Staying 4x3 for as long as I can

I have no idea what the issue is, here. These features are enabled by default but can be disabled in the TV's menu. If you refuse to do so, I don't see how that's anybody else's issue but yours.

Also don't see the problem with having a manufacturer wanting to be the sole one to repair their own devices. Frankly, that's entirely unrelated to the topic you brought up which is the insinuation that even disabling the so-called spying "feature" won't actually disable it. Smart features are a completely different set of features that have nothing to do with listening to its users.

You're free to cling onto your beliefs but I'd recommend reading up on them to easily differentiate between features and what they do. I'd like to reiterate that there's only one sole "feature" which listens in on conversations. It's a verbal application set to allow people to verbally turn on and off the TV among other things, typically. Disabling this removes any more privacy issues.

 

Most (if not all) of that can also be disabled.

 

True, it's an "Opt out" privacy setting, which you can also do with smart TVs.

 

Beliefs? Try facts, pal. I'm not doing the semantics things on what constitutes "smart or spy" features. Buy these units with all sorts of Trojan Horses and no consumer protection if you want. Just don't tell me I don't know what I'm talking about. Been through it and I'm sure more will be going through it themselves soon.

PS if you find an OLED model devoid of any of this feel free to PM me. I'll wait...

 

Unless you're watching the content on a CRT, then everything that is interlaced will get deinterlaced when it hits your progressive scan plasma/LCD/OLED screen - if it didn't, you'd get combing artifacts. It's just a question who/where the deinterlacing is done (your local display hardware or a third party that converted the content to progressive scan).

The quality of deinterlacing depends on many things, including sometimes mislabeled fields leading to decoding errors.

 

What facts are those? Any reliable proven evidence you can provide?

 

If anyone wants to spy on me and the wife, they're more than welcone to. More often than not, they'll find me asleep, or having the age-old conversation of "What do YOU want for dinner? I don't know, what do YOU want for dinner?"

Kidding aside, our TVs have no camera device, and I can yell at it all day and it won't change channels or shut off or anything.

 

If I came over to your house and saw you had one of those old great big square tvs, I'd think you were the coolest person in the world.
Meanwhile, I've fallen so low as to sign over my fingerprint to Apple in order to unlock my phone...

 

Of course, I just dislike when someone deinterlaces the material and ends up stuffing up the 50 or 60 fields rate of VT material.

 

You can't possibly set the bar any lower.

 

Virtually all American TV shows have been shot at 24fps* since the very beginning. There are quite a few British series that have shot in 25fps. If you run a 24fps show at 25fps, it's not accurate.

It's amazing how these rumors get started. If you don't want any of these "Smart TV" features, then just don't hook the set up to the internet. Simple as that. Nobody's watching you, nobody's listening, nobody cares.

To give credence to part of what you're saying, I can recall seeing a network interview of Bill Gates in his old office at Microsoft, and in the background you could see he had covered up the built-in camera on his laptop with a piece of black electrical tape, which I thought was hilarious. So even he was very aware of the potential privacy issues with laptops, tablets, computers, everything. All you have to do to avoid this is just to use common sense. Me, I have no camera and no microphone hooked up to my computer, and I only connect internet cable to the set when I need to update firmware.

Note that if the government really wants to, they can track you on your phone and (on some cars) with the car's GPS. But there are ways around this, too, if you're really paranoid about it. Me, I don't worry about it and have nothing to hide; I just live my life, obey the law, and try to be reasonable.

* technically 23.976fps for technical reasons.

 

I'll show you something interesting: here's a music video I mastered back in the 1980s for Phil Collins' "Easy Lover." The interesting thing about it is that it was shot at 25fps since it was shot in London, but 100% of all the post was done in LA in normal NTSC 29.97. I got halfway through the job before realizing it was at the wrong speed (there were no notes on the slates or camera reports), and we had to go back and redo it from scratch. I think it looks fine, and even going from 25fps in a 29.97 NTSC world, the picture looks fine given it was shot on 16mm negative and transferred more than 3 decades ago.

 

Yeah, do you suppose that "Big Brother" is watching this board and noting who are the "nervous" types... Hmmm?

It does *look* fine, however, in that video, I instantly noted that it was sped up and double-checked it with my album version.

 

To say nothing of new devices that listen to your every utterance, all the time, like Alexa. Now that's creepy!

 

I used the track the guy from the record label handed me, so for whatever reason this is what they actually performed to. The performers heard it at this speed when they were on the set, so I dunno.

I'm already fighting with the Apple HomePod when it misinterprets something I say, and I have to tell it to shut the F up.

 

Cool artifacts.
Those small portable trinitrons.
Rowan& Martin rich color palette.

 

@AlmanacZinger Still waiting...

 

And to think I thought I was being retro by hanging on to a 720p Vizio TV because it fits in my old entertainment center (which is still necessary because it hold kid's toys and other stuff)!

The day I got a 16:9 TV was one of the happiest days in my life as regards TV watching. I came to hate old CRT's for how big and heavy they were and how they scrunched up widescreen movies. I have no nostalgia for the years of big-ass CRT TV's.

 

When the delivery men came to take my 70k wega( men " do you want the Sony taken away" me, YES!!!!).After setting up the new Panasonic 55STW50, one of the men said you don't want any screen larger for this room. The first film I watched was Dr.No DVD ( didn't have BD yet) I was stunned at the picture quality. Also the size of the screen was huge after a 32 incher( 55" now it seems kinda humble ). Don't have any qualms upgrading. If economics are a issue stick to what you've got (CRT) assuming you can still get a tv signal.

 

Is that a haiku?

 

CRT's? Good for throwing out of hotel rooms, that's about it.

The irony of a forum full of audiophiles who think nothing of spending $$$$$$$'s on cables but don't know how to get a TV calibrated or turn off smart features.

 

Even funnier (crazier?) is that displays have a known standard that can be measured and calibrated to. Sure, you still have to pick a good display to start with, and either learn or pay someone a few hundred (nothing compared to some of our audio gear ), but you can essentially have perfect quality video. As opposed to audio, where you're always "chasing" that last 10% improvement in sound quality.

 

5 minutes with the setup blu-ray that they gave you in the shop and a Huey-Pro will give you something servicable.