[mythtv-users] Smart TV Advice

[John Pilkington]

I see that this exchange was off-list.  Reposting.  Again!

My comments below relate to the firestick with mythtv.  As I said 
earlier, it also offers lots of apps to connect to other services. 
Enjoy/Beware.

On 07/07/2020 17:02, Paul Gardiner wrote:
> On 07/07/2020 16:54, John Pilkington wrote:
>> On 07/07/2020 16:20, TimP wrote:
>>> On 2020-07-07 16:13, Adam Skinner wrote:
>>>
>>>> Hi List,
>>>> I've got a fairly good myth setup in multiple rooms with some intel 
>>>> NUCs. All working pretty well.
>>>> I want to add a brand new TV for a kids bedroom and am looking at 
>>>> recent smart TVs for sale in the UK. Theres android , tizen , webOS 
>>>> and whole host of other smart OS's.  Minefield for the uneducated.
>>>> The kid wants youtube and some other net apps - but access to 
>>>> MythTVs recordings / videos would be welcome. UPNP I guess is the 
>>>> (bad) default option. UPNP is bad as it doesn't sort well , takes a 
>>>> long time  , doesn't seek and is prone to crashing.
>>>> The Wife wants ITV Hub - but that doesn't seem to work on most 
>>>> things and if it does I wouldn't trust ITV to not remove it in a few 
>>>> months.
>>>> If anyone has any experience of Smart TVs working with MythTV  - 
>>>> please could you post a reply?
>>>
>>> Our Sony became dumb a while ago, BBC IPlayer was the first to go 
>>> then gradually others. I would go for a monitor and soundbar with an 
>>> nvidia shield. You can always replace the shield with the latest 
>>> gadget when it goes stale.
>>>
>>> Cheers,
>>>
>>> Tim.
>>
>> A dumb tv and an Amazon FireTVstick 4k might be worth a look, although 
>> the remote has few buttons.  Lots of apps. Has mythfrontend and 
>> 'leanfront', also for mythtv, which can give excellent playback but 
>> struggles with the formats of much UK tv.   I suspect it isn't what 
>> you want, but as an Amazon marketing tool it's cheap and support might 
>> last longer than some other options.
> 
> Off topic I realise, but seemed a good chance to ask: do you know what 
> is the situation with frame-rate matching on the latest FireTV Stick 4K? 
> I have an old Fire TV box and I'm wondering whether that aspect has 
> improved. I have to perform strange contortions with the remote to get 
> 24fps from a hidden menu.
> 
> Paul.
> .
When I switch ny tv to the FireTVstick 4k's hdmi input, it says it's 
1080p 60 Hz.  I'm using 'leanfront'.  I have the device Settings/Display 
and Sound/Display/Match Original Frame Rate ON with Video Resolution at 
Auto.  Playback of pure 1080p content looks good to me, but most DVB-T2 
content can switch between p and i 'at random' and may freeze.  mpeg2 
often pauses at around 1 s intervals, which might be a frame rate 
problem.  The menu info says that 'supported apps' will use the native 
content frame rate.

At present I can't use the stick's standard mythfrontend because Peter's 
current build is for 31-fixes and Master has has schema updates; 
previously playback didn't fail but tended to judder during panning 
shots.  I don't know if that's a frame-rate thing.  It's much the same 
with linux nVidia nvdec playback.   DLNA is smoother, and leanfront with 
appropriate content.

Definite maybe.

John P