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“Awful”: Roku tests autoplaying ads loading before the home screen
(arstechnica.com)
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this post was submitted on 17 Mar 2025
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Can i pleace find a decent TV without smart-capabilitys? I just want HDMI thats it
Don't give your TV wifi access, use a separate device to watch stuff (Chromecast, FireTV, Android box, etc..)
Wish it had more apps, but Apple TV is pretty solid. With the Steam link app, it’s also good for couch gaming on your pc.
We use Moonlight instead of Steam Link. It requires a little more setting up at the PC end, but overall seems to be a more smooth result.
I’ll take a look, but I haven’t noticed any performance issues with Steam link.
Moonlight blows steam out of the water. I can't even tell I'm streaming when I use it.
Can you give me some examples for what’s really all that noticeable?
With steam for me it took longer to connect, it was harder to set up and the stream itself had noticeable artifacts and lag.
With sunshine & moonlight my lag is 1 ms, it connects instantly and I can stream in 4K HDR. Like I said it's so high quality that I often forget I'm streaming the game.
Plus moonlight is free and open source. Takes maybe 5-10 mins to set up. I was skeptical because it's FOSS, but it's easily the streaming solution I've tried for gaming.
This is on Windows over LAN, I haven't tried it over the internet.
Witch brands have moonlight available natively? I think I remember Samsung. Anything else? LG doesn't....
I can only speak for Apple TV, I'm afraid.
I just dock my steam deck
Yeah, that was my approach, but the forced ads are also on the roku stick :(
Yeah about time for me to switch to something else :/
Is there anything that’s a better alternative?
Some people have mentioned apple TV, for now that at least isn't riddled with ads. Others have mentioned getting android sticks, but I'm not sure how smooth that process is (or how well they work with remotes).
I'm looking into alternatives. So far Kodi is the front runner for my use. I have not decided on whether to replace roku units with raspberri pi running kodi or try the jailbreaking roku route.
Buy a commercial signage display. It's just a TV without the smart garbage.
Or, get a projector :)
Technically you can get commercial TVs but many companies stopped selling them. They are literally the new screen tech with no "Smart" capabilities. They are also much cheaper than their smart counterparts.
I must not be looking at the right thing. All I'm finding are expensive displays that have all this fancy scheduling, web surfing, etc. built into it.
Try this brand https://www.sceptre.com/
Are they actually any good though? I was looking at a 1440p Sceptre monitor for my PC, and a lot of reviews mentioned huge bezels, dead pixels, and other issues...
Oh, these are just Wide-screen Gaming monitors though?
Cheap computer monitor works well for me.
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A buddy sent me this recently. I'm intrigues. https://www.monoprice.com/product?p_id=46513
A Sharp Aquos TV from the late 2000s, pre-Hisense days. We have a 42" model from ~2007. It's only 1080p (which is honestly just fine for its size and our usage), but there's plenty of I/O for modern and legacy equipment, and lots of configuration options. It is an absolute monster at 75 lbs, but an incredibly high quality unit nonetheless, especially considering it's age. I've owned it since 2019 and it's needed zero repairs or anything.
For comparison, we also have a much newer 55" curved Samsung TV (in our basement, wall-mounted up high) which has already needed a backlight driver board replacement. Luckily that was only $50, but still, I expect better.
the largest problem with older TV's isnt the resolution. even on my 75" its hard to tell the difference between 4k and 1080p... But HDR is amazing, it really blows me away each time a scene lights up!
That's a fair point. HDR is quite nice, I use it a lot on my Pixel. The TV I mentioned does have dynamic brightness, but that's over the whole TV, not really equivalent to HDR.