lot more flexibility for things you want to do in the future.
It's called a portable computer with a big screen! (Score:3, Insightful)
Seriously. Buy the largest TV or display that you can connect to PCs. Then buy a small quiet laptop and hook a programmable remote control onto it.
Now all you need is the software. Which there is a big choice of. You can also build whatever you want.
It's cheap, and the recording/time-shifting features are integrated.
Re:Is there such a thing (Score:3, Insightful)
That's not the point. An HDTV *is* a computer already. Why should we have to use another one?
Re:Is there such a thing (Score:3, Insightful)
An HDTV is a console. It's not necessarily a general purpose computer
that can be easily modified and reprogrammed. Will an uber-TV handle
the next big thing in web video or codecs? What will you have to do
to enable such a thing? Will you have to sacrifice the relative
reliability and configuration "stability" that an appliance is supposed
to provide.
Having the TV do only one thing (namely decode a very well defined
audio/video stream) really well and really reliably is a very
servicable engineering approach.
Do these net-enabled-TVs even handle this week's encrypted cable TV transport standard?
Will they support the one they come up with next week?
An uber-TV sounds a lot like an iMac without a lot of the openness or flexibility.
OTOH, there is a VESA standard for attaching a low profile general purpose
machine to the backside of an HDTV where you would never see it kind of
making the "problem" of having a separate set-top-box rather moot.
Re:Youtube on your TV? (Score:4, Insightful)
It can also play media from any computer on the home network, except from Linux boxes (windows only).
Except for Linux and except for Macs? By what strange definition does that qualify as any computer on your home network? Pretty weak if they can't actually stream from any computer, it's not that hard to do.
Re:Funny? (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm not really sure why this is marked Funny, in the case of anything less than a top-end TV it's 100% true.
You can get middle-end HDTVs for 150 EUR nowadays? Sweet!
But why didn't you guys tell me until now? :(
np: Orbital - The Naked And The Dead (2Orbital (Disc 2))
Dont bother... (Score:3, Insightful)
I spent the last 3 months choosing a new TV (final decision : Panasonic 50G10). I had a good hard look at the internet and media capabilities of the sets on offer and decided that they were far too tied in to vendor support for codecs and then I was NEVER going to get the flexibility and capabilities that a dedicated HTPC would offer. Case in point : The Pani 50V10 with all the bells and whistles has problems with some common audio codecs and 6 months after release this has yet to be rectified.
Re:Yes, but (Score:3, Insightful)
Wrong.
I work for a company that uses Linux in embedded systems -- if Microsoft gave away anything with their stinking Win32 layer anywhere, or anything that only supports FAT and NTFS filesystems, or anything with their driver model, or their desktop-oriented scheduler, we would still not touch it with a ten foot pole.