Um, @ Purism, I guess now we officially need a Librem 55-inch (Librem 139.7cm): Buying a TV in 2025? Expect lower prices, more ads, and an OS war. - Ars Technica
I doubt it would be a viable business idea:
Based on the article and previous information from this topic, people are willing to justify ad-infested televisions for a lower financial cost, even if it comes at the cost of privacy or peace of mind.
No doubt Purism would be able to make it profitable, with a Linux TV OS, and respect for privacy. 
Iâd settle for a large Purism wall-mounted monitor, even without the standard television functionality, though.
3 Likes
It doesnât even need that much developing. Iâve got one of those (still) at that size. Just re-manufacture an older classic that doesnât have OS or net connectivity. And if someone wants or needs âsmarterâ, then add a dongle (also by the same manufacturer - hopefully one that easily interacts with a Librem router and streams to Librem phone).
4 Likes
If you are confident that Purism can do it (easily), contact them:
Something that equally applies to an Android phone and other things. Itâs a proven business model i.e. pay for some of the cost with your privacy. The selling proposition then for a private TV is clear - you will pay more up front and your privacy will be respected.
Iâm not as gung-ho about this as @amarok is i.e. have the expertise to do it and can make it profitable. How much more would that up front cost be? There could come a time though when it at least should be investigated for feasibility.
Or even with net connectivity, it is easy enough to prevent all connectivity e.g. donât configure in WiFi details and donât plug in ethernet port. The trade-off is that you wonât get firmware updates.
2 Likes
My stupid-TV was getting updates via USB-dongle transferred files, so direct net connectivity is not needed for firmware either.
4 Likes
The household television in the family room is a Samsung UN70KU6290FXZC:
The last firmware update version is 1250.2 from November 4th, 2021, about five years after the initial version 1121.1 on June 25th, 2016.
Technically a 30-feet cable is 9.144 metres, whereas a 10-metre cable is about 32-feet 9.7 inches.
1 Like
Youâre straining at a gnat, you were supposed to swallow that camel!
3 Likes
I donât see how this would get me a large screen TV viewing experience. 
1 Like
I would think, ⌠(presuming the TV has an HDMI port and so does your laptop), I would think you can get any streaming service you can subscribe to.
Someone may shoot me down if Iâm technically wrong here. One may be stuck with the tinny audio of the laptop and not the TV. I havenât tried it yet, the cable is still in the bag.
4 Likes
Nah, HDMI carries audio too if you want.
2 Likes
Yeah, I already have this working with my present TV: miniLinuxPCwith BT&WiFi > HDMI > TV + external surround sound system + BT Logitech keyboard with trackpad as a âremote.â
Video streaming subscription via LibreWolf browser (with tracking protection), viewed on the TV screen. Surprisingly, the commercial video streaming service I subscribe to doesnât even require me to enable DRM and doesnât complain about my always-on VPN. 
VLC Media Player for viewing DVDs (or video files).
Although my present TV is not connected to the internet, someday it will likely die and need to be replaced. I would prefer something that hasnât gone all-in on evil. Hence my tongue-in-cheek reference to âLibrem 55.â
3 Likes
Just my 2 bits 100 bits (inflation) of yammeringâŚ
I am amazed at the number of people and what theyâll spend so they can watch commercials interrupted sometimes by a program.
After about 25 years of service, I lost my TV signals from Shaw Cable and after 3 months agreed that they simply cannot send a signal to my house any longer. I pulled the power cord off the wall and send the 36" (or 48" - canât remember - no matter) analog to the recycle.
When I realized that as a consumer, I help pay to create, and shove ads at us/me telling me I need to buy - buy and buy more of everything. I would have had to get rid of it one day anyway.
My deal with Shaw was a multi-plan - cheaper if I included Internet, Phone, and TV package. When I had to cancel TV they could no longer serve any longer, they upped the phone and Internet rates because âItâs not a package dealâ. It ended up costing me more for something I didnât have any more.
