2018-03-06

Wallpaper TV

As I blogged, I now have a "wallpaper" TV. I hope you enjoyed the video.

But this led me to ponder a few points on this.... It is not like buying a normal TV in many ways.

Normally a TV, even an expensive TV, is not so much a "fixture". You can buy and sell it, transport it (albeit carefully for some large TVs). Someone could steal it, even. A wallpaper TV if different.

It is more of a fixture. Removing it from the wall is not simple, well, it is not that hard but you then have in your hands a large, thin, fragile, piece of glass. That is not easy to transport without the original packaging, and even then it would be a challenge. It would not be easy to simply move to a new room in the house without risk.

The wall bracket is thin metal, and screwed and fixed by sticky pads to the wall. The sticky pads will be an issue, and I doubt I could remove it without bending or breaking it. The only way to move this TV will be to get a new wall bracket from LG.

The base unit (sound bar) could easily be moved, but useless without the panel.

So, I cannot see this being something I could easily move, ever, and really not something someone could steal, any more than someone stealing my ceiling. No, that is not a challenge, honest.

I hope LG do sell new wall brackets, I should check, in case I do ever want to move it. One day, I bet I will go for the 77" and someone else in the house would like this, so a new wall bracket will be a thing we need.

There is also the fact that OLED panels can burn in - there are guarantees, but I wonder how much of the TV's cost is the panel and how much is the base unit. Replacing the panel with a new one would be viable I guess. I wonder if they sell as spare parts.

Even so, a day later, I am still impressed by the new TV...

16 comments:

  1. It seems just like getting a projector to me. It's fitted to the room (the projector more so, because of the mount, the cabling to the separate receiver, and the image throw distance) and hard to move.

    Just think of it as more discrimination against people in rented properties!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Speaking as a tenant my landlord had no objection to me wallmounting a TV.

      And speaking as a landlord I've always said yes when tenants have made the same request.

      The damage to the wall in this case seems very minor indeed - it would be a 15 minute job for a decorator to fill and repaint.

      Delete
    2. The issue is that unmounting and relocating this type of TV would be very hard to do. So a tenant may not be able to remove it at end of tenancy.

      Delete
    3. Oh right yes I see.

      Is the adhesive between the mount and the wall, or between the mount and the unit? If it's just magnets and hooks at the top then surely removing can't be much more treacherous than installing?

      I suppose if you have space to store the box (which admittedly many would not) then this is an issue you can quite easily put into the "claim on the removal company's insurance" category. Perhaps it's a generalisation but I imagine that people who buy £7000 TVs are not moving their own stuff in the back of a ZipVan.

      Delete
    4. Adhesive of brackets to wall, so I expect you destroy wall bracket removing. I imagine a new wall bracket is cheap. But would a removal company touch a 65” by 6mm sheet of glass? Maybe if you keep all the original packaging.

      Delete
    5. I wonder if one could hang it on the wall like an expensive painting

      Delete
    6. Oh yeah, of course, 'cos it's not a projector with limited bulb life (and if OLEDs don't cost silly money to run or suffer from burnin), you have a new class of thing you can do with it: when not in use, have it display a picture like a picture-frame, perhaps a picture of the wallpaper or paint behind it. Instant nearly-invisible switched-off TV. :)

      (crazy option: if it's mounted on an outside wall, have a video camera on the other side of the wall at the right angle and display what the video camera sees when "switched off". Instant really expensive high-def window!)

      Delete
    7. It is not discrimination against people in rented properties. If I own the property then I decide what can be done to it. If you own the property then you can decide what can be done to it. If you rent a car from Hertz, Enterprise, et al can you go screwing mobile phone brackets into the dashboard without a major bollocking and a big repairs invoice when you return the keys? Of course not! It's not your car. But if you own the car then of course you are at libery to cause irreparable damage to your own property.

      Delete
  2. Is the sound bar really “part” of the TV, connected to it using some sort of proprietary cable? I’d have thought in this day and age it: a) would be connected wirelessly, and b) would be possible to pair the TV with any old sound bar of one’s choosing.

    It does look so impressive though, a really nice unit

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. > Is the sound bar really “part” of the TV, connected to it using some sort of proprietary cable?

      Yes. But it's not actually just a sound bar. It includes the power supply for the panel, and all the connectors and electronics that normally go in a TV - aerial connector, SCART connector, HDMI connectors, TV tuner, CPU, RAM, etc. The panel on the wall is really just the display, to make it as thin as possible.

      Because of this, the wired connection is needed - both for power and to avoid having a radio receiver lump on the TV. The connection is proprietary because the electronics in the "sound bar" are designed for the specific panel that's on the wall - it's resolution, features, voltages, etc.

      Delete
    2. It reminds me a bit of those wafer-thin Apple Macs that used to have a power supply brick the size of a mini-refrigerator

      But it’s a beautiful TV, really nice unit and I for one would love to have one!

      Delete
  3. All this GDPR nonsense seems a massive pain in the arse to us and our clients. It's a load of EU tick-boxing rubbish which brings no benefit to anyone, expect a load of supposed 'experts' who aren't experts at all when you talk to them as they can't answer specific and direct questions about GDPR and they all have wildly different opinions/advice on the same question! This is because they all re-invented themselves as GDPR experts last week when they realised they could bill a few quid for 'advising' firms on the latest/greatest piece of politically-correct media-attendion-grabbing panic. Come back in 3 years and they will all be consultants on whatever is the latest panic of the day at that time. (I saw exactly the same in the property industry when suddenly everyone was a HIP consultant - and now the whole lot of them have disappeared. And then everyone was an EPC Assessor - and they've all done a bunk too. Both were crackpot schemes that caused lots of scaremongering and achieved nothing). Our clients are (having to) spend on all this GDPR for zero benefit. They are rightly pretty hacked off with it. It's all this farcical stuff which caused the 'leave the EU' result at the referendum.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. There is no area of our lives left which the state does not claim a legitimate interest in controlling.

      Delete
  4. Dental floss will get the bracket off the wall!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Fishing line would be stronger and thinner, Steve.

      Delete
    2. Or the ("cheesewire") tool for cutting bonded windscreens out of modern cars - available quite cheaply from eBay etc

      Delete

Comments are moderated purely to filter out obvious spam, but it means they may not show immediately.

Hot tubbing...

I have a hot tub, it came with the house over 3 years ago. Managing a hot tub is complicated, and expensive. The expensive part is the power...