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What is it with companies these days? They think they still own your product *after* you bought it and took it home.
You know who else does that? thieves and conmen.
If I bought something, it's mine. That means I control when it gets used, and how it gets used.
If you don't agree with that, then at least have the courtesy to let me know before I buy so I can move along to something better.
Real programmers use butterflies
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Absolutely! It's very odd kind of partnership-ownership these days.
The really odd thing is that there is no clue that an update had gone on. The keyboard just wouldn't do anything (which feels really odd on a laptop).
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Me: "I use your TV as as a computer monitor. I just want to switch from netflix back to my PC without scrolling through 3 pages of services like "hulu" that I will never use.
Them: "You can't delete the apps that come preinstalled with the TV"
Me: "Ah, so my solution is to return your product and exchange it for a competitors product. That seems like a bad solution for both of us, no?"
Them: "It's a limitation of the product"
Me: "No, the product can handle it just fine. I build hardware and software for a living. None of them require hulu in order to function. This is a triumph of marketing over good sense"
Them: "I'm sorry you feel that way"
Me: "Me too, but it could be worse. At least I don't work for samsung"
Real programmers use butterflies
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Is this the end of your "blessed with perfection" after 20.5 hours? 
(BTW my Samsung - half the size of yours - has an "input" button on the remote which means I can swap between HDMI input and Netflix in about 3 button presses; no need to go through the "smart" menus) Congrats on getting through to an actual person at Samsung!
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Yes. Luckily the only time i have to deal with it is if i want to use the TV's built in Netflix feature, which for some reason appears to be better quality and faster loading through my TV than through netflix.com
I think my TV is probably newer. All samsung's TVs seem to be "smart" these days but I'd have been fine without the feature.
Real programmers use butterflies
modified 22-Feb-21 5:59am.
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My hero! Not sure how well this will work but I'm going to definitely look into it. While under warranty!
(What samsung? No I have no idea why the TV suddenly stopped working)
Real programmers use butterflies
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They don't make it easy do they?
My recent monitor is a Samsung, and the controls are stupid. They all work via menus from a combination micro joystick and button - but it's on the back of the monitor where you can't see it, and to turn the monitor off, you have to click it, then pull it down, then click it again. Which is OK, but ... that doesn't work once the video signal is no longer present, because then it goes into "hunt" mode between analog and digit inputs, and the joystick now just switches between them.
So to turn the computer off, you have to open the start menu, select "Power", position the mouse over the "shut down" option, then turn off the monitor and click the mouse (hoping it didn't move in the meantime, which is fine for me with a trackball, but a PITA with a "regular mouse").
I recently found that you can hold the joystick in for five or six seconds and it'll turn off, but that only works when there isn't a video signal.
Stupid UI design, done to make the front look "clean" and probably costing more than dedicated buttons would have ...
Samsung used to be very, very good at this stuff - usability was the key thing. But recently they let the marketing department and lazy coders do the UI design, I think.
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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Yeah. I'm really disappointed. When we remodeled our kitchen a couple of years ago when we moved in here we replaced everything with samsung appliances.
My kitchen is great. I don't like their phones, but I don't like *anyone's* smartphones but samsung always had at least good displays, so I figured I'd buy their TV over a competitors that was the same price.
My mistake. I didn't count on them sticking me with the worst remote in the world, ($7 for a replacement on amazon - that's how chintzy it is) and that making me furble through a seemingly endless array of vendor partner apps before I get to the "My PC" option that lets me get back to what I use this screen for primarily - a computer monitor.
I asked them where I could find a compatible replacement remote with source buttons on it. They said I'm locked in.
I finally told them fine, I'll hack the firmware and replace it with something open source. If it bricks the TV I'll return it under warranty anyway.
"You can't do that"
Really? How do you intend to stop me?
"That will void the warranty"
Not if I don't tell you I did it. Just like you didn't tell me I'd be saddled with all of your vendor partners every time I use the remote on this expensive TV i just bought from you.
Real programmers use butterflies
modified 22-Feb-21 8:09am.
