[masraum]

Originally Posted by widebody911

I just went through this: went from a Vizio 47" to a Sony Bravia 55" The picture quality is great, but the sound is "so-so" - with these thin TVs, you pretty much need to get a sound bar to get good sound.

One of the big factors that drove my decision was the "Smart" TV functionality; not so much was it "smart" but could it be controlled. It's hard to not buy a "Smart" TV nowdays. What turned me away from Vizio, Samsung, LG, etc was the built-in snooping functionality, and the ads in the user interface - as you use the UI and move through menus, the TV displays ads. The trick is, if you go to the store to check them out in person you probably won't see these "features" but do some google searches and you'll find the complaining on various boards.

Because my wife wants to use the Hulu app, I don't have a choice but to connect it to the internet, so I got a Pi Hole. The amount of traffic from the TV to parts unknown is sobering. The average Joe won't GAFF, but I do. I aggressively block what I can - letting through just enough so the apps will work. For example. it was interesting to see a Subaru commercial, while at the same time the TV initiated a connection to Subaru.com. My TV has no business talking to Facebook, either.

This is a log screenshot of roughly 1 minute of watching Hulu on the new TV. The TV just pulled an update a couple of weeks ago, and the external traffic jumped about 75%. I suspect they ship them with more "quiet" firmware, and once it's bought and installed, it updates itself with the more aggressive version.

Good to know. The missus and I were talking today and she brought up in her non-tech way the phone home and elsewhere type snooping. I have pi-hole as well, and I think Pi-hole has some IOT specific lists. I guess what I would prefer would be a commercial style firewall where I had total control over everything in and out.

So the Bravia doesn't have the ads and snooping?

That's good to know about the ads, that would piss me off, and the amount of outbound connectivity is sobering.

I'd begun to wonder about some other brands. I'd been planning to get a sound bar, but then wondered about the Q80T which has more speakers and amp built in, so maybe it's not necessary. THe one thing that I wonder about though is that all of the thin TVs have to project the sound to the rear or sides, and it seems like having it projected out the front is better.

Thanks, I'll keep looking.