1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:03,640 Just about everything is more expensive these days. 2 00:00:03,640 --> 00:00:07,080 Except TVs. What's the deal with that? 3 00:00:07,080 --> 00:00:10,120 Modern TVs are bigger, look better, 4 00:00:10,120 --> 00:00:14,000 and are more capable than ever before, just like me. 5 00:00:14,000 --> 00:00:17,000 Inside, everyone is a full-blown computer, 6 00:00:17,000 --> 00:00:20,520 complete with its own app store. They even have games and stuff. 7 00:00:20,520 --> 00:00:22,840 So how are they cheaper than ever? 8 00:00:23,760 --> 00:00:30,160 Well, let me tell you. Because TV companies don't sell TVs anymore. 9 00:00:30,160 --> 00:00:33,800 What do I mean by that? Story time. 10 00:00:33,800 --> 00:00:39,080 Before being acquired by Walmart for $2.3 billion in late 2024, 11 00:00:39,080 --> 00:00:43,920 TV manufacturer, Vizio, posted some very interesting quarterly results. 12 00:00:43,920 --> 00:00:47,560 See, Vizio lost money selling TVs, 13 00:00:47,560 --> 00:00:52,400 and yet they were able to make $109 million in profits. 14 00:00:52,400 --> 00:00:57,320 How? Well, it was all thanks to their platform-plus 15 00:00:57,320 --> 00:01:00,800 advertising platform. And if you need any more evidence 16 00:01:00,800 --> 00:01:04,880 that televisions are now ad-o-visions, look at this. 17 00:01:04,880 --> 00:01:08,960 Vizio makes not one mention here of electronics manufacturing. 18 00:01:08,960 --> 00:01:13,000 Then to really drive the point home, Walmart's press release announcing the deal 19 00:01:13,000 --> 00:01:18,880 boasts about how this new acquisition will enhance our advertising capabilities. 20 00:01:18,880 --> 00:01:25,600 And it's not just Vizio. TCL, Samsung, LG, name a major TV brand, 21 00:01:25,600 --> 00:01:32,160 and they have found that the real way to make money is to take your data and serve you targeted advertisements 22 00:01:32,160 --> 00:01:38,120 via their smart operating systems, though. I think we can all agree that the word smart 23 00:01:38,120 --> 00:01:41,440 doesn't really describe the current state of Tizen OS. 24 00:01:41,440 --> 00:01:44,520 And that's why in spite of all the recent enhancements, 25 00:01:44,520 --> 00:01:49,960 consumers now find themselves yearning for the days when turning on their TV just brought them 26 00:01:49,960 --> 00:01:54,880 directly to the content, instead of to an ad-infested home screen. 27 00:01:56,400 --> 00:01:59,560 Seriously, it's the whole thing! 28 00:01:59,560 --> 00:02:02,240 This is also Disney Plus, so is this. 29 00:02:04,080 --> 00:02:11,000 It had 80% ads. So what options are there for folks who just want to display? 30 00:02:11,000 --> 00:02:14,840 As it turns out, not many outside of commercial displays 31 00:02:14,840 --> 00:02:17,880 that, as you'd expect, cost a lot more. 32 00:02:17,880 --> 00:02:23,080 But there is one. After some digging, we found that there is still a company 33 00:02:23,080 --> 00:02:27,800 proudly making, untainted, pure display-only TVs. 34 00:02:27,800 --> 00:02:34,320 Adam, bring it in! It's Scepter, the budget monitor guys. 35 00:02:35,680 --> 00:02:41,760 But this ain't no monitor guys. It's a 75-inch TV that they promised delivers resolution 36 00:02:41,760 --> 00:02:46,880 at its finest. And we're gonna see what you get and what it's like to use 37 00:02:46,880 --> 00:02:50,240 right after we use this segue to our sponsor. 38 00:02:58,960 --> 00:03:04,160 Right under the gate, this is exceeding my expectations. I did not think that some random Scepter TV 39 00:03:04,160 --> 00:03:08,520 would have HDR support. Did you notice that it also has 4K support? 40 00:03:08,520 --> 00:03:12,600 It is true 4K resolution, true 4K input, ultra HD upscaling. 41 00:03:13,520 --> 00:03:18,880 It's also a 4K UHD series. Okay, so it doesn't have a lot going for it. 42 00:03:18,880 --> 00:03:22,240 But that's exactly what's going for it. Exactly! 