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I recently bought a new Samsung TV, with all the smart TV features. A random, but probably insignificant, thing that annoys me is when I choose to close an app I've had open to return back to regular TV or a games console, the app drawer at the bottom of the screen doesn't automatically close. It just sits there, open, staring me in the face, until I have to manually close it. There's no setting for this, and there's no simple timer to close it down after a little while.
The other thing I've noticed are ads in those sorts of spaces. Ads for TV shows or services I'm not interested in, which is annoying as well. Fortunately I recently setup Pi-hole on my network and I'm seeing less of them now, but what you might not know is that if you connect these devices up to the web, they're constantly checking in Samsung's metric websites to report information like recent apps, time that the app was spent open, etc. That's blocked too, but accounts for several thousand requests per day.
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Thank you for the information. I'll lock down my network.
Real programmers use butterflies
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Chris Copeland wrote: f you connect these devices up to the web, they're constantly checking in Samsung's metric websites to report information like recent apps, time that the app was spent open, etc. That's blocked too, but accounts for several thousand requests per day.
Was that blocked in one of Pi-Hole's standard blocklists or did you add it manually?
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I believe it was blocked from the start, most requests are outbound to *.samsungcloudsolution.net, including some ad-loading requests. If not it's easy enough to find some good blacklists to import, I have 1.6m+ domains blocked at the moment 
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I purchased a Samsung "smart TV" a few years back. I was totally underwhelmed by the software, slow, clunky, very limited.
We lived with it for a couple of years ... then I solved the problem by buying a Roku.
--
The Samsung replaced a 27" tube TV. Yes, a tube TV. That was the first TV I owned (lived for years without a TV) and it lasted ~26 years. Things don't last like that these days ....
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To be fair, my previous vizeo 55" flat panel I replaced still works well enough for daily use.
And I bought it at a secondhand store for $120 several years ago after it had already been well loved.
I'm getting rid of it because
A) 4k is so much better than 1080p in terms of screen real-estate (and now that I have one - wow, clarity!)
B) The TV remote has been getting kind of dodgy because I drop it/step on it/say mean things to it
C) The picture on the TV occasionally ghosts especially if you have just switched inputs, requiring a power cycle to get back to normal
D) once in a blue moon, if you're playing a video game (and only seems to be with video games) the sound will cut out and maybe stay broken for half an hour, even if you turn if off and on again. Then it comes back
But the model is almost 20 years old by now so it is what it is.
I'd consider that pretty reliable. I'm giving it to a friend (he has yet to come get it) because he wanted a TV, and I don't want to wait until it dies so I don't have to be the one to take it to the dump. Same reason I sell off used cars before they stop running - it's easier than getting them wrecked.
Real programmers use butterflies
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Ah yes the joys of a new TV.
I don't bother with the apps, I just hooked up my pc and watch netflix that way. (I think my tv is to old even for the netflix app, was originally there but it got removed... I think)
It did take me a while to figure out why I was losing like 1 or 2 cm's of my screen tho when connected to the pc and playing something full screen.
Turns out you have to set it to a specific input channel in order to properly display a full screen video from pc, can't remember the setting right now but if you experience the same thing let me know and I'll look it up 
Tom
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My TV goes fullscreen from the HDMI out of my video card without tweaking.
However, for some reason when I watch netflix using netflix.com it seems like i don't get it in 4k, but going through my TV i do.
I haven't verified or even investigated the problem. I just decided to use the TV's smart feature to use netflix and enjoy the quality bump. I'm not above using a well designed "smart" appliance to do things it does well. My TV is very good at doing netflix - for whatever reason, it's better than my browser in full screen mode.
I guess I don't have to - i mean, i could find an alternative to using the TV's "smart" features - and i may yet because apparently the TV is a snitch and reports on me to samsung.
But I haven't looked into the quality difference. Actually investigating it is non-trivial because it may involve some packet sniffing.
Real programmers use butterflies
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honey the codewitch wrote: However, for some reason when I watch netflix using netflix.com it seems like i don't get it in 4k, but going through my TV i do.
