[ILUG] re: Media player hardware recommendation (Ronan Mullally)

[Ronan Mullally]

On Mon, 25 Apr 2011, keith hyland wrote:

> another way of looking at this is skip the intermediate step and get a tv
> that knows about networks?

I considered that when I bought a TV before Christmas.  You pay a premium
for a "Smart" TV, only to discover that <TV Manufacturer>'s idea of
"Smart" tends to be pretty dumb, or at best inflexible.

Better to save significant money on the TV (which won't hurt as much
when it needs to be be replaced because $kid has thrown something through
it and can upgraded to something with a greater target area once $kid
improves their aim and learns the "value" of TV) then put the money into
standalone "Smarts".

I went for a fairly basic TV (plenty of inputs, no network functionality).
I splashed out on in a Blu-ray/PVR/"Internet" device from Samsung which I
hoped would replace the aging XMBC setup I've got, only to discover that
Samsung's idea of Smart was utterly labotomized.

I've come to the conclusion that to get what I want I'm going to have to
build it myself.  It won't save me any money, but at least I'll have the
opportunity to learn something along the way.


-Ronan