Bit of a whine & conspiracy theories!

[MajorFubar]

I've had my Panasonic TX-L42D25 'smart' (ish) TV for about three years. I'm generally more than happy. What does irk me though is it won't play MP4 movies from my NAS. It will play some formats, just not MP4. This wasn't an issue when I bought it, and it's not the end of the world now. But what annoys me the most is not that won't play them, but why it won't play them. Perhaps I'm doing Panasonic an injustice and there are hardware reasons for the incompatability, but I suspect more likely it's just a software issue which could, if they wanted, be fixed with a simple patch.

In an era where a product's functonaility is limited more by its software than its hardware, one benefit should be that older models can be kept reasonably contemporary via manufacturer-issued updates/patches, certainly for say the first two to three years. Ok my TV is probably just out of that age-threshold now, but more-recent Panasonics have been able to play MP4 videos for a couple of generations. While I could be wrong, I'm prepared to bet that there's no reason really why the appropriate codecs (and other new functionalitlies) could not have been propagated down. The conspiracy theorist in me says they don't do it just because they'd rather we went out and bought a new TV. Surely that's ridiculously wasteful, and purposefully disregards what should be one great benefit of having software-driven devices.

 

[Tonestar1]

[UNPUBLISHED DUPLICATE]

Companies need people to buy more sh!t. Especially when they are making things to a price point and limited profit margins. White goods, sofas, cars, everything is the same. Products are designed to last a finite amount of time, not last forever. If you want last forever build you need to go seriously high end. B&O and Loewe are the only television companies I can think of who can deliver it but in turn you need to pay a large premium up front. Think the next big thing will be recyclable electronic equipment. This level of throwaway technology in today's environment is unsustainable, making things repairable and/or having a last forever build is a thing of the past, profit margins don't allow it so putting a green "fully recyclable" badge on equipment is the only way forward for them.

 

[Tonestar1]

Companies need people to buy more EDITED. Especially when they are making things to a price point and limited profit margins. White goods, sofas, cars, everything is the same. Products are designed to last a finite amount of time, not last forever. If you want last forever build you need to go seriously high end. B&O and Loewe are the only television companies I can think of who can deliver it but in turn you need to pay a large premium up front. Think the next big thing will be recyclable electronic equipment. This level of throwaway technology in today's environment is unsustainable, making things repairable and/or having a last forever build is a thing of the past, profit margins don't allow it so putting a green "fully recyclable" badge on equipment is the only way forward for them.

 

[MajorFubar]

I'm not talking about 'lasts forever' build quality. I'm on about keeping firmware up to date. And what's needed is a change of ethos. My iPhone 4S and 2011 iMac have had two major OS updates since I bought them, giving them various functionalities that they didn't have to start with. While there's some things the current iPhone 5S and iMac do better than mine because the hardware has been improved, at least my phone and computer are as contemporary as they can be within the constraints of their older hardware.

But when it comes to other software-driven products like TVs, there doesn't seem to be that ethos at all.

 

[Paul.]

I was debating getting rid of my Harmony One as the Marantz app and the Roco app (iOS7 style samsung remote) are both excelent. Unfortunatly the Panasonic bluray remote app is junk and just will not connect, so that idea has died.