My ideal TV has no tuner, no speakers, no smart platform

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When I decided to get a 32" 4K monitor I continued to use the 49" 1080p TV as the second monitor. I was used to moving a window frame from the main monitor to the TV screen but now most of the time it would bounce back as too large or not in the right space to move across. I stopped using the built in Freeview as it did not display the HD channels. I use a PCI Freesat and Freeview card to get those.

So I got a 65" display panel. Not the last word in picture technology but it will not burn in a spread sheet grid if left on a few hours on either.

I decided it would be cool to have a touch screen. Four pen active display panel is more useful that I expected and I do use it often.

Unfortunately it does have speakers but they only are used if the surround sound system has not connected all the WiSA speakers at re-boot. There is a slot where I can insert an i9 Windows laptop type hardware PC for an all in one.

This is a 65" tablet on a trolley that I can move around for best position and even room to room as well as to simply clean behind the screen.

In the early 1980s Philips made a 32" screen with removable stereo speakers, a separate box for the TV receiver that stood on a cabinet with room for laservision and VCR. The CRT TV was not as good as my 21" computer monitors. I had on rental for nearly a year but then used a VCR connected to a CRT with VGA and SCART inputs. No speaker, No built in TV reception with the audio going to my hi-fi set up.

With Freely launched which at the moment only directs you to ITV X or iPlayer both Freeview and Freesat are loosing channels (no standard definition BBC channels on Freesat, GREAT TV removed from the electronic programme guide) all the smart features needed should be available from a web interface or computer app. But we will need fast broadband and that is not free. IT is unclear what current model TVs will be able to get a Freely app on their smart interfaces or if we will be forced to buy a new TV to get any channel in 2030.
 
Most TV makers no longer make a profit on the hardware and instead make money from selling your viewing habits (as detected by the Smart TV features, and even if you use an external streaming box like an AppleTV, by video fingerprinting techniques) to advertisers. You would have to pay extra to not have those features. You can choose not to connect the TV to your home network, but some manufacturers like TCL will disable the TV until you do so, in which case you should absolutely return it as defective and get one from another brand.
 
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If you factory reset a Sky Glass TV and don't setup WiFI you get very close. All you have is 5 icons, Setup Wifi, Live TV (for the tuner) and 3 HDMI inputs.
 
I haven't used the tuner or "smart" installed software on a television in over 10 years. XBMC and now KODI provide all the "brains" I've ever needed.

What I'm now looking for a way to "root" a television and reimage it with custom ROM.
 
Friesiansam said:
If you object to the high price of all the features, buy a last year’s model and, get a hefty discount.
Click to expand...
It's not just the price, it's the time spent waiting for the TV to start up to the point where it will display an HDMI signal - reviewers never quote this time for reasons I don't understand.
As mentioned in the article, the hardware makes the TV physically bigger, more power hungry, quicker to become obsolete (yes fine I'm not using the smart features but it's bad form to have your virus ridden TV sending out DDoS requests)
 
Absolutely agree. This would be a wonderful thing, and I don't think people like us are that small a market. Pretty much every single person who has an AV amp would benefit from this - the built-in features in a TV are simply a replica of the features provided (better) by an AV amp and whatever set-top boxes you have connected to it. And there must be quite a large number of AV amps purchased every year - I wonder how this number compares to the number of TVs purchased?

If there was an option in the settings to turn off everything but the monitor function that would achieve the same result - maybe WhatHiFi could use their influence to get a manufacturer to do that with one model in their range as an experiment?
 
What Hi-Fi? said:
It’s galling to have to pay for features I never use, but the reality is that a TV without them is not going to happen.

My ideal TV has no tuner, no speakers, no smart platform : Read more
Click to expand...

You can have these features or the lack of it, really simple, just buy a PC monitor. They come in all shapes and sizes.
For my diner, I'm using 4K Samsung 28" PC monitor, tuner is an Android TV device (has streaming apps such as Spotify, Deezer, Tidal etc) sound is SMSL class D amp with bluetooth and speakers are Dali Zensor 1.
I use two remote devices, one for the SMSL and the other for Android TV device. PC monitor switches itself off automatically. It really is that simple.
 
Besides monitors, we need the $1000 Pre-Pro. Why can't they take a mid-level receiver, gut the amps and sell just the "Front-End"?
 
Totally agree - I'd love a huge, superb quality monitor that doesn't take an eternity to boot up. Maybe it would be simpler if TV manufacturers could simply add a 'Direct' button adjacent to the 'Power On' switch in order to bypass all the smart features, OS, internal speakers, etc?
 
fazalmajid said:
Most TV makers no longer make a profit on the hardware and instead make money from selling your viewing habits (as detected by the Smart TV features, and even if you use an external streaming box like an AppleTV, by video fingerprinting techniques) to advertisers. You would have to pay extra to not have those features. You can choose not to connect the TV to your home network, but some manufacturers like TCL will disable the TV until you do so, in which case you should absolutely return it as defective and get one from another brand.
Click to expand...
I believe you are spot on in your assessment. Surveillance is the name of the game, and selling the users' details to advertisers (or the gub'ment perhaps) is the real play.
Obviously, one could try for a monitor but good luck finding one 65" in diagonal size.
 
I bought my last "New" TV from Amazon. When I went to the manufacturer's site to register it I found the date of manufacture was ***Four*** years previous.
That's where to go to get a new, older TV.

P.S.
It is still, supposedly, smart, has a tuner and speakers but no microphone or camera...
 
I use a 43in Smart Monitor from Samsung: it has no TV tuner. Has Apple TV, Now TV, and all other streaming services.
It allows live TV on Sky with Now TV, iPlayer, ITVx, etc.
It's 4K, has all the image processing you'd find on Samsung Smart TVs and it connects via WiFi, with Dolby Atmos.
It's also a Smartthings hub.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
What you are looking for might be available in the Pro Display segment from several vendors (Sony, Panasonic etc.).
As one major use case of these displays is "heavy duty" stuff like (in-store) signage, you won't find OLED panels, though.
High-end models support 120 Hz, Dolby Vision etc.


Also, TVs with Google TV OS can be set up in a dumb, "smart-less" basic mode.
 
fazalmajid said:
Most TV makers no longer make a profit on the hardware and instead make money from selling your viewing habits (as detected by the Smart TV features, and even if you use an external streaming box like an AppleTV, by video fingerprinting techniques) to advertisers. You would have to pay extra to not have those features. You can choose not to connect the TV to your home network, but some manufacturers like TCL will disable the TV until you do so, in which case you should absolutely return it as defective and get one from another brand.
Click to expand...
Absolutely right. I use Pi-hole on my network and the number of DNS lookups per day to various ad platforms measures in the 10s of thousands. I block basically all of them but its pretty nuts.
 
I'm with you on this one: My TV is used as a monitor: I have various devices, including some retro games consoles, connected, so I'd need more than just a couple of HDMI inputs, but all my video content comes through a blu-ray player and a PC, so I never use any of the features of the TV. Luckily the TV boots up straight to the last used input (after adjusting the boot up settings), but I really feel for anyone in a similar situation whose TV boots to some sort of home screen, necessitating extra button presses.
 
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