So start making more dumb TVs and speakers. That way they don't need much memory.
this post was submitted on 13 Jan 2026
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I just want a straight up monitor with no built in wifi or Bluetooth or even speakers.
Just display the image I want it to when I want it to.
Literally this. Let me use my own fucking box and my own goddamn pc how I want with big monitor. Also put DP on it fuck HDMI. I don’t need trackers in my bloody tv OS. My tv has an OS!!! That’s ridiculous. Sorry this is one of those things I’ve always been super pissed about.
Sceptre
For real, all my TVs are Sceptre. They are not easy to find, but they are incredibly reasonably priced and completely dumb perfection.
If people like us make them popular enough, maybe they'll realize this is a lucrative niche market.
Every modern monitor has some memory in it. They have timing controllers and image processing chips that need DRAM to function. Not much, but it is standard DDR3/DDR4 or LPDDR RAM.
I use old dumb tvs as monitors. They don't have the best picture, but are better and cheaper than anything currently for sale.
But how will they play ads‽
Man I'm really dreading buying a new TV. Been going strong with my plasma for years. I don't need any "smart" features in a tv. From what I understand you either get a good TV or a "dumb" TV, pick one.
But a good tv, and don’t connect it to the internet. Apple TV or Shield device.
televisions of the near future when you first turn them on: "Internet connection and account required to complete initial product set up."
I would immediately return that as defective. I'd rather use that old 1980's portable TV that's been collecting dust in my closet since they shut down the analog TV broadcasts.
These already exist. I've also seen some that technically work but have pop-ups complaining about being offline.
My TV channels now come in through an app and just recently it started working on my Nvidia shield, still I can't really disconnect the net from my samsung tv because explaining to my father how to use the tv app is already hard, he would not handle using it through the nvidia shield.
Yeah, pretty much. Any decent display on a TV is gonna have all the shit you don't want, but you can (at least for now) just not connect your smart TV to the internet. You;'d have a good TV with the "smarts" neutered. But you're still paying for it.
It's a bit like the ATSC broadcast stack. You likely aren't using it, but the industry still makes you pay for it (and it's not cheap).
Dumbtv
Linear components like power amplifiers are made from the same material as digital circuitry, and they use a lot more of it.
Here’s an idea.. let’s stop. Let’s just fucking stop with AI?
votes for MynameisAllen for president
Now if only we knew their name...
Pretty sure it’s My Name Is All En.
Dr En En En.
There's too much imaginary money in AI that tech bros are stealing.
Good. Maybe we’ll get dumb TVs again.
Idk, even the oldest HDTVs used RAM, sadly.
How much, comparatively?
Ha. judging by how well most of them run even today, not very much
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I don't even fucking use the smart TV functions as it is. Fuck all that noise.
That's the thing I keep telling people around me. It's not only RAM. Too many critical components have ram.
If you increase RAM, you increase computer prices. (And I'm talking ALL kinds of computer, from microcomputers to desktop to servers)
If you increase computer prices you increase costs for almost everything
I was thinking how this will affect cars, all of them have a bigass tablet in the middle nowadays
Modern cars have 90GB of RAM on average.
90GB of both RAM+NAND combined. I'm guessing most of it is actual persistent storage for all the stuff the infotainment system uses (including imagery and offline map data for GPS, which is probably a big one), rather than actual memory in the sense of desktop computing.
2027 sounds right. No way these fabs don't know this shit is temporary, so unlikely they'll increase production.
Unfortunately it's the people between the manufacturers and the consumers that think this current iteration of AI is the future. They even seem to think we want it and can't wait to pay them for it.
No one thinks that. Not the hardware OEMs, not the consumers, not the CEOs, not even the investors. It's all just a grift to see how high it can get before it pops.
I 'member when headphones were just a copper wire to a magnet dressed in plastic, and none of this garbage required memory. Can we go back to that age? Thanks.
its coming for your babies
cf. Children of Men
And the OEM's are like:
Question: will AI eventually hurt CPUs? Like memory companies, the TSMC also only have finite production capacity.
Yes
I'm beginning to wonder if AI is actually going to set us back technologically. Certainly it seems to be creating or widening a technology divide.
Just like those popular 3d tvs right?
Why do TV's and audio gear use memory? TV's ok I can sort of understand a little, but audio? That's still analog right? Or anyway mostly analog.
All digital devices will use some amount of memory. Audio devices are all digital these days and only use a DAC (Digital to Analog Converter) to generate the actual audio waveform from a raw sample stream.
On something like a standalone audio amp there still has to be the whole backend to store codec information, menus and settings, and a whole host of other controls and audio processing features that are likely implemented on top of a basic OS and not directly written to a microcontroller. There's more memory than you think.
"Codec information" is in ROM or implemented in hardware directly. Even studio quality audio interfaces that are DSP comtrolled will need only relatively small amounts of RAM; relatively slow memory for variable space and slightly faster mem for buffering. Both in the megabyte range and far from the speed that GPUs or AI require.
I doubt headphone's MCUs use DDR5 tho
Depends on if you have analog cabled headphones, like the Meze Empyrians or the Philips X2HR Fidelio, then they are analog, but wireless or even digital headphones with USB/Lightning has ram.
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