Best of both worlds

Honestly I'd just be happy to have a TV without builtin "smarts". Let me use my own set to box! I feel like Im collecting TVs from the late 2000s

81

Just disable the networking and put the TV in game mode, which disables the smart stuff to give more processing power to the TV.

24
I went out of my way to get a "stupid" TV last time I had to get a new one because I didn't want the smart stuff. Probably wouldn't be possible now.

11
- It's not. I just don't connect the wi-fi. TVs usually enter a default state of "just go to the last selected input" which works fine for me.
  
  10
- Places like casinos are able to get the dumb TVs. Try to get a hold of one of them somehow. They use them to display their advertising.
  
  3
I love that the OS for my LG TV pretty much stays out of my way while I run everything through the Roku. The only time I see anything from the TV OS is the occasional small pop up letting me know it completed an update.

1

I will die on this hill too. I want dumb TVs to be a thing again. Just give me ALL the I/O and I'm good. I've got quite a few older TVs from my previous job, but sadly none of the ones I have have any sort of audio output. (No 3.5mm, no bluetooth, nothing.)

61

I want more than one flimsy button.

9
- What?
  
  -1
You can always buy a really really big computer monitor

1
Could you possibly tap into the speaker output inside the TV, and use it as a high output for an amplifier? Or possible get some kind of analog to digital converter perhaps?

1
- Permanently Deleted
  
  1

Found Technology Connections’ alt

35

Someone out there made an HDMI adapter for the Wii. I hacked my Wii about ten years ago so I could load it up with emulators. Old 16 bit games look fantastic on my OLED.

30

I still have a Wii with a custom launcher and a hard drive full of games lying around. I should use it again, there isn't another game quite like excite truck.

10
- Excite truck is amazing. Being able to put your own music in the game was (for lack of better phrasing) game-changing.
  
  1
How convenient, someone out there stole my HDMI invention for the Wii.

-3
- ...what?
  
  7

Who's L?

I wholeheartedly agree

22

8

I really miss the last generation of tube TVs to the early flat panels. Electronics of that time knew what I was about. They had composite ports on the front so that you could bring your PS2 over to your buddy's house and play Guitar Hero all night. It worked. And you could trust it to work.

I hate smart TVs and when my current "commercial signage TV that's not a smart TV but it still really wants to be connected to the internet* dies, I'm just gonna buy a monitor or do without.

17

I did that and I'm really happy I did. I bought a TV sized monitor and hooked up a Google TV. It's great and I'm hoping I'll be able to use the TV at least 10 years this way instead of it slowing down like crazy after 2 to 3 years. All I need to replace is the dongle.

3

I'm trying to figure out what to buy now because my TV from 20 years ago finally died. Can't find anything that's essentially a large monitor.

16

Hisense with Android TV or TCL with Roku seems to be the least bad of the smart TVs about ads, and you can easily not connect them to your WiFi. If you want smart TV functions, you can always hook a PS5 or XBX/S or OSMC PC to the TV with HDMI.

Hisense U8K this year has good reviews from rtings.com and is probably the best you can get without going into OLED territory.

7
- My parents have a couple of TCL televisions, and they kind of concern me. That product, for that price...it's got to come with botnet software out of the box. There's no way you're not aiding and abetting a fascist regime buying these suspiciously cheap TVs.
  
  2
Just buy a TV and don't connect the wi-fi for the smart capability. It's only 90% solved, but as long as it has HDMI inputs and a digital audio out it gets the job done.

6
- Just buy a TV and don't connect the wi-fi for the smart capability
  
  Some of these TVs will find an unsecured network within range to connect to, so they can still bombard you with ads.
  
  And (in my experience) they're still slow as hell. I press "power on" and have to go pour a drink or something while I wait for it to boot up, as if I'm warming up a radio in the 1930s.
  
  17
I know, I want the same.

5
Hisense U8 range is fantastic.

2

You're better off getting separate boxes to convert to HDMI. Digital TVs with analogue inputs need to convert and upscale the video, and even in TVs that cost a fortune those components are all really crappy. They'll make the video blurrier than on CRT TVs and game consoles will have input lag. Not everyone minds but it's worth knowing before you spend money on a TV.

12

OSSC (+ koryuu) or Retrotink are the best ways to do this today for anyone wondering. You will not find better upscaling built-in to any TV.

2

Just get an A/V receiver and plug it in over "insert modern version of HDMI here" and call it a day. I have like 7 consoles hooked up to my receiver all going to a 4K HDR TV. (It's a smart TV but it's completely disconnected from all networks)

11

I haven't thought about S-Video in a while

10

Long time ago there was a drawing of a cat, mapping out the different portions of a cat, like a butcher’s diagram, but…

The cat had an S-Video port for a butthole.

I don’t know why it had an s-video poopchute & I can’t seem to locate the image, but…

If you google “cat with s-video butt” the Animaniacs logo is a top result.

For some reason, that seems fitting.

Edit: I was incorrect. I was combining this image & this comic.

4
- S-Video is the port that I would keep encountering but never ever used
  
  3

My modern 4K TV has an AV input, unfortunately, for anything below 480p I need an upscaler.

9

I have a Toshiba crt with HDMI and everything before, I don't know what I'll do when it dies.

8

Which version of HDMI, though? (You can find out if you search for the model number.) It can cause issues with newer stuff if it's an old enough version.

3
- The manual says type a. I am curious I haven't heard of this issue before . It's a Toshiba 34HFX84
  
  2

I have a great Samsung tv that has all these ports. It's maybe a 2015?

The lag is noticeable on the old games... Anything I can do??

6

If you aren't aware already, most TVs have a dedicated "Game mode" that helps to sync the video and audio and reduce visual delay.

11
- Motion interpolation seems to be the main lag culprit.
  
  Makes it look like it's running at 120fps. Plays like it's running at 20.
  
  Switch that off and most modern 4K TVs are basically a monitor.
  
  This won't really help for really old analogue stuff though. Nothing will. It still needs to get the whole image before it can display it. Best you can do there (short of original hardware and a CRT) is emulate and use runahead to get a few frames back.
  
  2
- Permanently Deleted
  
  2
- I've searched on this Samsung and haven't found it :(
  
  1

Retrotink has been a life saver for me getting all my retro consoles hooked up to my new tv.

6

L, too, want to plug in anything L want...

5

I had a ~2008 Samsung plasma, it had all the ports and multiples of most. I finally got tired of waiting for it to die, it still had a great picture when I gave it away last year.

5

I have an old plasma from that era too. I really didn't expect it to last this long, or survive so many moves.

I play retro games on it now.

4

well, I like my OSSC so...

2

I definitely find myself hankering for a 4:3 monitor - I don't care if its CRT or not, but are there any 4:3 LCD monitors that have a decent dot pitch? I've been spoiled by modern LCD tech and late-stage CRT tech - all the 4:3 LCD screens I see feel fuzzy fuzzy fuzzy.

2

Yes but

Plasma good, LCD bad.

2