Just about everything is more expensive
these days, except TVs. What's the deal
with that? Modern TVs are bigger, look
better, and are more capable than ever
before, just like me. Inside everyone is
a full-blown computer complete with its
own app store. They even have games and
stuff. So, how are they cheaper than
ever? Well, let me tell you. Because TV
companies don't sell TVs anymore. What
do I mean by that? Story time. Before
being acquired by Walmart for $2.3
billion in late 2024, TV manufacturer
Vizio posted some very interesting
quarterly results. See, Vizio lost money
selling TVs. And yet, they were able to
make $19 million in profits. How? Well,
it was all thanks to their platform plus
advertising platform. And if you need
any more evidence that televisions are
now advisions, look at this. Vizio makes
not one mention here of electronics
manufacturing. Then to really drive the
point home, Walmart's press release
announcing the deal boasts about how
this new acquisition will enhance our
advertising capabilities.
And it's not just Vizio. TCL, Samsung,
LG, name a major TV brand and they have
found that the real way to make money is
to take your data and serve you targeted
advertisements via their smart operating
systems. Though I think we can all agree
that the word smart doesn't really
describe the current state of Tyizen OS.
And that's why in spite of all the
recent enhancements, consumers now find
themselves yearning for the days when
turning on their TV just brought them
directly to the content instead of to an
adinfested home screen.
Seriously, it's the whole thing. This is
also Disney Plus. So is this.
It's 80% ads. So, what options are there
for folks who just want to display? As
it turns out, not many outside of
commercial displays that, as you'd
expect, cost a lot more. But there is
one. After some digging, we found that
there is still a company proudly making
untainted, pure displayonly TVs. Adam,
bring it in.
It's Scepter, the budget monitor, guys.
But this ain't no monitor, guys. It's a
75 in TV that they promise delivers
resolution at its finest. And we're
going to see what you get and what it's
like to use right after we use this
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Right out of the gate, this is exceeding
my expectations. I did not think that
some random Scepter TV would have HDR
support.
>> Did you notice that it also has 4K
support? Is true 4K resolution, true 4K
input, ultra HD upscaling.
It's also a 4K UHD series.
>> Okay, so it doesn't have a lot going for
it,
>> but that's exactly what's going for it.
>> Exactly. I wouldn't mind if it gave me a
little more detail. We talk in HDR10,
Dolby Vision, but hey, audio return
channel. But wait, there's more. It also
says here that it supports 4K three.
>> All right. All right. We get the bit.
>> Um, we get three HDMI ports. We get a
USB port, HDMI 2.0 and HDCP 2.2, and a
one-year limited warranty.
>> Wait, Adam, we haven't showed the people
the best part. Turn it around. It won an
award.
The cinema award.
>> The scepter cinema.
>> Absolute scepter cinema. In all
seriousness though, how much did we pay
for this thing?
>> About $800, which for 75 in is a pretty
good price.
>> Yeah. Memes aside, I'm genuinely excited
to see it. Good packaging all things
considered.
>> They probably can't uh can't afford the
RMAs. Still, that's one of the first
things you see companies cheap out on.
But they've got an extremely rigid
screen protector on here,
>> as well as like some nice soft styrofoam
for the screen as well. Though some hard
foam for structural integrity.
>> Yeah, this is not great, but probably
adequate. That is that is one of the
remotes.
>> That's a old school remote.
>> I like this picture of the batteries.
Yeah, this is the most Teimu brand
remote I've ever seen
>> along with the most Teu screwdriver.
>> Can I interest you in a bagged TV?
>> Oh,
you know, I would love that.
>> Okay.
>> I don't know if I trust it, though.
>> Two persons required to prevent injury.
Lift this display with both hands.
>> I don't know if I've ever seen a bag
with lift handles for a TV before.
>> Me neither.
>> Let's see if it's actually good.
Oh,
>> it's stretching a little.
>> Yeah,
>> it feels a little scary,
>> but it it did the trick.
>> It's a heavy TV.
>> Where's the stand?
>> Um Um I
>> It must be in the top foam in there.
>> Okay,
that's the stand.
>> Oh, those are dinky. The whole lift bag
concept might have been more useful if
it actually lifted it somewhere where we
could put the feet on it. It's just
>> Yeah,
>> that's fine. I got an idea.
>> It's nice because unlike all of the
stupid skinny OLEDs, there's structural
integrity to this panel.
>> That's one way of saying that it's
really thick.
>> Yeah.
>> Really? You're going to use that when we
have so much better screwdrivers on
ltdstore.com?
>> I want the true scepter experience.
Okay. Oh, this does suck though. Do we
have a screw? Do you have your
screwdriver?
>> Yeah, I do. Do you have
>> I can hold it. Yeah.
>> Okay, give me a sec. Hopefully the TV is
better than the screwdriver.
