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TV software

This will be mostly about buying a new tv and how to play movies on it the easiest way.

Action :

  • measure current tv hight
  • buy a tv
  • create closet and tv stand
  • tryout dev tools for webOS
  • tryout tv apps outside of the appstore
  • download best resolutions

OS versions

I already have an LG which uses webOS as operating system. Which is working ok.

The flavours are, in the order of this site : https://www.pocket-lint.com/smart-tv-platforms-ranked/

  • SmartCast (Vizio) (too much ads)
  • Apple's tvOS (minimal ads)
  • Fire TV (Amazon, many ads)
  • Roku TV (increasing ads)
  • Tizen (samsung) (moderate ads)
  • google TV
  • WebOS (LG) ad's low

This again strengthens my choice for LG and webos. I also want to buy a cheap tv for the office maybe that could become a candidate for another os.

TV systems currently.

We need to decide what OS to use but also how to format content to be played on various devices. For instance there will probably be different resolutions involved. An inventory.

Monitors and tv's :

  • Philips monitor : 272S (2560x1440)
  • Philips monitor : Brilliance 272B (2560x1440)
  • Samsung monitor : Samsung LU28R550UQPXEN 28" 4K Ultra HD IPS monitor (3840x2160)
  • Philip 231T : cheap monitor bought at thrift shop, this is full-hd (1920x1080)
  • TV : Samsung UE40D6500 Full-HD 40 inch
  • LG bedroom : 32LQ63006LA (32 inch) Full-HD

So the samsung already seems to be ultra-HD which is probably what we want. Note that these are all in the same ratio, occupy the same line in this image https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_common_display_resolutions#/media/File:Vector_Video_Standards8.svg

Full HD : 1920x1080 (W)QHD : 2560x1440 4K UHD : 3840x2160 5K UHD : 5120x2880 8K UHD : 7680x4320

We probably need to aim for 4K UHD, since there is (almost ?) no content in 8K (or 5K ?).

The philips monitor might be used to test some videos ?

Also we need to be able to provide hires movies for downstairs and lores for upstairs. Is that possible with minidlna ??

monitor information

When we plug in the samsung monitor, nothing much happens. See if we can detect it without rebooting (yes !)

I tried 2 things and it worked.

sudo xrandr --auto

This showed no change but maybe it did something, to actually detect the samsung turn it off and on again.

Now we can show info with the Monitor preferences dialog (System->preferences->hardware->Displays), make and resolution will be available there.

If we need more info try : 

xrandr # terse 
xrandr --prop  # more elaborate

dlna server

Can a dlna or similar server present content of different resolutions. Started testing with jellyfin, since that seems to be more extensive.

Jellyfin is installable directly from apt, and the web interface is at

http://localhost:8096

From there you can import the /data/Videos library etc. You can also play from the web interface which also mentions transcoding.

We could also try installing different client on the TV.

  • plex : did work once, but now it is broken
  • kodi : ?
  • jellyfin : ?

Note also that on the web that there are complaints about the tv cpu being too weak. Is that a thing to watch out for ? !

Also it mentions rooting the TV !! : (see)]https://github.com/RootMyTV/RootMyTV.github.io] But this is based on a vulnerability that was fixed in 2022 so it will probably not work !!

There is interesting content on that page though, for instance you can acquire development access, but it needs renewal if you have 50 hours (2 days) of inactivity.

Also it mentions webOS content that did not reach the app store.

https://repo.webosbrew.org/ : containing

  • kodi
  • jellyfin
  • youtube adfree !!