43 00:03:22,240 --> 00:03:27,360 I wouldn't mind if it gave me a little more detail. We talk in HDR 10, there'll be vision, 44 00:03:27,360 --> 00:03:30,800 but hey, audio return channel. Well, wait, there's more. 45 00:03:30,800 --> 00:03:34,240 It also says here that it supports 4K. 46 00:03:34,240 --> 00:03:38,880 All right, all right, we get the bit. We get three HDMI ports. 47 00:03:38,880 --> 00:03:43,600 We get a USB port, HDMI 2.0 and HDCP 2.2, 48 00:03:43,600 --> 00:03:48,000 and a one-year limited warranty. Wait, Adam, we haven't showed the people the best part. 49 00:03:48,040 --> 00:03:50,280 Turn it around. It won an award. 50 00:03:52,840 --> 00:03:57,480 The Cinema Award. The Scepter Cinema. Absolute Scepter Cinema. 51 00:03:57,480 --> 00:04:04,880 In all seriousness though, how much did we pay for this thing? About $800, which for 75 inches is a pretty good price. 52 00:04:04,920 --> 00:04:08,000 Yeah, memes aside, I'm genuinely excited to see it. 53 00:04:08,000 --> 00:04:13,720 Good packaging, all things considered. They probably can't afford the RMAs. 54 00:04:13,720 --> 00:04:19,320 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. 55 00:04:19,320 --> 00:04:22,840 There's almost like some nice soft styrofoam for the screen as well. 56 00:04:22,840 --> 00:04:29,040 Though, some hard foam for structural integrity. Yeah, this is not great, but probably adequate. 57 00:04:29,040 --> 00:04:34,240 That is, that is one of the remotes. That's an old school remote. 58 00:04:34,240 --> 00:04:39,800 I like this picture of the batteries. Yeah, this is the most Timu brand remote I've ever seen. 59 00:04:41,000 --> 00:04:43,920 Along with the most Timu screwdriver. 60 00:04:44,920 --> 00:04:47,920 Can I interest you in a bagged TV? 61 00:04:47,920 --> 00:04:51,680 Oh, you know, I would love that. 62 00:04:51,680 --> 00:04:56,040 I don't know if I trust it though. Two persons required to prevent injury. 63 00:04:56,040 --> 00:04:59,560 Lift this display with both hands. I don't know if I've ever seen a bag 64 00:04:59,560 --> 00:05:03,000 with lift handles for a TV before. Me neither. 65 00:05:03,000 --> 00:05:04,600 Let's see if it's actually good. 66 00:05:06,000 --> 00:05:11,200 Whoa. It's stretching a little. Yeah. It feels a little scary. 67 00:05:11,200 --> 00:05:14,820 But it did the trick. It's a heavy TV. 68 00:05:16,460 --> 00:05:17,700 Where's the stand? 69 00:05:21,340 --> 00:05:23,180 It must be in the top foam in there. 70 00:05:26,460 --> 00:05:29,740 That's the stand. Oh, those are dinky. 71 00:05:29,740 --> 00:05:34,140 The whole lift bag concept might have been more useful if it actually lifted it somewhere 72 00:05:34,140 --> 00:05:37,420 where we could put the feet on it. It's just, yeah. 73 00:05:37,420 --> 00:05:40,820 That's fine, I got an idea. Yeah. 74 00:05:40,820 --> 00:05:44,380 It's nice because unlike all of the stupid skinny OLEDs, 75 00:05:44,380 --> 00:05:49,500 there's structural integrity to this panel. That's one way of saying that it's really thick. 76 00:05:49,500 --> 00:05:55,900 Yeah. Really, you're gonna use that when we have so much better screwdrivers on LTT Store.com. 77 00:05:55,900 --> 00:06:00,020 I want the true scepter experience, okay? Oh, this does suck though. 78 00:06:00,020 --> 00:06:03,340 Do we have a screw, do you have a screwdriver? Yeah, I do. I can hold it, yeah. 79 00:06:03,340 --> 00:06:07,220 Okay, give me a sec. Hopefully the TV is better than the screwdriver. 80 00:06:07,220 --> 00:06:10,780 On the subject of things that are better, we've got a great look at the IO while we're up here 81 00:06:10,780 --> 00:06:14,580 and this kind of rocks. You got your three HDMIs, 82 00:06:14,580 --> 00:06:19,620 all that do 4K 60 Hertz, one with arc. You got your coax, USB. 83 00:06:19,620 --> 00:06:24,580 And then unlike many modern TVs, we've actually got component in, composite, 84 00:06:24,580 --> 00:06:28,020 as well as optical audio and a headphone jack. 85 00:06:28,020 --> 00:06:31,780 Pretty much everything you need. What, it's a good, you got the headphone jack. 86 00:06:31,780 --> 00:06:36,100 You know, my grandpa uses it for his assisted audio headphones. 