Smarter than a Smart TV! (Raspberry Pi Inside)

This thing isn't a TV; it's a display! It costs more than a smart TV, but it also doesn't spy on you, so that's nice.

Thanks to Sharp NEC Display Solutions of America for sending the display, speakers, stand, and Compute Module kit used in this video.

#RaspberryPi

Mentioned in this video:

Contents:

00:00 - Not a TV
01:22 - Everywhere but GameStop
02:20 - Raspberry Pi Inside
03:11 - MediaPlayer on the Pi
05:04 - RetroPie
05:32 - LibreELEC / Kodi
06:03 - Native Linux on a TV?
06:23 - Why so expensive?
07:27 - Gaming?
08:22 - Alternatives

[PaulGrayUK]

The lengths you go to buy a Raspberry Pi these days. Shucking TV's for RPi's may become a thing :).

[hikingpete]

The best feature of a display like this is that it doesn't come with all the malware that TVs ship with these days.

[gannas]

When we were up for our last TV purchase I was blown away that there are no "dumb" TVs available anymore. It's almost like these companies are selling our usage data and greed is making their decisions for them. /s
Thanks for the intro to this concept. I think this is pretty cool stuff and I like the concept of knowing what code is running on equipment that I own.

[phreakygbg]

The reason that you can use your remote is its using a CEC module to talk to the Pi. is a communications protocol built into the HDMI standard allowing CEC-enabled HDMI devices to exchange information and send/receive control messages.

[ran_red]

2:20 made me lol

"Not all of these displays run on a Pi" and shows BSOD. Well played.

[BenjaminSeuser]

We had these at my previous job, and they didn’t actually last longer than off the shelf standard consumer TVs. They basically lasted a bit past their 3 year warranty and started having backlight issues. They were run 24/7 as signage displays and had plenty of airflow around them. Meanwhile, there are several consumer model TVs that preexisted my employment there (more than 5 years ago) that are run 24/7 for the same purpose (meeting room listings, and digital signage) that are still running today

[Defiant]

It would be great if TV operating systems were more open along with the hardware, this has such modular setup potential. Imagine if you could wipe away 5-10 year old samsung/lg/whatever OS on older TVs and install a fresh lightweight linux option, would give them a lot more life and usefulness (or even just swap out the SoC). With big TVs like this there are lots of options for modular hardware, something like the bigger Intel NUC compute element could easily slot into one of these and be a powerhouse home theater option, hell the TV itself could be the home plex server...

[foxinrot]

5:41 about the remote working, as it's showing in the top right of the screen it's using cec or consumer electronics control, this is a protocol to have the display communicate with the connected device (the pi) over HDMI. LibreELEC also supports this when using other PIs connected via HDMI to a TV. (or at least the pi zero I have does)

[Chaphasilor]

Just FYI: the Pi 4 can definitely play back 4K videos, but they have to be encoded in h.265/HEVC for it to work.

[truerollers]

Yep, spent $13k on a display from them for a Hendrick dealership I worked at. Freaking amazing displays. Especially for outdoor use. Humidity didn't bother it, bright enough to display even with direct sunlight!

[iAmTheSquidThing]

I wish we could still buy "dumb" TVs, with no smart features, which could just have all their settings controlled by whatever media player box we're using.

[shotgeek]

I scored a used Panasonic commercial display recently for $35 (42") . works great and it's a
tank.

[lostyt]

2:07 I was tempted to buy one of these for like £50 from an e-waste recycler before. I would love to setup a giant touchscreen like that with Home Assistant in my home.

[scellyyt]

One of the departure boards in stanstead airport had a big raspberry pi logo on it a couple months ago, that was funny

[jeezusjr]

I had never imagined the TV of my dreams would also come with an RS-232 port! Time to break out the null modem cable!

[juststeve]

A lot of these types of display run centralised signage software to control the layout and content.
You can usually define an area of the screen to pick up live video streams from the network, like multicast or RTSP.
Needless to say, there are Linux based, open source, signage projects like Xibo you can use, so if you have a machine with a TV tuner card, you could stream TV across your LAN to your non-TV signage display.

[dronepilotflyby]

These NECs are also used 24/7 in manufacturing on large production lines, displaying multiple statistics to operators and supervisors, allowing them to see at a glance during their process adjustments spec readings in real time without being tied down to a workstation monitor.

[KlausWulfenbach]

I thought it was going to be a chore to find a non-smart TV to replace the one that just died, but I wasn't expecting that I would be replacing it with a store display. This is fantastic news!

[prozacgod]

It's almost jarring watching you do videos, and then see so much stuff from where I live. It's so rare to find a 'tuber that's in the area! I need to keep en eye out, maybe I'll bump into you on of these days!

[madkvideo]

This thing is great! Aside these enterprise displays, we need non-smart TVs to make a comeback!