HBO Max Offer (and a big question)

I refuse to buy a different streaming device for everything, Fire TV & Roku along with a Chromecast is it. It is time HBO/Peacock and the rest to get onboard. They are losing a lot of viewers

The problem with content is who has the contract to do so. You can never get all the content you want on one streaming service. Sometimes a TV series suddenly disappears, etc.
 
Yes, but if that is going to be necessary anyway, then it makes me wonder what is the point of having the apps built into the TV in the first place? Why not just stick with separate streaming devices all of the time, and be done with it?

You could. But if a new TV's smart platform works well initially, you might choose to use it for a few years. And if it eventually isn't working as well as you'd like (no longer supports certain apps, gets slow, has an outdated UI or feature set, etc.), then you could buy the latest streaming device of your choice at that point.
 
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Yes, but if that is going to be necessary anyway, then it makes me wonder what is the point of having the apps built into the TV in the first place? Why not just stick with separate streaming devices all of the time, and be done with it?
It seems ridiculous that a "Smart" TV can enter the stone age in roughly two years. Streaming science hasn't changed. Encryption hasn't changed. Resolution is as designed. What changed? The benefit of a smart TV was that you needed a plug and no other wires.

Now if you excuse me, I need to yell at some kids on my lawn.
 
It seems ridiculous that a "Smart" TV can enter the stone age in roughly two years. Streaming science hasn't changed. Encryption hasn't changed. Resolution is as designed. What changed? The benefit of a smart TV was that you needed a plug and no other wires.

Now if you excuse me, I need to yell at some kids on my lawn.
IF there are apps on a Smart Tv (Major Apps that is) that are out of date 2 years in, shame on them, thats ridiculous ....
 
The problem with content is who has the contract to do so. You can never get all the content you want on one streaming service. Sometimes a TV series suddenly disappears, etc.
And that makes STREAMING a huge drawback to regular good old TV the way it use to be.
I see no difference between that situation and a situation in the "good old" days when a TV series would suddenly switch to a different network. Or perhaps your local affiliates switch network affiliation, and the local cable company does not carry the new station that is now affiliated with the network that carries the show that you want to watch. This could especially have happened with the minor networks, such as WB and UPN. I had to go without Fox Kids for awhile, because the local Fox affiliation changed, and the new Fox affiliate chose not to carry the Fox Kids lineup. Instead, Fox Kids ended up on an independent station that was not carried by my local cable company at the time. So, depending on which particular shows you were interested in, and what market you lived in, the "good old" days were not necessarily much better than the way things are today. Notice that I didn't even mention the possibility of your "regular" service provider having a contract dispute with the channel owner, and dropping the channel that carries your show, which is much more likely to happen these days.
 
IF there are apps on a Smart Tv (Major Apps that is) that are out of date 2 years in, shame on them, thats ridiculous ....

I think the issue is starting resolve itself. A couple of years ago, every tv manufacturer had its own OS. Recent TVs are converging on Roku, Android, maybe Fire. Processors are similar to what’s in streaming sticks. The outliers are Apple, Samsung and LG, but each have about 20% or more market share. My 3 year old Samsung and LG (Black Friday specials) have up to date on most of the YTTV, Netflix, Hulu, Disney, ESPN+. The LG has the old version of WebOS, so it’s starting to be left behind. I’m not sure that is much different from a four year old streaming device.


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I see no difference between that situation and a situation in the "good old" days when a TV series would suddenly switch to a different network. Or perhaps your local affiliates switch network affiliation, and the local cable company does not carry the new station that is now affiliated with the network that carries the show that you want to watch. This could especially have happened with the minor networks, such as WB and UPN. I had to go without Fox Kids for awhile, because the local Fox affiliation changed, and the new Fox affiliate chose not to carry the Fox Kids lineup. Instead, Fox Kids ended up on an independent station that was not carried by my local cable company at the time. So, depending on which particular shows you were interested in, and what market you lived in, the "good old" days were not necessarily much better than the way things are today. Notice that I didn't even mention the possibility of your "regular" service provider having a contract dispute with the channel owner, and dropping the channel that carries your show, which is much more likely to happen these days.
I'm MUCH older than you ...
 