87 00:06:36,100 --> 00:06:41,020 And note the absence of an Ethernet port. But again, that's a feature, not a bug. 88 00:06:41,020 --> 00:06:45,460 What are you doing? Well, everything else about this thing has been pretty good so far, 89 00:06:45,460 --> 00:06:49,260 but I noticed that the power cord appears to be hardwired. 90 00:06:49,260 --> 00:06:53,500 And so I was seeing if maybe behind this little cover, there's a better situation, there's not. 91 00:06:53,500 --> 00:06:56,780 What's nice is this is giving me a look at the internals. 92 00:06:56,780 --> 00:07:01,620 If you had any hopes that it was so thick because it had full array local dimming, for instance, 93 00:07:01,620 --> 00:07:07,020 you can put those to rest. You know what I wasn't worried, it's all Phillips. 94 00:07:07,020 --> 00:07:11,660 I mean, yeah, that's unrelated, but good. No, but it seems like you could just take apart 95 00:07:11,660 --> 00:07:14,820 this TV yourself if you want. And put full array local dimming on it yourself. 96 00:07:14,820 --> 00:07:20,420 Oh dude. No. No, you don't want to upgrade the Scepter TV? 97 00:07:20,420 --> 00:07:25,580 Okay, all right. Worlds, listen, write in the comments if you want to see the world's best dumb TV mod. 98 00:07:25,580 --> 00:07:30,540 We got the energy guide on here, but also it's for the N75. 99 00:07:30,540 --> 00:07:32,940 Oh. But I thought that this was the U75. 100 00:07:33,780 --> 00:07:37,300 Here we go. One, two, three. Hoop. 101 00:07:37,300 --> 00:07:41,180 Oh, you went the other way. Oh, I thought I said this. 102 00:07:41,180 --> 00:07:44,700 I'm sorry. Oh, okay, we're ready. I see, I see, I see, I see, I see. 103 00:07:44,700 --> 00:07:47,900 We're ready, we're ready, we're ready. Okay. 104 00:07:47,900 --> 00:07:52,220 When you've been working together as long as me and Adam, you still have no idea what each other are talking about, 105 00:07:52,220 --> 00:07:55,740 but it's funny. Oh wow, there's so many peels. 106 00:07:58,300 --> 00:08:02,000 I'm just failing. Hey. 107 00:08:02,000 --> 00:08:06,000 You don't mind my warning? Wow. 108 00:08:06,000 --> 00:08:11,560 It's big and reflective, wow. It's very reflective, but quite flat. 109 00:08:13,320 --> 00:08:17,440 Yeah, you get some, you get some like, some wiggles there. Yeah, a little bit at the top. 110 00:08:19,760 --> 00:08:23,400 Me and every, every time I kill you. Huge moment. 111 00:08:24,800 --> 00:08:28,200 Sorry, I just looked at the remote just now. How could they? 112 00:08:28,200 --> 00:08:31,360 How could they? F Adele? We love Adele. 113 00:08:31,360 --> 00:08:34,640 She is a generational talent. Why would they put that on the remote? 114 00:08:34,640 --> 00:08:38,000 It says F Adele. They need that. No, love Adele. 115 00:08:38,000 --> 00:08:40,080 Did you have to wear a white shirt today? 116 00:08:41,160 --> 00:08:44,320 I can see you so. Whatever, beige boy, okay. 117 00:08:44,320 --> 00:08:47,760 Hey, at least we both have matching tubes from LTTstore.com. 118 00:08:47,760 --> 00:08:52,640 We did not coordinate this today. It just happened. I got so confused for a second. 119 00:08:52,640 --> 00:08:55,720 Yeah. Cause I was like, oh, hold on. 120 00:08:55,720 --> 00:08:59,840 How do I get to select the right input? So I'm on my shield instead of. 121 00:08:59,840 --> 00:09:00,680 It just went. 122 00:09:03,040 --> 00:09:04,640 Actually, it was crazy. Turn it off again. 123 00:09:09,440 --> 00:09:13,200 Content. That was so quick. That is the fastest I've gone from, 124 00:09:13,200 --> 00:09:16,880 I'd like to watch content to watching content in years. 125 00:09:16,880 --> 00:09:20,920 Yeah, it's like, you don't really realize it. You've gotten so used to like the delay 126 00:09:20,920 --> 00:09:25,160 of waiting for your TV to boot. Okay, so what is in the menu? 127 00:09:26,320 --> 00:09:29,360 Okay, picture. Picture settings. 128 00:09:30,720 --> 00:09:34,360 Okay, that's pretty basic. What is mild picture mode? 129 00:09:37,080 --> 00:09:41,400 I don't know. What I like about it though, is you can see what it's changing. 