Buying a Smart tv, wondering what one has the best apps for an someone in Ireland

Chrizfitz

As above Buying a Smart tv, wondering what one has the best apps for an someone in Ireland. Considering one from the new samsung range, even in the shops (power city and pc world) all the demo models are not showing what apps are available and compatible for people living in Ireland. Does anyone have a smart tv?
What do you use it for? Whats limited because you are living in Ireland?

lambayrules

A bit of rant about my sony smart tv but there are similar issues with samsung ....

I have a sony KDL-37EX524 'smart tv' - The LED picture is brilliant but that where it all ends for me. The smart TV functionality is very poor.

Currently TV3 is the only catch tv service available. No RTE at the moment and I would not expect it for a while. You wont get BBC, ITV and 4OD in Ireland. Netflix - available via playstation - is not currently available in Ireland..... :mad:

The rest of the apps are very poor, just a waste of time. (facebook, Twitter, youtube - poor remote control completely limits these apps. - cant connect a keyboard -see wifi dongle)

I had a look at the samsung app store and it looks great but most the of stuff is not available in ireland ie BBC iplayer even though they use the logo on their .IE website ..... :mad: ditto sony

The internet browser is very limited because it does not support Flash. And it is quite slow. you have to key in via the remote control which a slow and a frustrating experience. You have to purchase a sony wifi dongle to connect ur smart phone (€70 !) and to stream media to the TV.

Currently I have a hard drive connected to the TV and it play music ,movies and photos but you have make sure that you have ur file formats are in order. It wont play all .avi and other common files. I have to convert to MP4.... There is no media player software as such and setting up playlists etc is not easy.

It is still early days for this technology, it great in theory but in practice it is limited. You be better off paying for good picture quality / reliability and purchasing a good media player etc.

good luck

lambayrules

Here is an example of smart TV false advertising in Ireland

http://www.sony.ie/hub/internet-tv/entertainment-on-demand

BBC iplayer is not available in Ireland

http://www.samsung.com/ie/consumer/tv-audio-video/television/topic/discover-web-connected-smart-tv

PogMoThoin

Smart TV is in its infancy and is crap compared to some of the stand alone boxes. Buy a good TV and get a separate box (Apple TV, Google TV, Boxee, Roku, PopCornHour). Try the HTPC forum, many threads about all the boxes there.
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=643

Chrizfitz

PogMoThoin wrote: »

Smart TV is in its infancy and is crap compared to some of the stand alone boxes. Buy a good TV and get a separate box (Apple TV, Google TV, Boxee, Roku, PopCornHour). Try the HTPC forum, many threads about all the boxes there.
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=643

Ah yeah I will run xbmc on an ATV on mybe a raspberry pi as I know the media streaming through a tv wont come even close but I like the idea of the features. If only they would actually care about ireland. I'd wager look at what UK have now and we will have that in 3-5 years. :mad:

craftypaddy

sony dvd player in tesco has all the apps that sony smart tv has youtube ect, its only 89 yo yo.
i got a samsung smart tv great picture but the apps are poor, but its early days yet i guess, alot are not allowed in ireland yet like itv bbc, i hope they improve soon