I went after them and months later, got a deal that worked out better. Then they sold us customers out to ISP Rogers. No more deals. Under a new digital slum lord (Rogers) I pay for âup toâ 1Gbps yet I get 25 Mbps and pay for 1Gbps. It now costs me $110.17 for Internet, and = $14+ more a month for 40% less.
Itâs the new way of doing business these days - pay for what you have - pay more for what you donât want.
Conclusion. I very rarely see any ads. My Internet speed usually was higher - near the 1Gb mark and now itâs 25Mp, but a visit from a tech will fix that. So I donât see me ever wanting anything to do with TV ever again. I quit smoking cigs about 35 years ago. I donât miss it, want it, and same applies to the commercial & spy TV.
Think of the money I saved with not buying a TV every time it grows a inch. I also saved the monthly robbery fee for loads of channels and their ads.
Think about it. Do you really need to spend all that money so the TV can learn more about you and pound you with commercials?
Done yammeringâŚ
~s
4 Likes
100 bits gets you 12 to 20 characters, depeding on the code you use and whether you use a parity bit.
2 Likes
For anyone reading your/my chat âbitsâ. Bits have been around a lot longer than binary bits and bytes. Two âbitsâ was understood to mean:
The term âtwo bitsâ originated from the Spanish dollar, also known as the peso or piece of eight, which was divided into eight parts called reales or bits. A quarter of the Spanish dollar was equal to two bits, or 25 cents. The term âtwo bitsâ is a holdover from colonial America when the Spanish dollar was the most common coin in circulation.
Quoted from Googleâs Artificial Idiot. (AKA AI)
or, you can accept âSunshine Farm and Gardensâ second choice by our friend Google:
Spanish dollars were deemed equivalent in value to a U.S. dollar. Thus, twenty-five cents was dubbed âtwo bits,â as it was a quarter of a Spanish dollar . Because there was no one-bit coin, a dime (10c) was sometimes called a short bit and 15c a long bit.
So, it was used to suggest âIn My Opinionâ⌠or two bits worth.
Isnât it great that we have so many truths to pick and choose from? (another 2 bits)
A side note - Tracy, ever search or Google for something on the 'net and there are several hits, all using the exact same description and realize that they all used the same source with the mistake in them?
~S
2 Likes
Yes I remember, having served 8 of my 30 years in the OSINT community.
Nowadays most of my bits come from a can with the marketing slogan âBitte ein Bitâ.
1 Like
Is this a case of reactionary instead of preventative technology design?
The idea of a TV when I was a child was that it was a screen with multiple possible input pipes.
Now, if people have âTVâ machines with cameras and microphones and a nonfree software stack and internet connectivity with automatic updates on that software stack and all this stuff⌠Looking at that stuff and thinking thus justifies, âWe need a libre version of the same thing!â seems like the kind of thinking from someone who was okay with compromising on their values in the first place.
For a person who never owned such a device, and focuses primarily on computers that respect the users freedoms, it makes sense to me that this niche might not exist. Either our society sells 55 inch monitors, or it does not. Attaching such a monitor to a Librem Mini or a Librem 14 would likely be a trivial matter. Controlling the Librem with a âremoteâ would probably also be easy to set up with some âremoteâ hardware. If the âremoteâ hardware, big screen, and computer are each available and libre, then someone could sell a bundle of all of them together quite easily and the idea that it is âhardâ to use multiple different devices for this purpose is thus an artificial or imaginary concern.
For example, when I was visiting family who owned a non-âSmartâ TV, I was able to plug my Librem 5 into the TV with a USB-C â HDMI adapter, then connect the Librem 5 over bluetooth to my Nexdock lapdock, and then sit on their couch using the laptop to control use of a web browser. At this point, I might the freedom-disrespecting choice to use a privacy-oriented chromium fork, and to visit nonfree JavaScript pages on that chromium fork, to watch content. But I could have watched VLC media player videos just as well, or some other thing. The need to supplant this tech stack and use âApple TVâ instead of the Librem 5, and âthe remoteâ instead of the bluetooth Nexdock â is that even a legitimate âneedâ at all?
4 Likes