130 00:09:41,400 --> 00:09:46,560 Yeah, this is actually a great interface. It's like, what does game mean? 131 00:09:46,560 --> 00:09:49,840 It means we crank the brightness and the sharpness a little bit 132 00:09:49,840 --> 00:09:53,840 and we crank the backlight and the contrast is up compared to user. 133 00:09:53,840 --> 00:09:58,400 And it's crazy cause the smart TVs could have setting menus like this. There's no reason that they don't have settings like this. 134 00:09:58,400 --> 00:10:01,480 They choose not to. They choose to have you configure everything 135 00:10:01,480 --> 00:10:04,920 and then you change inputs and you have to configure it all again. 136 00:10:04,920 --> 00:10:08,840 And so when we're not looking at our content, 137 00:10:08,840 --> 00:10:11,920 we just get nothing. You get eye piercing blue. 138 00:10:11,920 --> 00:10:15,280 CEC control on, let's go. 139 00:10:15,280 --> 00:10:19,960 This is probably the simplest CEC interface 140 00:10:19,960 --> 00:10:24,560 that I have ever seen. And I'm comparing to devices that in some cases cost 10 times as much. 141 00:10:24,560 --> 00:10:28,520 I blew a bunch of money on that stupid AV receiver for my home theater 142 00:10:28,520 --> 00:10:31,720 and it has caused me nothing but grief with CEC. 143 00:10:31,720 --> 00:10:34,720 That was it. 144 00:10:34,720 --> 00:10:39,760 Now, I never need to touch the Temu remote again because theoretically hit the power on the shield. 145 00:10:43,720 --> 00:10:47,080 Oh. Oh, wait. No, no, no. 146 00:10:47,080 --> 00:10:50,240 Turn the shield back on because the shield has its own CEC settings. 147 00:10:51,280 --> 00:10:55,280 There we go. There we go. Got to reboot. So that was the problem. 148 00:10:55,280 --> 00:10:58,720 Coming back to our CEC issue, we didn't have it enabled on the shield, 149 00:10:58,720 --> 00:11:03,280 which to me means that from now on, we really shouldn't need this again. 150 00:11:03,280 --> 00:11:06,680 Now the thing about it, usually I avoid doing any sleep features on a TV 151 00:11:06,680 --> 00:11:10,480 because of how annoying the power on cycle is and how long it takes and how confusing it gets. 152 00:11:10,480 --> 00:11:14,560 This thing is actually just gonna work. Well, maybe. Okay, I've got it configured now. 153 00:11:14,560 --> 00:11:20,200 Big moment. Power's off and we power on the shield. 154 00:11:20,200 --> 00:11:23,780 TV's on already. You can see it. Oh my gosh. That's awesome. 155 00:11:23,780 --> 00:11:28,980 You might not like the NVIDIA shield. There's other TV boxes. 156 00:11:28,980 --> 00:11:35,300 Plug it into your computer. But that's the beauty of this, is that you can use whatever thing you want on it 157 00:11:35,300 --> 00:11:39,760 and it doesn't get in your way. I never need to look at this ever again. 158 00:11:40,700 --> 00:11:45,260 This is the one remote I need. So convenient. Kind of wish I hadn't thrown it at the floor. 159 00:11:45,260 --> 00:11:48,620 Like the batteries all came out and everything. And it's like underneath the shelf now. 160 00:11:48,620 --> 00:11:53,660 Okay, but we really need to fire up some content and see if this thing is even worth having. 161 00:11:53,660 --> 00:11:59,100 Also, I wanted to know if HDR was working because realistically, this is not 162 00:11:59,100 --> 00:12:03,060 full array local dimming backlight. So it's gonna be kind of hard to tell. 163 00:12:03,060 --> 00:12:07,280 It's as simple as pressing the info button. Oh my gosh. 164 00:12:07,280 --> 00:12:12,180 How does every TV not have that? Right there. Just tell me what mode you're operating in. 165 00:12:12,180 --> 00:12:16,220 Right there. 