Confused by Smart TVs

[woots787]

Ps3s are £130 and give you DVD, blueray, iPlayer, itv player and 4od. Controller isn't as good as a remote but not too bad.

Edited by woots787 on Thursday 2nd January 10:34

[Chrisgr31]

We recently replaced our big old cathode ray TV with a Samsung 39" inch non-smart one. No point going smart as we have a Wii and a Youview box which between them do the SMART bits.

A

[briang9]

boyse7en said:

Still seems like a lot of faffing about just for a couple of catch-up services. Do you keep the PC permanently switched on, or do you have to wait for it to boot up every time you want to watch something?

How do you control the PC/laptop? Don't think I fancy sitting in bed trying to balance a mouse and keyboard on the duvet.

Smart TV is £299. Non-smart tv is £199
And can you (realistically) get a SFF PC or laptop, plus the wireless dongle, keyboard, mouse and cables etc for less than £100?

I'm sure it is the most flexible and future-proof solution, but it still seems like a lot of faff! Prepared to be convinced otherwise mind..

PC gets switched on when required and boots up quickly, you can get some neat, small wireless keyboards with built in mouse pad for around £20 so not really much of a faff. As you say the numbers probably dont add up as you will also need a sound bar, TV and PC permanently connected to it and it also has bluetooth for your romantic tunes should the need arise, also has a remote, but as you say it is pretty future proofish. We got a 40" tv and sound bar in sales, and a decent spec PC on the bay (sorry yes I did mean small form factor), secret is to get one with an upgrade to the graphics card, all in including the stand keyboard etc around £400, the PC obviously plays DVD and CD too if needed and brings the whole interweb to your bedroom!!

Edited by briang9 on Thursday 2nd January 23:33

[BlueMR2]

woots787 said:

Ps3s are £130 and give you DVD, blueray, iPlayer, itv player and 4od. Controller isn't as good as a remote but not too bad.

Edited by woots787 on Thursday 2nd January 10:34

Sony do a remote for the PS3.

Also some of its features can be controlled by tv remotes depending on your tv.

Edited by BlueMR2 on Friday 3rd January 02:38

[Road2Ruin]

BlueMR2 said:

ony do a remote for the PS3.

Also some of its features can be controlled by tv remotes depending on your tv.

Edited by BlueMR2 on Friday 3rd January 02:38

Yep, my panasonic remote can control the PS3 as does my brother in law's samsung remote. You need to enable the facility on both the TV and the PS3 though.

[Jinx]

Got myself one of these from Tesco Direct for £250 as a replacement for my CRT that died.
Agree with the review that the interface can be a bit slow but works fine and isn't that much slower for catch up than the Virgin/Tivo box I have it connected to.
I have it plugged directly into a router so can't measure how well it performs wirelessly but seems to have all the bells and whistles and the image isn't bad either.

[AudiWurst]

boyse7en said:

Smart TV is £299. Non-smart tv is £199
And can you (realistically) get a SFF PC or laptop, plus the wireless dongle, keyboard, mouse and cables etc for less than £100?

Get a non-smart TV and a £10 Now TV box, if all you want is iPlayer.

The Now TV box is compact, cheap, and simple to use. Their pricing model is set up with expectation that you'll spend money on pay per view Sky channels, but if you say no to these, it's fantastic value.

http://reviews.cnet.co.uk/video-streamers/sky-now-...

[bobclive]

Buy a £28 Raspberry PI mini computer (credit card size) and through XBMC you will have access to thousands of films and apps like BBC Iplayer, ITV player etc, It streams at 1020p and uses less than 5 Watts to run, nearly 3 million have been sold.

[OllieC]

BlueMR2 said:

woots787 said:

Ps3s are £130 and give you DVD, blueray, iPlayer, itv player and 4od. Controller isn't as good as a remote but not too bad.

Edited by woots787 on Thursday 2nd January 10:34

Sony do a remote for the PS3.

Also some of its features can be controlled by tv remotes depending on your tv.

no experience of a PS3 but an Xbox360 can do this also (but not blue ray)

we decided it was the best way to add catch up TV like Iplayer, Sky Go etc to our bedroom.

