I’m personally thinking of just plugging a decently capable little media PC into the display, using KDE’s “big screen” interface with KDE Connect as a remote. I’m pretty sure I could train my family on that…
Then there are fairly good projectors for like $80 or less
Um. You and I have a very different idea of “fairly good”. The only good projector I’ve used (at work, not my own) cost $12,000. It’s overkill for a home theatre, but not by a wide margin.
If you want a projector as bright as a TV you could buy for 20 bucks at a goodwill store, you need to spend quite a bit of money on it… especially if you also want decent black levels and of course significantly larger than a cheap LCD (otherwise why get a projector).
You also forgot sound. Good speakers aren’t cheap either. And you definitely don’t want the sound coming from the projector itself. Or from your laptop speakers.
Haven’t bought a TV in 12 years, out of curiosity - if you’re not using the smart features of the TV would not connecting it to the network not be the best solution?
So, any recs. on good dumb tvs?
I’m upgrading to a projector soon, but also would love a few screens with actual buttons on the device incase of the inevitable remote loss.
I’m personally thinking of just plugging a decently capable little media PC into the display, using KDE’s “big screen” interface with KDE Connect as a remote. I’m pretty sure I could train my family on that…
Roku is so scummy.
This is my thought:
Good enough laptops are about $200, and Linux is free.
Then there are fairly good projectors for like $80 or less that have hdmi, av, rgb, etc. with an led bulb.
So, grand total about $300 for a massive screen and zero ads.
Um. You and I have a very different idea of “fairly good”. The only good projector I’ve used (at work, not my own) cost $12,000. It’s overkill for a home theatre, but not by a wide margin.
If you want a projector as bright as a TV you could buy for 20 bucks at a goodwill store, you need to spend quite a bit of money on it… especially if you also want decent black levels and of course significantly larger than a cheap LCD (otherwise why get a projector).
You also forgot sound. Good speakers aren’t cheap either. And you definitely don’t want the sound coming from the projector itself. Or from your laptop speakers.
Haven’t bought a TV in 12 years, out of curiosity - if you’re not using the smart features of the TV would not connecting it to the network not be the best solution?