617
Newly purchased Vizio TVs now require Walmart accounts to use smart features (arstechnica.com)
submitted 5 months ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
150 comments fedilink hide all child comments
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] 26 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Just build a media pc. Those media sticks have trackers and telemetry too.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 4 child comments
    •
  • [–] 19 points 5 months ago (1 child)

    As soon as RAM isn’t more expensive than the TV.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 3 points 4 months ago* (1 child)

    Personally i’d rather pay more for equipment than have these assholes tracking my viewing habits. But you could throw ddr4 in it. Should be fine for a simple HTPC.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 1 point 4 months ago (1 child)

    I don't get the whole ram catagories. DDR3, DDR4, DDR5. They make it seem like the higher the number, the better the ram, but I always thought ram was just a space for computers to temporarily store information until it was ready to call on it.

    So from my perspective 16GB DDR3 should be the same as 16GB DDR5. But that's clearly not the case.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 10 points 4 months ago (1 child)

    The biggest differences are speed and max amount of ram per module. For a htpc those shouldn't matter much. I wouldn't personally go to ddr3 unless I had some free sticks hanging out since the spec is about 20 years old now.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 4 points 4 months ago (5 children)

    I just wish there was a way to control the PC as easy as a tv remote. I would totally do this except my wife and kids just want to hit a button on the remote instead of fiddling with keyboard or a track pad or controller of some kind

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 10 child comments
    •
  • [–] 3 points 4 months ago* (1 child)

    I use LibreELEC on a mini-PC for my home TV. LibreELEC is a Linux distribution that runs Kodi and is pretty good for a media centre straight out of the box. I use a Rii Mini K25 remote (with a dongle) to control it: https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B06XHF7DNQ

    The downside is I can't control the TV itself with this, but this can be sorted out with a USB IR receiver (like this: https://amzn.asia/d/0hvzkP93), LIRC (https://lirc.org/) or something similar, *and a universal remote. On my to-do list lol

    I have a DHCP reservation for the TV itself and it's blackholed on my network. The only reason it's connected at all is so I can monitor what it tries to do.

    Edit: Also need a universal remote for the IR solution so it can talk to the PC IR receiver and the TV IR receiver separately.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 1 point 4 months ago

    My HTPC is running Bazzite and boots into Steam big picture mode. I watch media using Kodi and control everything using a Sofabatton remote.

    This setup is almost as seemless as when I was using an Nvidia Shield and a Logitech Harmony remote.

    The keyboard and controller are not needed, except for gaming.

    The only negative I've found, is that I've not yet worked out a way to power on the PC from the remote.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent