The new smart tvs seem to come with apps and android etc and looks like they are really good in some of the articles I have come across. They seem to be all the rage for 2013. Do you think smart tvs are better than normal LED tvs atm or is the technology still developing?
Smart TV vs LED TVs - which is better?
clubhonda on 14/01/2013 - 21:50
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In order to make this more useful, I'm going to pose a new question:
How are TVs likely to get better in 2013? LED backlight is hardly new now, has display progress stopped (which is why we are getting sold 'smart' features)?
There are two things coming up which may be exciting:
1: LED TV. Rather than have a big (or several largish) LED light fed through an LCD just have pixels as directly controlled RGB LEDs. This can provide a lot of benefit in:
- Contrast
- Power use
- Viewing anglePeople have been talking about this for a long time, and I don't know how far off it is, but I don't expect to see it in 2013.
2: 4K. More pixels on your TV. The technology is there to do this right now, and there have been units demonstrated. The first problem is that they have lower yields, so they are more expensive to make, but you will charge a lot for a product like this so that isn't such a big deal. The BIG deal breaker is content. No-one is releasing content for 4K, so there is no point. Might be nice for running a PC with super smooth fonts, but even the next playstation/xbox are unlikely to support this.
"How are TVs likely to get better in 2013? LED backlight is hardly new now, has display progress stopped (which is why we are getting sold 'smart' features)?"
My understanding is that first generation LED backlight LCD TVs are illuminated by LEDS placed only around the perimeter of the screen. Second generation LED backlight LCD TVs are illuminated by an array of LEDs spreasd across the area of the screen, with the brightness of individual LEDs controlled by software to enhance the effective contrast of the picture.
Regional backlighting was in some of the first LED backlit TVs, it is nothing new, just that you might not get it on a cheap TV.
Edit: I suspected but just checked, backlit actually came first and side lit was introduced latter because they could make the screens thinner and use that as a selling point, even though they (quietly) lost the regional backlight feature.
Just to add, LED backlighting can allow for high contrast if you have 'regional' lighting, but even with edge LED illumination you get the benefit of the long lifetime of LED as compared to fluorescent tubes.
There are basically two routes via which a screen usually fails - given that today most of it is computer hardware. Either the power supply blows, or the tube stops working (we all know fluorescent tubes have a lifetime, after which they stop). By taking one of these out of the equation, LEDs help to lengthen the lifetime.
Switching back to the op question, TV manufacturers have not had a great track record of adding the smart features to their TVs. 'Distinctly lacking' would be the overall review, particularly in their uPnP network play capabilities and their walled garden approach. Although it's now difficult to find a set without some 'smart' features, my suggestion is to look towards the burgeoning Android addon units for any smarts - and get the minimum TV manufacturer elements. Even with the cheapo chinese nature, they still give you more flexibility and freedom, and they are only going to get better over time (xbmc with HW decode would be good).
4K sets aren't going to be primetime for years yet, and frankly if you aren't talking wall size, are pretty pointless (as well as content-less). I can see those working much better as desktop monitors.
2013 looks to be one of thin bezels coming down in price with TV manufactures frantically trying to get you into their walled garden 'smart' TVs to further monetise you and beat off the threat of apple. Oh, and many of them seem to be leaving the display market as well, the profits don't seem to be there.
Plasma is not obsolete, in fact the best plasmas still have better PQ than LCD/LED, and for less money. Research Panasonic ST50 series and you will see what I mean….
I know many people have this view, and I don't want to get into the argument, but made the statement as:
1: The market has rapidly abandoned plasma for LCD.
2: Try to keep things as simple as possible.
Plasma uses more energy/electricity than LCD.
I read 325W (watts) on the back of my new 51" samsung plasma
altho in other forms they say it uses less.But cheap for it's size & PQ.
Do you think smart tvs are better than normal LED tvs atm or is the technology still developing?
There's nothing smart about smart TV's. Take a regular LCD TV and hook it up to a "Stick" media center or a Android tablet, you get roughly the same thing.
The Smart TV is simply just a convergence device — 2 devices in one.
LG were displaying a 55" OLED TV at CES 2013. Best picture EVER and thinnest screen ever. No backlight of any kind necessary, hence true blacks.
If you have $28,000, available in March in Korea http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQ5FLVAD73A
Otherwise, LCD with LED backlight would be my choice.
