panasonic veira

almillar

I take the point that Samsung launched useful apps to some of their TVs. I would say this is the exception rather than the rule.

'With the launch of YouView and Freesat MyTime'

Yep - as the owner of a Panasonic TV with Freesat, and a Humax Foxsat HDR, I'd love to have MyTime, but it's simply not possible. Same with YouView, they're both sort of new platform standards within FreeSat and FreeView.
The ITV Player you refer to - this is as part of the Freesat platform - again, my TV has Freesat, and the ONLY thing the network plug is for, is Freesat. It doesn't have any 'smart' capabilities outside Freesat.

If you were promised something specific that didn't materialise then Panasonic have a case to answer. However as soon as YouTube, for example, update something on their site, it could break any of these apps. The manufacturers then need to update. Will they? Evidence so far says no. They've got an operating system almost to keep up to date on these TVs.

'reasonable to hope that a television with a satellite and DTT tuner could set up a single Favourites list that combined channels from both tuner sources. This is after all a high end Panasonic smart tv and not a cheap Goodmans or Bush tv that we are talking about.'

I take your point - but this is technically difficult - there will be 2 completely different parts of the TV at work here, and indeed they'll be different modules for different parts of the world. Again, I'm not aware of any set, at any price, that does this...

'Don't get me started on the fact that apparently the morons who run Freesat won't let be put the four HD channels in positions 101 to 104 in my Freesat EPG in place of their SD counterparts'

I agree!

' Also the Samsung would clearly perform better without having to shut the curtains when the sun shines as we have to do with the Pansasonic due to the reflections that ensure.'

Nope, you'll get a white blob from the light, instead of a reflection. Take this from someone who has used plasma and LCD in the same place.

Ignore all the marketing rubbish about Smart TV, etc - buy a TV as a dumb screen, then choose from devices to plug in that WILL do a much better job than a TV can. Yes, more remotes etc, but you won't be left behind and they'll do the job better.

My Pana G10 50 inch (2009) says it uses around 225W, just for reference. I haven't tested it. I would guess that you're using more than usual because of your bright room, making the TV work harder.

I've got a Sharp LCD TV, and the Smart part of it is truely woeful. I knew this before I bought it and am happy to ignore it. I've got a computer under the TV and it'll be up to date for a long, long time.

Ratboy

NonGeographicalMan wrote: »

People clearly don't want to watch tv programs on an Ipad screen or a 15" laptop screen so there seems to be a market for large tv screens. However keeping the tvs current re the internet is difficult for exactly the reasons you suggest.

So probably the sets should be designed with a replaceable wifi board or with a socket for a small external wifi device (that could sit on or below the tv) that could be upgraded every 5 years or so (jumps in wifi speed happen less often than jumps in PC processing power). And the basic design of the set should be for a laptop, tablet etc to be be able to establish a wifi connection with it and push the picture processed on the wifi device in full screen to the television and not for the tv to have to process it in any way. It should just be a native 1080p picture that the television can then display Of course no tv can be designed today so that it can one day run the 4000 resolution standard as and when that comes along as that is inherent to the screen design.

However to start trying to make the tvs run web browsers that are based on a fixed ROM on a motherboard (or at best a firmware upgradeable BIOS) and that cannot have their versions of Flash and Java etc regularly upgraded as they do on a laptop (not to mention the ability to run the latest Digital Rights Management software that the anto piracy brigade are so obsessed with) does seems to be an approach doomed to failure from the outset.

Unfortunately most of the best higher end televisions now come with these third rate Smart Tv features that are then likely not to be maintained built in and that really does seem to be a match made in a hell that is unlikely to work out or keep anyone happy.:eek::(:mad:

I though modern generation TV's had the option to be upgraded via a CAM card, which, as I understand it a modem, with memory capacity for future upgrades.

Obviously more modern TV's might not require this, but use it for added facilities, like RAM backup, or storage on the 1c2 bus that tv uses (sorry if I got that bit wrong) -research and correct me, you know what I mean..

Nowadays, the EEEPROMS (don't know why they are called that!); are upgradeable, because settop boxes, and digital TV's can get a download over the airways, rather than forcing them by replacing a chip etc.

My Cable speed has recently been upgraded to 30mb, but I don't receive 30mb. They pinged the modem, took over the computer, but are coming out tomorrow to fix it..Apparently.

How do you do that with a TV? When the internet moves on, the TV goes obsolete?

almillar

Ratboy - I've flashed the firmware for a 2003 TV - the capability has been there for ages. The incentive is not. The manufacturers will fix any bugs that enough users shout loudly enough about, but they'd rather put their money into researching, building and selling new TVs than keeping old ones up to date.
CAM cards are really for pay TV stuff, not upgrading AFAIK.

Inner_Zone

almillar wrote: »

Ratboy - I've flashed the firmware for a 2003 TV - the capability has been there for ages. The incentive is not. The manufacturers will fix any bugs that enough users shout loudly enough about, but they'd rather put their money into researching, building and selling new TVs than keeping old ones up to date.
CAM cards are really for pay TV stuff, not upgrading AFAIK.

Some Pansonic CRT IDTV's had the capability to upgrade the firmware with the PCMCIA card slot. A card carrier in the form of a PCMCIA card (looked like a CAM) had a SD card inserted into it with the firmware update.