02/20/2025
With the rise of streaming, as well as "Smart TV's" (regardless of price point) that incorporate all the apps that you know and love into the TV itself, we have seen a rise in service calls for a lack of performance via streaming.
Although, the internet can absolutely be a factor, more often than not the "smart tv" is more to blame. To make a long post short, most Smart TV's use Wi-Fi that uses 20 year old standards, have a lack of processing power, and often times have software that is many years old leading to compatibility issues when connecting to the providers servers. Couple that with a change in the encoding mechanisms that are used for the video to increase resolution, which in turn requires more processing power, and you wind up with a host of issues ranging from buffering, blank pictures, random codes, lagging, and many other issues for the end user.
We HIGHLY recommend to all customers that are streaming to pick up a dedicated streaming box, such as a Roku or Apple TV from your favorite shopping place. You get dedicated hardware tailor made for the "user experience", updated software, and VASTLY improved wi-fi standards, all which lead to a much improved experience for you the user. Below is a link to a video that goes in depth and does an excellent job explaining exactly what the issues are, why they occur, and most importantly what can be done to remedy the issue's.
Get iFixit's Pro Tech Toolkit at https://ifixit.com/techquickieWhy are smart TVs so slow?Leave a reply with your requests for future episodes, or tweet them ...