Samsung is my personal favourite, but any bet I'll just have started another war telling you my brand opinion :)
Regards,
Ed.Nice, but I still don't expect this to be a real consumer option until 2014.
from me:
from known brand, get as big as your wallet allows, dont worry about 3D, doesnt matter plasma/led backlgt, dont worry about smart or not. only size matter in long term.
the others are just fancy fancy stuffs make you WOW for few weeks and then you wont use themthen add apple tv or wd $100, it becomes smart and you can stream from idevices
The only point I can agree on is not to worry about smart. Personally I consider that there is definately such a thing as a TV which is too big, and image quality is very important.
I guess it depends on the purpose though, if it is to just look big and impressive rather than actually watch, maybe branding and finish should be on your list?
I have to disagree (a little).
It really depends on what you do with your TV. We DO use 3D at least once every couple of weeks, and although I DO NOT use any of the internet stuff enough to merit a mention, I use the DLNA playback capabilities of my Samsung ALL THE TIME. I'd be happy to drop all the internet crap (who doesn't have a tablet for that nowadays which is MUCH more suited?), and just have a much cleaner, better media player (DLNA) built in to the unit.
I have a NAS and a MythTV box. With smart TVs and the MythTV box, I can record any show automatically and have them available on any TV in the house to watch. The NAS has Serviio on it, and all our DVDs, BluRays, Music and Pictures are on it, and again, they can be viewed on any TV in the house.
Very handy for my family and the reason I would always buy a smart TV.
Now, everyone is different, but "just fancy fancy stuffs make you WOW for few weeks and then you wont use them" is not true for everyone.
Oh, my parents, a friend, my brother and my sister-in-law's father all purchased the same gear once they discovered how it all works.
So for us, the 3D and media playing capabilities DO get used all the time.
You just need to decide what you want out of a TV really.
smart tvs are a waste of time imo.
I have a samsung smart tv. You can't remove the apps, it comes pre-installed with bloatware, the apps are not updated often and take a while to load.
avoid
I also have one, and could not agree more. The thing that I hate most is that Samsung can push content update to the TV without the user consent.
seriously? ahh crap. Well i won't bother connecting it to the network then. (i keep it unplugged except when updating)
I have not really proved it carefully, but I just noticed some changes to the content/functionality without me doing anything.
Disagree…. I have a samsung series 7, and I use the apps all the time…. There are a lot of apps which are really useful, and I use them on daily basis. I just wish that there was a touchpad on samsung remote for the pointer.
Thanks for all the valuable comments guys. Based on the feedback, I was thinking rather than get another media player/android box and connect that to a tv, a smart tv seems to do both, and possibly at less than if you tried buying both separately. But key issues would be what sort of file formats are supported (many normal LCD TVs don't seem to be able to support many file formats), and easy of use with android apps and upgrades etc.
I am not interested in 3D or other features, but it would seem to me that being able to both watch movies and surf the net on the telly would be a logical next wave for the future. I'm just wondering if that wave is already ready now, or if its better to wait while they improve smart tvs of the current gen?
…but it would seem to me that being able to both watch movies and surf the net on the telly would be a logical next wave for the future. I'm just wondering if that wave is already ready now, or if its better to wait while they improve smart tvs of the current gen?
It depends on whether or not you see yourself using the features. I have a Samsung Smart TV, and have never even used any of the 'Smart' functions - besides basic USB playback. For internet browsing, I have a desktop, two laptops, a tablet and a smartphone - I don't see a need for my TV to do it too. IMO unless the features of the TV become very tightly integrated with other services I use, there's no point to it. But that's me, you might be different.
I also take issue with the fact that (AFAIK) there is no predominant OS for Smart TV's, and updates are problematic or impossible, but hopefully that will be solved in the future.
All up, I don't think Smart TV's are quite there yet, and I think they're generally redundant too. However, you might be hard-pressed finding a current, non-Smart TV these days, so it's not exactly a bad thing - it's just not a great thing.
but it would seem to me that being able to both watch movies and surf the net on the telly would be a logical next wave for the future. I'm just wondering if that wave is already ready now, or if its better to wait while they improve smart tvs of the current gen?
hmmmmm, personally imo
windows media centre > xbmc >>>>>> smart tv ui
If i had unlimited funds, i'd build an htpc with dual(or quad) tv tuners, and run soley off the htpc.
Did that for ages with MythTv. Very good solution. I haven't looked into Windows 7 and 8 versions of WMC, but on XP is was/is? terrible. NO proper EPG for Australia. Add-ins for proper EPG did not work, couldn't handle the amount of tuners (I know it can do 4 now?). uPNP patchy. Plus the cost of a Windows License while not really using it.
MythTV is also a consideration and better than WMC IMO, having tested both.
