I know Smart TV privacy concerns are a big conversation here, largely because there’s practically no good way to jailbreak a Smart TV, but I wanted to ask about a specific use case.
How much better is it to disable all network connectivity on a smart tv (running Roku as its core OS) and hook an Apple TV box up to it?
More or less, I suppose what I’m asking is whether or not using an Apple TV is as private as it can get with easy-to-use streaming devices?
I dump Blu-rays either directly to BDMV or MKV (TV shows) on a wired NAS; streaming to Apple TV via Infuse is super smooth.
Yeah they include a gigabit ethernet port which is really useful for full quality 4k, amazing how many cheaper streaming devices only have 10/100 ports which I suppose is adequate if all you do is stream Netflix.
But to me it’s just cheaping out to save a dollar or two on the manufacturer’s part that with ethernet & protocol overhead could result in problems potentially even for 1080p streams. Whereas gigabit even with overhead and lackluster conditions you’re going to get 700-800mbps sustained. People think for 1080p bluray dumps for instance that oh bitrates are only around 40-50mbps average but if you fast forward, if you’re seeking around the actual bitrate being consumed jumps to double or more at times and that 100mbps port will choke on that and buffer whereas the gigabit will not flinch. And though I don’t use the playback speed option myself much Infuse does allow playing back at 1.5 and 2x speeds which consume around 1.5x and 2x the bitrate respectively.
But it’s just nice to not have to deal with wireless hiccups too.
Even with fantastic WiFi I prefer to keep as much off of simply to conserve resources. And yeah Gigabit Ethernet at this point should be a minimum.