LG, Samsung, Sony: Smutty Smart TV apps turn us off

And my previous TV was also a radio receptor, edge-detector, integrated teletext and subtitles decoder, decoded sound into multiple-channels, set its time by the teletext signal, etc. etc. etc.

Your argument into absurdity is what's necessary to display a signal given to it and show that content reasonably conveniently, the same way that SCART has quite a complex protocol to turn on devices and set them recording, inform TVs of widescreen vs 4:3, selects from composite or RGB source, etc. even if no-one is aware of it. By the same argument, no laptop screen or monitor or even an LED display ever made has been "just" a display device either (they do just the same kinds of decoding, especially with HDMI / DVI) - you're just being petty.

They are inherent features of the device to display the content thrown at it over a certain cable. An app is not. That's a utility that GENERATES content. I don't need content generators. I have a multitude of them, and have done for decades. I need only a content DISPLAY. In fact, the dumber the display, the better because even things like HDCP can cause nightmares.

The sound, fair enough, but that's just a pedantic argument against the TV "only" being display. Technically, my TV does not need speakers at all, correct, but there's a difference between being a device that GENERATES sound and one that plays it. Again, this TV only plays what I throw at it and nothing more.

The TV is a presentation device. It does not need to generate or interact with my content. The content generation can happen on any number of other devices and my TV should not be aware of how the generation occurred. It should just play the damn thing I tell it to.

And, actually, with a Freeview / cable / Sky / Freesat box, the TV does not need to be aware of MPEG at all, in any fashion, whatsoever. Again, the Freeview box is the content generator, the TV is just a display device. And, in terms of image / sound processing, you've again hit the nail on the head. I don't want it to do all that, thanks. My content generators output perfectly valid images, I just want it to display them. The first thing I did was turn off all kinds of "black enhancement", "film mode", "game mode", "fake surround sound", "vocal volume enhancement" etc. tweaks that it's capable of - to be honest, because I hate the TV *trying* to compensate and making things look worse, or I couldn't tell the difference. A dark scene is a dark scene for a reason. If my content has quiet voices, no amount of tweaking will make them reliably louder than the background music. If I have only two speakers in a living room that it has no idea of the layout of, and I'm not an audiophile, surround sound from the 2 TV speakers is a waste of time.

By comparison, a "smarter" TV wants to connect to the Internet (and thus steal bandwidth from things it should not take priority over). It wants to run apps. It wants to do things in the background. It wants to reboot to update its firmware. It wants to have things popping up over my TV. It wants me to use an overly complex EPG. It wants me to configure a wireless network. It wants to allow people to use Bluetooth / Wifi remotes. It wants to record me on camera so I can change channel with a gesture, or "login" via a face. It wants to listen to my living room for voice commands. It wants to run yet another version of Skype that I need to keep updated if I do connect to the Internet and which I have to turn off when I don't want to be disturbed. It wants to pull in my Facebook updates and show them to me over my content. It wants me to navigate endless menus and desktops to negotiate on those features.

These are all things that I have to work out how to switch off and brings me back to the original point - I already have plenty of content generators, plenty of complete general-purpose COMPUTERS to manage. I don't want ***another*** sitting in my living room standing between me and my content being shown. I just want it to do EXACTLY and ONLY what's it's told. Here's a cable. I've pressed "Source" to change to that cable. Now show me what's being played down that cable and then get everything else out of my way. I honestly have stowed the TV remote in a drawer. The Virgin Media remote that I use in its stead only knows five commands it can send to the TV (and thus only five things the TV *EVER* has to act upon): Power, Volume Up, Volume Down, Change Source and Mute. Which is exactly how it should be.