Very strange
Not an issue for me tho since my subscription doesn't include 4k and my tv is definitely not 4k 
honey the codewitch wrote: I'm not above using a well designed "smart" appliance to do things it does well.
Usually I'm willing to use them 2 but I can't (anymore) for whatever reason.
honey the codewitch wrote: the TV is a snitch and reports on me to samsung.
Yeah, aren't all "smart" devices these days ...
Tom
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Tom Deketelaere wrote: Yeah, aren't all "smart" devices these days ...
Not the ones I build. I pick who I work for with more care than I've come to understand that most people can afford. I count myself lucky I guess for that and am not issuing that statement in judgment of people who don't have that luxury. But I will not write certain kinds of code, nor assemble certain kinds of hardware, and hardware or software that is designed to surveil people without their continuous/ongoing consent is not something I'm willing to take part in creating.
When I was young I was less selective, and after the fact I learned that some of the productivity software I had contributed to was being used to help companies abuse their workers.
Never again. I will walk away in the middle of a project before I do something like that again.
Real programmers use butterflies
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honey the codewitch wrote: Never again. I will walk away in the middle of a project before I do something like that again.
Been there, done that.
It wasn't surveillance tho, a previous company wanted to use data for commercial reasons even tho the terms clearly stated that wasn't allowed.
So I passed on that project, in the end the project never got released (and I knew that it wouldn't, there was no market for it) but still.
And yeah, just as you, I'm lucky I can afford it as well, not everyone can.
Tom
modified 23-Feb-21 1:58am.
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honey the codewitch wrote: However, for some reason when I watch netflix using netflix.com it seems like i don't get it in 4k, but going through my TV i do.
Like many streaming services, Netflix does realtime quality detection and will downgrade a stream to show what it thinks is the best that a particular device/bandwidth combination can reliably display. It's rather conservative from what I can see. I am not aware that you can force override it. It just does what it thinks is best.
I suspect, but have not confirmed, that it might have a built in bias for Netflix's apps over generic web. One day services like this will drop their generic web interfaces entirely, I suspect.
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Well - I sit here working with my 52" TV monitor - but it's LG. Costs so much Less Money. And although it's a "smart TV", it doesn't have the built-in aps, has never been connected to the internet and changing between TV/HDMI1/HDMI2/HDIM3 (the last is this PC) is by a single button that puts up a menu on the screen - goes right to where I want to go - in fact, when I turn the TV on (or the PC on) it even brings up a little icon for the new connection - press OK and you're there.
I'm actually somewhat afraid to buy a new TV as they will, sooner or later, make it mandatory to connect it directly to the internet. I stream via ROKU - but that's the next part of the story.
ROKU's just gotten too big and arrogant. All their remotes come with four pre-set buttons that periodically get pushed and you get thrown to one of the assigned (there choice) channels. I tried hot-gluing the buttons to stop them but they're too damn sensitive. I don't want to mess with the circuit board. They, by the way, are even below Virgin Mobil for online tech support - actually worse than useless. As for services - the "New and Notable" for a dynamic list of easily available channels hasn't changed for a year or more - and it just happens to be in large stations that they sell subscriptions to. "Free" stations, to them, also "Free Trial". The question is where to go from them? Oh - yeah - it seems they've "pulled an apple" by doing their upgrade to older devices to slow them down to get users to buy upgrades. They've also gone to not supplying some of their stations to "older" models. Like Windows 7, my upgrade is not likely going to be to their products.
Picking another TV brand is easy enough - but there are only a few streaming services. On a good day, they all suck.
Methinks, perhaps, it's time I turn to Kodi. Start with my Intel NUC and go from there.
| Ravings en masse^ |
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| "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | | "If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010 |
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I looked for features at a particular pricepoint and size, that I could get locally without signing up for a costco card, and LG just wasn't on the list or I would have considered them. In the end I found two brands, the exact same price, and pretty much the same features, but I had never heard of the other company, I like my samsung appliances, and the things I hate about their phones (bloated, laggy, overpriced) didn't seem like they either applied to TVs or applied to my situation - I was wrong. They figured out a way to elephant up TVs as well.
Real programmers use butterflies
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