>> On the subject of things that are
better, we've got a great look at the IO
while we're up here. And this kind of
rocks. You got your three HDMIs, all
that do 4K 60 Hz, one with ARC, you got
your coax, USB, and then unlike many
modern TVs, we've actually got component
in composite as well as optical audio
and a headphone jack. pretty much
everything you need. What it's got, you
got the headphone jack. You know, my my
grandpa uses it for his uh assisted
audio headphones.
>> And note the absence of an Ethernet
port,
>> but again, that's a feature, not a bug.
>> What are you doing?
>> Well, everything else about this thing
has been pretty good so far, but I
noticed that the power cord appears to
be hardwired, and so I was seeing if
maybe behind this little cover there's a
better situation. There is not. What's
nice is this is giving me a look at the
internals. Um, if you had any hopes that
it was so thick because it had full
array local dimming, for instance, you
can put those to rest.
>> You know what? I wasn't worried. It's
all Phillips.
>> Uh, I mean, yeah, that's unrelated, but
good.
>> No, but there's like it seems like you
could like just take apart this TV
yourself if you want
>> and put full Local Ding on it yourself.
>> Oh, dude.
>> No,
>> no, you don't want to upgrade the
upgrade the Scepter TV.
>> Okay. All right.
>> World's Listen, write in the comments if
you want to see the world's best dumb TV
mod. We got the energy guide on here,
but also it's for the N75.
>> Oh, but I thought that this was the U75.
>> Here we go. 1 2 3.
>> Oh, you wanted the other way. You You
>> Oh, I thought I said this. I'm sorry.
>> Oh, okay. We're
here. We made it. We made it.
>> Okay.
>> When you've been working together as
long as me and Adam, you still have no
idea what each other are talking about,
but it's funny.
>> Oh, wow. There's so many peels.
I'm failing.
>> Hey, peel number one.
>> Wow.
It's big and reflective. Wow. It's very
reflective, but quite flat.
Yeah, you get some you get some like
some wiggles there.
>> Yeah, a little bit at the top.
>> Me and every every time I kill you. Huge
moment.
Sorry, I just looked at the remote just
now. How could they? How could they?
>> What?
>> F Adele. We love Adele. She is a
generational talent. Why would they put
that on the remote? Says F Adele. That
>> no love Adele.
>> Did you have to wear a white shirt
today?
>> I can see you. So,
>> whatever, beige boy. Okay.
>> Hey, at least we both have matching
tubes from ltstore.com. We did not
coordinate this today.
>> It just happened.
>> I got so confused for a second. Yeah,
>> cuz I was like, "Oh, hold on. How do I
get to select the right input so I'm on
my shield instead of
>> It just went.
>> Actually, it was crazy. Turn it off
again.
>> Content.
>> That was so quick.
>> That is the fastest I've gone from I'd
like to watch content to watching
content in years."
>> Yeah. It's like you don't really realize
it. You you've gotten so used to like
the delay of waiting for your TV to
boot.
>> Okay. So, what is in the menu?
>> Okay. Picture
>> picture settings.
>> Okay. That's pretty basic. What is mild
picture mode?
>> I don't know.
>> What I like about it though is you can
see what it's changing.
>> Yeah, this is actually a great
interface.
>> It's like what what does game mean? It
means we crank the brightness and the
sharpness a little bit and we crank the
backlight and the contrast is up
compared to user.
>> And it's crazy because the smart TVs
could have setting menus like this. Like
there's no reason that they don't have
settings like this,
>> but they choose not to. They choose to
have you configure everything and then
you change inputs and you have to
configure it all again. And so when we
when we're not looking at our content,
we just get nothing.
>> You get a high piercing blue.
>> CEC control on. Let's go. This is
probably the simplest CEC interface that
I have ever seen. And I'm comparing to
devices that in some cases cost 10 times
as much. I blew a bunch of money on that
stupid AV receiver for my home theater
and it has caused me nothing but grief
with CEC. Uh, that
was it. Now I never need to touch the
Teu remote again because theoretically
hit the power on the shield.
Ooh. Oh, wait. No,
>> maybe you do need to use the
>> turn the shield back on because the
Shield has its own CC settings.
>> There we go.
>> Got to reboot.
>> Okay, so that was the problem. Coming
back to our CC issue. We didn't have it
enabled on the Shield, which to me means
that from now on, we really shouldn't
need this again. Now that I think about
it, usually I avoid doing any sleep
features on a TV because of how annoying
the power on cycle is and how long it
takes and how confused it gets. This
thing is actually just going to work.
Well, maybe. Okay, I've got it
configured now. Big moment. Power's off.
And
we power on the Shield. TV's on already.
You can see it.
>> Oh my gosh, that's awesome.
>> And look, you might not like the NVIDIA
Shield. There's, you know, other TV
boxes.
