[off-topic] TV or not TV, that is the question

[gavinwc]

Brilliant! Thanks, Dan.

I had such devices completely off my radar and had been searching
fruitlessly for a cheap external TV tuner in a dongle form rather than a
set-top box. When I expanded my search to your suggested "set top box" I
found several such devices under $50 and available in-store locally. Thank
you. That's a "dah" to me and why I knew asking others would help :-)

BTW: Your setup you describe is not alien to me and have done that myself
before. And, while I like the simplicity of what I've had for about 10
years (a fanless raspberry-pi running libreelec for kodi dedicated to the
TV), my most recent thoughts are to also have a setup with computing
activities available on a much more powerful i5 or i7 miniPC to also lie
back in bed with my wireless keyboard and wall-mounted 43" screen rather
than balancing a 17" laptop on my lap.

Hope everyone has a safe 2024.

Best regards,
Gavin Chester



On Sat, 30 Dec 2023 at 16:48, Dan Buzzard <dan at danscomp.net> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I just have a Ubuntu PC plugged into my TV with wireless keyboard and
> mouse and just use it to watch media like I would on a laptop or at my desk.
>
>  I don't watch TV. But if I did then a TV set top box would be the way to
> go.
>
> https://www.jbhifi.com.au/products/blaupunkt-btv3stb-full-hd-set-top-box
>
>
> These devices are meant to allow old TVs to receive modern digital
> broadcast and from what I've seen most of them haven't gone "smart" yet.
>
> -Dan
>
>
> On Sat, 30 Dec 2023, at 3:44 PM, gavinwc wrote:
>
> Hi People,
>
> Season's greeting to you all, even non-Christians and atheists like me :-)
>
> This is a very pedestrian question from someone who has been quietly
> lurking for nigh-on 25 years now with very little to say over that time,
> but I respect your collective experience for a source of good advice -
>
> Problem: I abhor any "smart" device, phones, fridges, TVs, etc. But, we
> have decided to be decadent and get a new TV. Our existing dumb TV is long
> in the tooth and faulty, but I have long augment its features with
> streaming services via a raspberry-pi/kodi setup. All I really want to do
> is upgrade that sort of system, maybe substituting the pi box with a more
> powerful mini-PC like an Intel NUC, or something similar so I can also lie
> back and do a bit of web browsing occasionally.
>
> But, where are all the "dumb" TVs these days!?
>
> I know this dilemma is the stuff of many wasted bytes and pixels online,
> but my searching for solutions is proving very time-consuming with many web
> pages outdated. I know I can supposedly not activate the TV's smart
> features, and have done that in the past, but other family members soon
> couldn't cope and activated them anyway. Besides that, I don't trust that a
> deactivated smart TV is just sitting there as a fully passive receiving
> device of free-to-air broadcasts.
>
> At this stage, because I'm also looking to do some computing operations,
> I'm looking at a cheap IntelNUC mini-PC mated to a BIG UHD monitor (eg,
> Dell 43"), but such a setup lacks a TV tuner for free-to-air reception.
> External TV tuner dongles also seem to be a dying thing these days and web
> pages are mostly outdated. What to do?
>
> Best regards,
> Gavin Chester
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