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The same principle applies to OTA, if a show moved to another network, and you did not have good (or any) OTA reception for the affiliate of the show's new network.
And back in the day with THREE networks..if you were that lucky...it really didn't happen much

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I remember in the good old days having trouble watching everything I watched when and where I wanted to, with the ability to fast forward through any commercials. I think I can deal with an extra $50 device connected to my TV and rotating among a half dozen streaming services each month. As they say, first-world problems.
 
It seems ridiculous that a "Smart" TV can enter the stone age in roughly two years. Streaming science hasn't changed. Encryption hasn't changed. Resolution is as designed. What changed? The benefit of a smart TV was that you needed a plug and no other wires.

Now if you excuse me, I need to yell at some kids on my lawn.

Well, to be fair, streaming tech and encryption are progressing all the time. VP9, HEVC, etc. have been adopted by services, and encryption has progressed from SSL to TLS with newer versions periodically. The cheap hardware they stuff in streaming devices and SmartTVs may support the older tech in silicon but maybe not the newer tech, and then it has to do it in software, if it can, which can result in slow behavior or just plain incompatibility. Two years seems short, but my 2014 SmartTVs were essentially obsolete when I bought them at the beginning of 2015. They were unusable compared to a Roku Stick of the same vintage.
 
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It seems ridiculous that a "Smart" TV can enter the stone age in roughly two years. Streaming science hasn't changed. Encryption hasn't changed. Resolution is as designed. What changed? The benefit of a smart TV was that you needed a plug and no other wires.

Now if you excuse me, I need to yell at some kids on my lawn.
Here's the real deal...

Smart tv apps have different code for each tv make/model, even if they are 'rokutv' due to hardware differences.
So, each samsung model has different coded version of streaming app.
As does each sony, toshiba, lg, etc.
That adds up to a LOT of different coded versions of streaming apps.
Tv manufacturers are not going to rewrite code for updating EACH version of model tv.

Now,
Consider streaming devices.
There are only a handfull of Rokus, Firesticks, AppleTvs
Roku, et al, has no problem writing separate code for each of a handful of devices.

This is why dedicated streaming devices keep updated
And streaming tvs do not.

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Well, to be fair, streaming tech and encryption are progressing all the time. VP9, HEVC, etc. have been adopted by services, and encryption has progressed from SSL to TLS with newer versions periodically. The cheap hardware they stuff in streaming devices and SmartTVs may support the older tech in silicon but maybe not the newer tech, and then it has to do it in software, if it can, which can result in slow behavior or just plain incompatibility. Two years seems short, but my 2014 SmartTVs were essentially obsolete when I bought them at the beginning of 2015. They were unusable compared to a Roku Stick of the same vintage.
Again, that gets to my point of why buy them at all? Unless of course you got a good enough deal on them that it made it cheaper to buy those than it would have been for an equivalent "regular" TV.
 
Again, that gets to my point of why buy them at all? Unless of course you got a good enough deal on them that it made it cheaper to buy those than it would have been for an equivalent "regular" TV.

Well, to get a decent picture, you used to have to buy the Smart models. I assume that is still the case most of the time. Just like you have to get a sunroof to get upgraded safety features on a lot of cars any more.
 
Well, to get a decent picture, you used to have to buy the Smart models. I assume that is still the case most of the time. Just like you have to get a sunroof to get upgraded safety features on a lot of cars any more.
No...you just have to do some research ...especially with sony...to find the equivalent non smart tv version

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No...you just have to do some research ...especially with sony...to find the equivalent non smart tv version

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I just checked. All of Sony's top models are still Smart only. No dumb TVs. In fact, every TV listed on Sony's site has SmartTV in the description.


Where do I find the dumb version of the Z9G?