>> Yeah. Plug it into your computer.
>> But that's the beauty of this is that
you can use whatever thing you want on
it.
>> Yeah.
>> And it doesn't get in your way. I never
need to look at this ever again. This is
the one remote I need. So convenient.
Kind of wish I hadn't thrown it at the
floor. Like the batteries all came out
and everything.
>> It's like underneath the shelf now.
>> Okay, but we really need to fire up some
content and see if this thing is even
worth having. Also, I wanted to know if
HDR was working because realistically,
this is not a full array local dimming
backlight. So, it's going to be kind of
hard to tell. It's as simple as pressing
the info button.
>> Oh my gosh. H
>> How does every TV not have that
>> right there? Just tell me what mode
you're operating in
>> right there. 24 hertz.
>> That's amazing. That's exactly what it's
supposed to be for this content right
now.
>> Oh yeah. Volume up. Oh, you want to hear
it?
>> Well, yeah. Yo, the volume is the
Scepter logo. That's
>> That's pretty cute.
>> The speakers are bad.
>> Hold on. Hold on. You don't know that
yet. We haven't heard Crab Rave yet.
>> No, that didn't happen. That didn't
happen.
>> Okay, here we go.
>> 48 million views. 8 million of them are
ours.
There's supposed to be uh
>> Okay. The speakers are bad. In their
defense, that's true of most TVs.
>> Yeah. And in their defense, the TVs that
that's not true of are so expensive that
you should probably be getting offboard
speakers anyway.
>> Yep.
>> But image quality. Let's fire up some
content. And a perfect piece of content
to evaluate it would obviously be the
most perfect piece of content of all
time. The Aussie Mandas episode of
Breaking Bad.
>> M.
It is very dim. It is not a bright
display by any means.
>> No. No, it's not. However, in fairness,
we have a big light over top of it.
>> Yep.
>> And it's also not bad. I mean, this is a
dim scene. Let's go to a not dim scene.
Does that look like a mat painted behind
them? It's still definitely doing a bit
of weird sharpening
>> that is kind of mucking with the film
grain. Oh yeah. I think if we just
completely lose any sharpening that this
TV is attempting to do, we end up with a
way more natural image.
>> Those clouds are incredibly blue.
There's a pretty solid blue tint to the
display in general. There's like loss of
details on the colors of like Skyler's
shirt here.
>> Yeah,
>> but like it gets the job done.
>> I think there's a little bit too much
magenta in Hal's skin tone there out in
the desert. But these are the kinds of
things that only display dorks, people
who review technology for a living are
likely to notice or especially care
about.
>> Speaking of people who review technology
for a living, Labs tested this display.
>> Oh, did they?
>> Yes.
>> How'd that go?
>> Not great. When it comes to the Labs
results, it's pretty not good. The TV
not super bright. Peak brightness around
361 nits. In SDR, delta E is not so bad.
In HDR, they are literally off the
chart. You cannot see how bad the bars
go on every single color. It is not even
close. In terms of coverage, it also
doesn't do very good, but it does what
is promised on the manufacturer website.
So, they didn't lie.
>> Cool.
>> That's pretty much all it's
>> do any motion performance?
>> Motion performance. Let me see.
>> And it's awful. And that's input lag.
And that's even ignoring the fact that
the pixel transition response time is
also horrible, which normally I can't
tell in just regular content. It's the
kind of thing that normally I'd need to
play games to notice, but I don't even
need them.
>> Yeah, you can see it a lot when you're
using interfaces. Also, the other thing
is that even at $800, there's not a lot
of TVs that are 75 in at that price,
unless you're buying like stuff that's
like deeply discounted. It's kind of a
no man's land. And I was blown away that
they even made a 75 in TV. But it's
nice. You get to avoid all of the ad
tracking. You get to avoid stuff like
automatic content recognition where they
take a scan of what's on your screen and
compare it to a database. All that weird
stuff.
>> It's literally not sophisticated enough
to do that.
>> And it'll it won't slow down, right?
Like think about how sluggish older
smart TVs are now because they care so
little about the uh user experience for
an operating system cuz they kind of
want you to upgrade. It's worth noting
that this model specifically is kind of
on its way out, but they have a new
75-in model that is coming in.
>> We'll have that link down below.
>> Yeah.
>> So, in conclusion, it's a pretty bad TV,
but they're also not charging a lot of
money for it. And it comes with benefits
that I think could be well worth the
trade-offs for people who value privacy
and simplicity. Like, watch this. I
don't want to watch this TV anymore. I
press one button, it's off. And watch
this. you don't want to watch this
YouTube video anymore. I press one
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Thanks for watching this video. If you
enjoyed this one, how about you check
out uh the dumbest TV I've seen in a
minute. It's the absolutely massive
awall cobb like LED wall. It's so big
it's dumb.