LCDs do tend to speak somewhat standardised languages, but there is a lot more to a modern TV than just an LCD controller.
Color and white balance calibration, image/motion processing, HDR Processing, backlight control/dimming zones, input management, audio decoding/encoding/passthrough, digitizing analogue sources, HDMI licencing, Dolby licencing, etc.
If you want a better smart TV the best thing to do is to get a hackable TV like most android based models, replace the launcher, strip out system apps and telemetry with ADB and start fresh, then either leave it offline or use filtering to only allow access to the services you approve.
Not sure if there's a list, but most Android based TVs can be cleaned and modded to some degree via ADB.
If you can access the dev settings in android, chances are you can do a lot to make it better, strip out some google or branded packages, replace the launcher to block OS level ads etc. Projectivy usually works well since it supports input switching on many devices, but it's still better to do all of this to a separate box and then plug it into a TV that is firewalled/filtered/offline. more control and less to fuck up.
Rooting and unlocking bootloaders is more complex as these android devices dont have normal recovery systems and require a lot of custom drivers to make the video and audio processing work, so it's not worth going that far.
I have rematched controllers to displays in the past. It's neither simple nor easy. You'll need to dig through spec sheets to ensure you're sending the correct signals over the correct pinouts, at the correct frequencies and voltages. Be prepared to read some IO documentation for the sending and receiving chipsts, then verify pinouts with certainty. They are not always standard.
Here are 2 identical LCDs, with 2 very similar, nearly identical looking controllers. Note that one needed to be re-wired. It is not fun butt-connecting 2 dozen 28ga wires.
The in-rush of endorphins when the modded LCD thing actually worked probably knocked you out?
A bit of a side story: I disassemble probably 1–5 panels in a week. (For recycling, it takes about 20-45min per panel.) The flat cables alone are so flimsy, I would say just assembling a display again from known, matched and functional parts would take days. I would triple or quadruple that to assemble a display from random parts. Considering this, that modded panel is quite amazing to me.
In standalone panels, the PSU has a chance of killing you: the main capacitors can hold multiple joules worth of nope, charged to about 400v. So, if the main caps are not allowed to discharge (if they discharge at all that is), there is a possibility of death when disassembling a panel with an integrated PSU. Waiting "5min" is bad; a PSU needs to be unplugged for a day or two at least before the charge drains out.
I was a poor college student and had access to engineering samples from a local manufacturer. Discarded parts gave me twin 15" LCDs for free in the mid 00's. Also, to see if I could. It was a fun challenge. These are different revs of a controller that were outfitted in several slot machine prototypes. They gave me many years of service. I probably still have inkjet prints of the pinout and signal diagrams, somewhere.
I think it depends on what level the smart aspect is implemented and how integrated it is. Screen technology has been getting more and more locked down by corporate privateers/thieves.
I mostly tried hacking on small displays, and finally gave up as it was over my head. There is a whole lot going on in various layers and protocols. My rule would be to only buy a product like this if I can find a functional example of someone using my exact hardware with this exact hack in question.
In my experience, prototyping or hacking around with displays is a losing game because they are not constructed for handling like this. You must go to extremes to avoid placing strain on the flex ribbon connections and must be very careful about taking the thing apart to test with it disassembled. It only takes a tiny mistake to damage something that can not be repaired. They are usually sensitive to small nonsense too. These are fast parallel circuits. I stay away from them, but maybe I'm just being soft.
In short, this is one of those questions where if you have to ask the answer is no. It may be possible but unless you have a spare TV laying around that you don't mind breaking it's not a good idea to try. The best advice I have for any modder is to have multiples of whatever you're modifying on hand.
"How much of my internet bandwidth does Amazon Sidewalk require?"
"Very little. Sidewalk’s connectivity is distinct from your home Wi-Fi. If you choose, however, to enable Sidewalk on your eligible Bridge devices, those devices would use a small amount of internet bandwidth."
This sounds like it still needs your internet to work unless I'm missing something.
Do these show up as networks on devices, or are they kind of hidden? I've looked before and never seen any open wifi around my house, but I am near a mall and lots of shopping.
Some smart TVs require you to connect them to the Internet before you can even use them with HDMI. It's a changing world. This post has a lot of interesting comments.
Provide the citation please because the last one you mentioned to me was about a return that you heard about while standing in line at Wal-Mart about a rok/tcl tv, which btw which you don't need to do any of that to use it.
Every one I have encountered only requires that for use of the smart TV features. And if you have one that requires Internet just to use HDMI to connect to a device, your TV is 100% spying on you and you should return it.
I have a WebOS TV and I absolutely hate how slow it is. Turning on takes a long time. Selecting apps takes a long time. Flipping channels takes a long time. Did we forget how fast TVs from the 90s were??
I’ve got a crappy Samsung knockoff with its own shit version of android that constantly switches inputs on its own and tries to load the home screen all the time. When the Xbox or PS5 is plugged in it will do that, when it’s HDMI into the laptop it doesn’t so YMMV but you should be ok.