[g3rrd]

Rumpelstiltskin

[StevenB]

Another vote for John Lewis got my Samsung 32" Smart TV from this year less than £300 and a free 5 year warranty

[Murph7355]

bobclive said:

Buy a £28 Raspberry PI mini computer (credit card size) and through XBMC you will have access to thousands of films and apps like BBC Iplayer, ITV player etc, It streams at 1020p and uses less than 5 Watts to run, nearly 3 million have been sold.

They're not £28 when you add on everything you really need to use it as a media centre (case, power supply, remote control etc)...and I'm far from convinced about the stability of mine in terms of leaving it switched on and expecting it to function perfectly every time I want to use it. I also have question marks over its networking ability to stream seamlessly (which may be down to the connection it has to be fair - more testing to be done ).

In contrast, a hacked Apple TV is significantly more stable, and not radically more expensive like for like. Something like a Minix 8H would probably stack up quite well too.

[RichTT]

Buy the google chromecast dongle. It's like £30 and plugs straight into an HDMI slot. Then you just download whatever apps you want onto your phone. You can 'broadcast' any compatible android app onto the screen. Here's the full list:

https://www.google.co.uk/chrome/devices/chromecast...

[FlossyThePig]

RichTT said:

Buy the google chromecast dongle. It's like £30 and plugs straight into an HDMI slot. Then you just download whatever apps you want onto your phone. You can 'broadcast' any compatible android app onto the screen. Here's the full list:

https://www.google.co.uk/chrome/devices/chromecast...

If you don't have an Android or iOS device get a Roku Streaming Stick it's more expensive (£49.99) than the Google thing. It has all the catchup channels from BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5.

https://www.roku.com/uk/what-is-roku

If you want something cheaper there is the Now TV box for £9.99, which is a Roku 1 with different firmware.

http://www.nowtv.com/box

[king arthur]

I was going to say Roku too.

[ScottJB]

Just buy a £10-15 Now TV box to turn a non SMART TV into a SMART TV. You don't have to set up a subscription for the pay to view content (sky movies/ent package/sports) but the box is preloaded with all the catch up apps (iPlayer/ITV/4OD/5 on demand). Youtube aswell which you can pair with your phone for easy searching. You'll also get a few months free of Sky content if you buy wisely.

Runs on wi-fi, connects via a single cable (HDMI) and the unit is slim enough to tuck behind the edge of a wall mounted bedroom telly.

[boxst]

I personally like Amazon Fire TV, you get all the catch-up services, access to Prime (Lovefilm) if you have it and you can put Kodi (aka XBMC) on there.

[Jonny_]

I bought a Sony smart TV last year. Was a toss up between it and the equally-priced (£500) Panasonic. The Sony interface is a bit more awkward to navigate but it had a noticeably better picture (I tried them side by side in John Lewis!). The equivalent Samsung had such a poor picture in comparison that I didn't pay much attention to its Smart feature.

For some reason Sony TVs don't support 4OD, which is inconvenient at times. Weirdly there is a 4OD app on the PS3, though.

[Bobley]

I've got an 18 month old 40" Sony HD Smart TV in the living room with a PS3 plugged in and a BT Box. The PS3 interface is much better than the TVs own (assuming I'm using the dedicated PS3 media remote) and I cant be bothered with the BT box.

Last week I picked up a 22" full HD Samsung 22H5610 for the garage and I've got to say its brilliant. Full 1080 HD on a latest gen screen is ridiculously sharp. The Smart Hub function on the remote does all the catch up channels, the iPlayer is very slick, it does Netflix and Amazon which are both great value and it also finds all my videos and media content on other PCs and network drives so I can play videos and music too. It also homes in on all my favourite channels on YouTube and the quality of the HD live feeds from the recent UCI Cyclocross races would make you think you were watching a BluRay.

UE32H5500 for £249 at Currys?? Got to be worth a look.

[Craigybaby69]

That samsung 5500 seemed to be sold out everywhere, currys, tesco, Argos etc for the first couple of weeks of jan...glad I was patient though, finally got one this week, it's great. Built in freeview HD, 1080p, all the main 5 channels on demand, built in Skype, internet etc...fantastic. £269...great value for money.