AppleTV is the media box to use if you hate ads and value your privacy. Its Home Screen is just a grid of apps. No ads. None. It’s also way faster (CPU speed) compared to the competition.

Replacing a smart TV OS with a device made by Google or Amazon defeats the purpose. You’re still going to get ads plastered all over your Home Screen. And they still lag and stutter unless you pay a premium price for an 5 year old Nvidia shield. Either use an AppleTV or build your own HTPC.

I haven seen my LG OLED’s smart OS for years.

My LG OLED TV can be configured to load directly into a HDMI input. I keep it disconnected from wifi at all times. I never see the smartTV OS. It’s probably the best option because OLED panels are the best current display technology.

I use an AppleTV as an external media box for all my needs. But the same would apply for an Android box or HTPC setup etc.

I just want posts or communities to have category tags for me to block by tag. So I can block all anime and every non-English community.

I have nothing against them. They’re just not of interest to me and I don’t want them on my feed. Blocking a community is mostly useless because there are so many of them it’s like playing whack a mole.

He needs to at least impale senators with the American flag.

https://youtu.be/W8imsr2WmEg?si=-AwvPodkhAWcyF3l

They are: https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/four-additional-states-join-justice-departments-suit-against-apple-monopolizing-smartphone

I’ve been in similar situations while renting. I ran ethernet cables along skirting boards and around doorframes and hid them inside adhesive cable raceways.

I dont understand why you want to keep a TV offline for privacy/ad reasons, but also say you’re using a Chromecast or Roku media devices anyway? Thats like wanting to keep your windows locked but leaving your front door wide open.

Anyway, LG and Sony OLED TVs offer the best image quality and will work just fine without an internet connection.

I have my LG TV offline and use an AppleTV for everything. I never see the LG OS or Home Screen or any ads or logos once it’s configured to boot straight into external HDMI device.

Apple lay out some details here: https://security.apple.com/blog/private-cloud-compute/

They control the cloud hardware. Information used for cloud requests is deleted as soon as the request is done. Everything end-to-end encrypted. Server builds are publicly available to inspect. And all of this is only used unless the on-device processing can’t handle a request.

If somebody wanted to actually create a private AI system, this is probably how they’d do it.

You can disagree with this or claim somehow that they are actually accessing and selling people’s data, but Apple are going out of their way to show (and cryptographically prove) how they’re not. It would also be incredible fraudulent and illegal for them to make these claims and not follow through.

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What made me lose interest was bad writing. “Andor” is a great Star Wars TV series, and I’m looking forward to its second season, because it has…let’s see…good fucking writing!

The realpolitik answer is that they’re the only country in the region with highly functioning western-style market economy. That is valuable to other functioning western style market economies. Its a system trying to help itself propagate.

There is a 16:9 “open matte” edition of blade runner 2049 floating around many torrent sites. Unfortunately it’s only 1080p SDR. But it does look great and is a neat way to rewatch the movie.

The Android market sort of split into cheap streaming sticks vs more expensive but niche boxes (like the Zidoo or Dune players). The former are meant for streaming but lack power. The latter are more capable players but often can’t stream from legit services due to DRM.

The Shield sits in this weird middle ground where it’s actually good for a variety of use cases….but unlikely to get an update due to small market demand.

Although I’d argue that unless you need atmos audio passthrough for Bluray rips…the AppleTV 4K is the best option these days. Super fast processor, no ads or bullshit in the OS, reliable frame rate matching, good track record of software updates and vendor support, and apps like Infuse which is a superb Plex and Jellyfin client. It’ll do 4K REMUX playback with lossless 7.1 audio, and the UI never lags…ever. Just a shame about no audio passthrough which prevents it from being an enthusiast player.

Singapore’s public transport system is fantastic. I lived there for 2 years and never felt like I needed a car. You only get one as a status symbol.

I just watch movies at home now with a surround sound system and large OLED TV. I can pause when I want, or split a movie over two evenings.

The delay between a movie coming from a cinema release to 4K streaming services (and the accompanying pirate copy) is down to around 4-6 weeks now. Which is an acceptable wait for me.