Apropos of your first sentence, I have an odd question for anyone. The tv updated itself and now will try to turn off every hour or so due to some android power save, while I’m playing a game. I have to use the actual tv remote instead of the receiver which runs the inputs and volume. Can’t figure out how to turn that off, help!
Also, fuckin fantastic name Mr President. You and my cousin should hang out
I've been using a Visio smart tv and a Fire smart tv, well smart for it's time at least, and I've never had any issues with it since it's never been connected to a network.
Smart TV's run automatic content detection on all their inputs. You will also be nagged to put the device online relentlessly, and some models will not let you skip internet connectivity.
Also, only do this if it's a passion project for learning, because the odds that it works out the gate, and doesn't require multiple repurchases, are very slim.
The odds that you never quite get it to work right, or at all, very high.
If you're sure you want to do this, start by reading the technical documentation to get a grasp of which parts might, or should, work together, and how. Do this before making any purchases.
If that doesn't sound appealing, then buy an "digital signage" or "enterprise/business class" TV, or find a dumb consumer TV, new or used.
huh i wonder, if the answer is "yes" or "somewhat yes" is it a valid alternative to replacing the power supply in my tv?
i got one for free with a busted psu, but the power supply board is extremely rare (i only ever saw two listings of it, one on AliExpress and one on ebay, both just one piece left and for higher price than a new used tv; similar boards are like 5 times cheaper)
basically, unless i could find an alternative solution like that, I'm throwing it away
This comment reminds me of an episode of Pawn Stars when the son bought a very rare and expensive bike to fix up. The dad gave him hell saying if the bike is so rare and expensive, where are they going to get parts!?
I think you will need a power supply for your panel in addition to a driver board like this. This only provides the signals needed to switch the pixels but not the power to drive them. Some of these include backlight drivers but even then I think you would probably need more current for a TV than these provide.
Why go through all of that when you can just block network access, or not even connect it at all? Hell, just get a Blocklist that includes the bad URLs for your TV you don't want it using, and run it on AdGuard or Pihole. Lots of easier ways to work around this.
Unfortunately some TVs pester you when they can't get internet access, or will even attempt to connect to any open WiFi networks in range.
Some have offline ads or can't boot straight to an input, too.
Then there's Amazon trialing having Amazon-powered TVs automatically connecting to any Alexa devices and using them to gain internet access.
I'm not saying OPs suggestion is the best one, for most TVs, what you suggest works very well. But it's good to have more options, particularly as the market continues to get more and more locked-down.
Even aside from all that, if you could replace the controller board, that would open up other possibilities - potentially adding DisplayPort to a TV, for example. Or retrofitting FreeSync if the panel supports it. Or even just plain TV repair without having to pay through the nose for a part you can only get from Samsung/LG/Sony/etc.
Just not feasible though. Smart TVs have everything in an integrated line, from the screen controller, down to the external ports. It's like saying "Hey, I just want to take the North Bridge out of my motherboard because I don't use the features". Not gonna happen.
Now, in an alternate universe, if somebody went down this route and made replacement parts to remove all the cruft, you'd essentially be buying an entire new TV. There is no cost savings there. Buy a monitor, and hook up whatever smart shit you want at that point.
Why go through all that when you can just build a time machine and go back in time to be in the boardroom when someone presents the concept for a smart TV and then hide under the podium and tickle their genitals to distract them during the presentation and then spend the next 20 years in prison for sexual assault where none of the televisions have smart features?
I would be interested in trying this but could I just lock everything except Netflix & Disney? Or have it one way and Keep my streaming but not have anything go from my tv back out?
Yeah, if you want to get fancy with your routing, you absolutely can.
I'm considering doing just that, having my TV and whatnot connect to a wireless SSID that only allows DNS to lookup certain streaming services. I'm not sure how difficult it'll be, but I'll probably play with it later this month.
The sensible approach is to get an Android TV device that you have more control over. You basically have the same freedom with it as with an Android phone or tablet. Plug it into the TV and use the TV only as a monitor/speaker.
Warning: Do not buy cheap Chinese off-brand Android TVs from drop-shipping hellholes like Amazon. These commonly come with malware from the factory. Invest in a quality device with the features that you need.
If you're on a budget, it's possible to make do with a Fire TV Stick, which are often on sale for next to nothing - just don't expect blistering performance or a good UI. They are still Android underneath that awful UI though. You have to fight Amazon's attempts at funneling you towards their own content, but it's doable.
