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What stops you from using your TV just like that - a dumb TV? Connect it to power and don't connect it to any network and all you have to do is to use your HDMI inputs, volume control and picture adjustment. Ignore everything else. I use it like that. Never had I had to update my TV's software.



That's what I do with my Samsung TV. It rewards me by making the sound gradually lose sync with the video. I have to turn the TV off and back on again about once an hour to resync.

I've often wondered what kind of brain dead software failure is responsible for this. The sound+video come from my Humax box via HDMI into the TV. The TV decodes both, shows the video and plays the audio out of the analogue jack on the back. I plug that into my sound bar (because the TV doesn't support Audio Return Channel, despite being quite new). Rebooting the Humax box and the soundbar doesn't help the sync.

My guess is that the thing decoding the HDMI signal feeds sound into the DAC buffer for the audio jack but never checks to see how full that DAC buffer gets. I suspect the DACs reference clock isn't synced to the HDMI data, so clock skew gradually builds. After 2 hours, there is about 1 seconds worth of audio buffered there.

It's the kind of thing that gets overlooked when the software team are forced to write a load of crap smart TV stuff when they should be focusing on the basics.


The people that write the HDMI and DAC firmwares aren't the same people that make the Android apps that the TV software basically is nowadays. Though investing in the latter might mean skimping on the former.


More expensive, longer startup times, and strange proprietary buttons on the remotes that if you accidentally press them you have to wait 2-3 minutes before you can exit out of them.


I did this with my Samsung. Once there was a software update that made it shrink my screen to display a car ad, while I was using HDMI.

After, I disabled every "Smart" feature I could and disabled its network entirely. Had to resist the urge to throw it out the window first.


I would return it to the store after something like that. People just accept everything new without questioning...


The only smart TV I have atm I got with my phone and I did this very thing. I used to have it hooked up to the Wi-Fi but decided to reset everything on it and disconnect it completely (refuse to give it Wi-Fi credentials) and let it be used for what it's used best: being a TV.


That's how I use it, but you're still paying for the stuff you're not using. Instead of buying their atrocious software, I'd like to spend it on better display characteristics.




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