It’s Not Your Fault Your TV Doesn’t Work Right

It’s Not Your Fault Your TV Doesn’t Work Right(thebulwark.com)

14 points by tbeutel 5 years ago | 9 comments

hakfoo 5 years ago |

I'm surprised you don't see more vendor lock-in presented as an alternative to this. There was some amazing integration available by the 1980s (i. e. the RCA Dimensia system) but it relied on using a single manufacturer's products sold as a suite.

"Oh, we grudgingly and wrongly support HDMI-CEC, but if you just bought the BrandX AVR, DVR, Blu-Ray player, cable box, and waffle iron to go with your BrandX TV, they'd all use our exclusive BrandX Link (TM) and work properly." Well anyway until you replace one component in a couple years and it speaks BrandX Link 2.0 (R) (TM) (GMbH)

I suppose the one good thing of the fiasco that is cable/satellite STBs is that it forces some level of interoperability. No manufacturer can promise the end-to-end integrated dream when the local cable service uses some box sourced from some random unrelated firm.

I think part of it is also that we have a clear master-slave heirarchy, but no way to enforce it. I could see the TV, AVR, or set-top box being the "master" of different entertainment configurations-- as defined by "this is the primary remote you use." But you can still sit on the wrong remote and switch the sound to a different source than the picture. I could imagine a back-panel switch to toggle the other devices to a "slave mode" which would do things like disable input switching or put it in "listen to CEC commands only" modes.

ipsun4 5 years ago |

I think the bigger issue are that devices are trying to handle many things at once, and badly. I stick with projectors (which keep getting more affordable) which just handles video, and an audio system which just handles audio. No smart tv bs, and I just use a fire stick/chromecast/laptop to handle the content.

I'm more than happy with my setup, except that I usually want to wait until after sunset to watch shows or movies. It's probably better for my own free time to not spend a day watching tv anyways.

AtlasBarfed 5 years ago |

IoT at the consumer level is basically this but 100x worse.

Personally I think with the advent of usable voice recognition, devices need their own "call tree" for setup.

I would also like to take this opportunity to complain about how Bluetooth STILL doesn't work about 50% of the time, in addition to what this article mentioned about HDMI standards (to say nothing of displayport and USB/thunderbolt3 standards lunacy).

Our wireless standards can't interoperate. Our wired standards can't interoperate. And let me add the cherry on top of "our standards can't interoperate". In the era of TCP/IP showing what power a basic standard can have on the world, this is just a travesty.

robwwilliams 5 years ago | |

Yes, travesty—but caused by intense commercial competition and what you could call “hub war”. The new LG CX TV+ wants to be the media hub; the new Denon audio-visual receiver wants to be the AVR+ hub for all sources and outputs. Then we have Netflix via the TV or via Apple TV etc. Competitive chaos until a few integrated packages win by securing 2-5 million sales a year minimum.

The only players I can imagine pulling this off are Sony and Apple. Do they bring 3D back? Do they force use of their speakers? Time seems right for either to jump.

AtlasBarfed 5 years ago | | |

Yep, and we run in the XKCD "we now have 13 standards" problem, and if any "one true hope" company wins, it's a closed ecosystem.

wodenokoto 5 years ago |

> What is the point of even having an “Auto” setting when it might not work, thus necessitating “Low” and “High” settings? In my book, that’s at least one setting too many. Oh, and by default, it’s wrong.

So which one shouldn't be there, which one is correct, and would the correct one also be correct in Europe or Asia?

This is pretty unhelpful.

robwwilliams 5 years ago |

Perfect commentary—thank you, thank you. Movie theaters or a great market opening for a single LG-Apple-Denon device.

ratsmack 5 years ago |

This was a very enlightening article and really describes the general state of most technology today.

brokenmachine 5 years ago |

Great article and perfectly expresses the ridiculous situation we're in now.