Have a look if you haven't yet - it's really good.
I've since split my Video/Music/Pictures off the media-pc and onto a Thecus 7 bay NAS, but the MythTV box is still recording off 20 virtual tuners (4 physical). Never have to reboot it or anything. Just works. Schedule shows through web interface. My wife does it. Piss easy.
ahhh, i was using WMC on win7, it worked fine. mainly because it had tuner integration.
sounds like mythtv is the way to go.
I prefer XBMC, which is targetting at playing media rather than watching/recording TV (though both can be made to do either).
I never watch TV though.
XBMC 12 can record yes, but it's only in Release Candidate at the moment. Eden (11) does not. I haven't played with it, but if I can get the shepherd EPG on to it and it handles virtual tuners, I will definitely look at it in the future. I like XBMC as player, if it handles PVR duties as good it will be a winner I think.
An alternative is to connect a dual TV tuner dongle via TVHeadend and stream the content to whatever wants to use in on your home network - be it a PVR solution, a smart TV, or a tablet. The client software (xbmc say) then uses it as it wants.
The benefit is you have partitioned off the TV decoding issue and have everything on a peer level on your network - live TV, recorded TV, movies, IPTV, etc. You gain flexibility.
Cue watching TV, on your tablet, in the loo.
I read responses fairly carefully and one main point you made OP is that 'smart TV' options are cheaper because they are 2-in-1 and cheaper then buying a separate android or Apple TV device.
This would be my main point of disagreement and advise to give you. The 'smart TV' gimmick can put the price of a TV up by hundreds because they make it seem like the functions are worth that much but they are not. Many people here have pointed out how they never use it, its slow and lacks updates and functionality. Your not even interested in 3D TV so if I were you I would purchase a cheap 1080 LCD TV and here is my main point LOOK FOR A ANDROID HDMI DEVICE they are only worth $40-80 and basically turn your TV into a massive tablet without the touch screen function. But you can get remotes that let you move around the screen like a mouse. With that you can surf the web, play games, stream 1080 movies over a home network (depending how powerful the android device is you buy) and run xbmc, the popular choice for media playback.
So in short for you. Don't wait years for something that's already here and cheaper, because with the progression of smart tv features at the moment, they won't be at the level of an $80 HDMI device for quite some time. Hope that helps.
True, they can be picky, but nowhere near as picky as for example the XBox360.
The Samsung manuals are worth downloading before buying, they have the EXACT list of codecs they support.
I have a UA55D7000. It plays pretty much everything I throw at it, APART from:
Level 5.1 encoded video. This is rare, as even the bluray spec is level 4.1 but some people encode badly.
Encoding with header compression flag turned on. The header compression can be removed by a variety of tools.I also find though that serving from Serviio gives me the best compatibility, even compared with playing direct through USB. Dunno why. Just clever software I think. And no, transcoding is not turned on in my Serviio, just seems to talk to the TV better somehow.
That's all I've got for you ;-)
Sharp Quatron 4 colour LED
Fast moving edge PQ is superb…… just not worth 4x the money
I suggest buying a good LED tv and add a gadget like this:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Equiso-Smart-TV-Pre-order-/170889120…
If you watch a lot of TV during the day, or have a room with lots of windows, LED LCD is probably best. If you watch at night, and want the TV to disappear into the background, plasma is probably best.
Forget the smart TVs, they are dumb. and they are getting dumber when technology progress.
Unfortunately, it's hard to find a good quality non-smart TVs these days.hi all, i had a amateur question here ~ if i bough a 40" led tv estimated ( RM1200 ) + a cpu estimated ( RM1200 )vs smart tv estimate ( RM2400 ) which is more better to put it on a living room for mv purposes and some download, browsing & microsoft office work?
OK marketing really try to confuse things so let me map it out:
CRT TV: old style big box.
Plasma TV: thin panel, obsolete design.
LCD TV: Thin panel, current design.
-> LCD TV with Cathode back light: Older LCD design Cheap TVs are this.
-> LCD TV with LED back light: Current design. Most TVs are this. Uses less power and has better contrast than cathode.
LED TV: Doesn't use LCD at all and is FUTURE generation, you can't buy this in JB.
'Smart' TV: This has NOTHING to do with any of the above, and just means a TV that can connect to the internet to play youtube clips and other networking features.
So once you understand this your question doesn't make sense as:
1: When you say 'LED TV' you almost certainly mean 'LCD TV with LED backlight', not an actual LED TV.
2: This has nothing to do with 'smart' TV features.