If you want a device that you can easily use for a long time without having to worry about it getting obsolete, get an Nvidia Shield TV or Shield TV Pro. Pricey, but - in my eyes - worth it. At first glance, these may look like every other streaming box, but they justify their relatively high asking prices. For starters, the support for these devices is astonishing, with even the first generation from 2015 still receiving updates. While the current hardware generation is from 2019, it has features you can't get anywhere else, like for example real-time AI upscaling of low-res content in certain apps and (on the Pro model) the ability to serve as a media server instead of just a client:
Hook a storage device up to it (or mount your NAS), add media to them (digitize your home media collection or acquire media from other sources), and use the Plex server application to turn this tiny thing into your own private Netflix that never sees anything delisted. It has enough power to allow you to watch video locally and, at the same time, transcode (=turn media into a format the other device can handle in real-time) up to two more videos (depending on the video files) for other devices in and outside of your home network. This means you could watch something on your TV and at least one other person could watch content you have curated (they don't need a Shield TV - Plex clients are on a wide variety of devices). Given that this is a device that fits into the palm of your hand and needs less than 10W, that's quite astonishing.
So, "yes", but also no. You'll lose the calibration panel for your display, and the result will probably be unwatchable.
You're much better off buying a display which is un-smart to start with. These are often called "commercial displays". Or of course you could just buy a monitor.
What you want is a "commercial signage display". They usually have all the modern display features because they're intended to make products look good, and they're generally well built because they're meant to be on all day.
They cost more than similar TVs because they're not subsidized by smart TV shovelware and data gathering.
It's hard because the advertising somewhat subsidies the price.(Ie: they want the ad revenue so they will sell the display at cost with the intention that they'll make all the profit back from ads)
Yo can absolutely find commercial displays in that size and resolution, but you'll pay a much higher price for them.
My Vizio smart TV's smart features won't work if you don't accept the terms of use. HDMI inputs worked though, and probably TV tuner... didnt try it. I eventually accepted of course, but that might be an option for you.
reminds me of this video that shows how they reverse engineered the macbook touchbar display and made their own driver. I bet a tv is harder, but I've wondered the same thing, and would be interested to see someone try.
if it's dark, or you like black looking like not black. Yes.
You should probably find a way to cover those windows so that it's dark in that room, if you were to use a projector, which thankfully, isn't very hard.
This is one of the downsides of having a projector, the darkest black that you can get, is based on the darkness of the environment you're in. Which can lead to contrast issues sometimes, but if you good light regulation, it's fine.
So if anyone is interested I found the answer to my question. There seems to be two standards for LCD panels and there are these cheap converters for both of them.
They are made for laptops, and I am sure they work there. There was a post here about 15days ago asking about unsmarting TVs but it has been deleted. That got me thinking about this solution.
Those boards you find on ebay are for driving laptop and tablet displays, not TVs. I doubt there is going to be an eDP or DSI connector in a TV.
The best options are to just never connect a TV to the internet, use a large computer monitor, or buy a commercial display if you don't care about picture quality.
There are some amazing projectors available these days and they don't seem to be crippled by smartification. There are some cool homebuilt projectors that are made of bright light sources and old cell phone screens to, if you want to learn.
Alternatively, you could also get a 40+” monitor. Avoid Samsung, because nowadays they are really pushing their spyware everywhere, including displays. Some other brands should be fine though.
Yeah, I am definitely going to open up my $400 tv and replace the LCD controller with this sketchy piece of hardware instead of, checks notes, just not activating any of the smart features and not connecting the TV to the internet at all.
Here's an idea for you, don't buy a Roku TV. Visio is pretty much the exact same price and you can just not use the smart features and just connect HDMI.
Am I missing something here? Why in the hell would I try to jam this into a TV, something that's not trivial btw and more than likely not compatible vs just not connecting the blasted thing to the network? Do they come with cellular data you can't turn off or something?
Because some people don’t like the bloated ‘smart’ operating systems on their tvs or how they operate. I.e. input lag when pushing buttons, showing ads or other stupid bullshit.
Tbh I’d rather have a large stupid lcd panel that just turns on and shows whatever I plug into it via hdmi.
The only alternative to replacing the board are commercial displays, but those are very expensive.
Seems unnecessary surly just plug in a raspberry pi into the HDMI port and never connect the TV to internet u can probably flash some version of android TV onto the pi and all set.
The samsung TV that I bought for my son had this annoying overlay thing that pops up when you turn it on that shows all the different inputs and nags about various things it thinks are wrong with the world. It is plugged into an Nvidia shield that we do most things on, but you can't use the shield until the overlay calms the fuck down and disappears.
It'd be great if you could just have the thing turn on and display an input like our older TVs do.
If there's a TV repair / electronics repair shop in your area -- someone who works with contemporary flatscreens -- I wonder if you could reach out and make the ask? They probably have a sense of which generic controllers they would use.
I don't think anyone repairs these things anymore. I found two dumped in the desert, one with its controller and power supply boards removed and one that was complete.
I got interested in this when the previous poster asked the question. Going down the rabbit hole I think I have my answers. Avnet has some good info on the mipi interface for consumer devices. It's been very interesting and I do see it as a path to building good, cheap, large displays.
its doable with tablet and laptop screens but you need to know the exact model of the display-panel (not just the tv), i will get a large monitor if my current non smart TV from 2015 dies.