So yeah, we (me and Renata) finally got a new TV to replace the old tube clunker we got for free a few weeks after we arrived in Toronto. When I say TV I mean “big 40 inch monitor where I can plug videogames and assorted computers”, obviously, since we don’t have cable and couldn’t care less about it.
But we’re movie buffs and gamers nonetheless. We love Netflix to bits (yes, precisely because of the weird movie selection) and download a few shows and hard-to-find gems to watch. Oh and there’s that Nintendo Wii too.
To be honest, a new TV has never been a big priority; it took more than a year for us to bother replacing the old one. Meanwhile the prices dropped dramatically and every TV does everything except coffee and sorting out your laundry.
This means I shouldn’t be as surprised as I was with what we’ve got. The thing is basically a full-fledged computer. Besides having all the inputs and outputs you can imagine, it comes with two USB ports - one of which with enough power to spin up a small portable hard drive - and… a network port. Yep, you plug it on your router. Once you do that, it reads movies, music and pictures from any machine that makes them available through DLNA.
After installing a DLNA server on a Linux box (we chose Rygel if you’re interested - it’s pretty easy to setup), the TV found all the media automatically and played everything without a hitch. Pretty impressive.
Just to be clear: this is one of the cheapest 40” LCD TVs out there. The price before taxes was $549. It’s not the biggest screen out there, but it fits our living room nicely (plus I don’t have issues with the size of my penis to compensate on something else).
The only thing I haven’t tried yet is watching regular TV. But honestly, who cares?