24 Hertz. That's amazing. That's exactly what it's supposed to be 166 00:12:16,220 --> 00:12:20,740 for this content right now. Oh yeah, you wanna hear it? 167 00:12:20,740 --> 00:12:24,580 Oh yeah. The volume is the Scepter logo. 168 00:12:24,580 --> 00:12:27,780 That's pretty cute. Speakers are bad. 169 00:12:27,780 --> 00:12:30,780 Hold on, hold on. You don't know that yet. We haven't heard Crab Rave yet. 170 00:12:30,780 --> 00:12:35,460 I know, I know, I know. That didn't happen, that didn't happen. Okay, here we go. 408 million views, 8 million of them are ours. 171 00:12:35,460 --> 00:12:40,460 There's supposed to be a... 172 00:12:44,140 --> 00:12:48,620 Okay, the speakers are bad. In their defense, that's true of most TVs. 173 00:12:48,620 --> 00:12:53,820 Yeah. And in their defense, the TVs that that's not true of 174 00:12:53,820 --> 00:12:57,460 are so expensive that you should probably be getting off-board speakers anyway. 175 00:12:57,460 --> 00:13:01,060 Yep. But image quality. Let's fire up some content. 176 00:13:01,060 --> 00:13:05,980 And a perfect piece of content to evaluate it would obviously be the most perfect piece of content 177 00:13:05,980 --> 00:13:09,100 of all time. The Ozymandias episode of Breaking Bad. 178 00:13:11,300 --> 00:13:14,820 It is very dim. It is not a bright display by any means. 179 00:13:14,820 --> 00:13:19,740 No, no it's not. However, in fairness, we have a big light over top of it. 180 00:13:19,740 --> 00:13:23,340 Yep. And it's also not bad. 181 00:13:23,340 --> 00:13:26,460 I mean, this is a dim scene. Let's go to a not dim scene. 182 00:13:26,460 --> 00:13:31,540 Does that look like a matte painted behind them? It's still definitely doing a bit of weird sharpening 183 00:13:31,540 --> 00:13:36,580 that is kind of mucking with the film grain. Oh yeah, I think if we just completely lose any sharpening 184 00:13:36,580 --> 00:13:39,940 that this TV is attempting to do, we end up with a way more natural image. 185 00:13:39,940 --> 00:13:44,300 Those clouds are incredibly blue. It's a pretty solid blue tint to the display in general. 186 00:13:44,300 --> 00:13:47,420 There's like loss of details on the colors of like Skyler's shirt here. 187 00:13:47,420 --> 00:13:50,820 Yeah. But like it gets the job done. 188 00:13:50,820 --> 00:13:54,580 I think there's a little bit too much magenta and house skin tone there out in the desert. 189 00:13:54,580 --> 00:13:58,620 But these are the kinds of things that only display dorks. 190 00:13:58,620 --> 00:14:03,500 People who review technology for a living are likely to notice or especially care about. 191 00:14:03,500 --> 00:14:07,740 Speaking of people who review technology for a living, Labs tested this display. 192 00:14:07,740 --> 00:14:11,580 Oh, did they? Yes. How'd that go? 193 00:14:11,580 --> 00:14:15,340 Not great. When it comes to the lab results, it's pretty not good. 194 00:14:15,340 --> 00:14:19,260 The TV, not super bright, peak brightness of around 361 nits. 195 00:14:19,260 --> 00:14:23,500 In SDR, Delta Ease, not so bad. In HDR, they are literally off the chart. 196 00:14:23,500 --> 00:14:27,700 You cannot see how bad the bars go on every single color. 197 00:14:27,700 --> 00:14:31,820 It is not even close. In terms of coverage, it also doesn't do very good, 198 00:14:31,820 --> 00:14:36,700 but it does what is promised on the manufacturer website. So they didn't lie. 199 00:14:36,700 --> 00:14:40,940 Cool. That's pretty much all. Did they do any motion performance? Motion performance, let me see. 200 00:14:40,940 --> 00:14:46,860 And it's awful. And that's input leg. And that's even ignoring the fact that the pixel transition 201 00:14:46,860 --> 00:14:51,620 response time is also horrible, which normally I can't tell 202 00:14:51,620 --> 00:14:56,860 in just regular content. It's the kind of thing that normally I'd need to play games to notice. 203 00:14:56,860 --> 00:15:00,460 But I don't even need them. Yeah, you can see it a lot when you're using interfaces. 204 00:15:00,460 --> 00:15:03,700 Also, the other thing is that even at $800, 205 00:15:03,700 --> 00:15:06,780 there's not a lot of TVs that are 75 inches at that price 206 00:15:06,780 --> 00:15:10,540 unless you're buying stuff that's deeply discounted. It's kind of a no-man's land. 207 00:15:10,540 --> 00:15:14,300 And I was blown away that they even made a 75-inch TV. But it's nice. 208 00:15:14,300 --> 00:15:18,020 You get to avoid all of the ad tracking. You get to avoid stuff like automatic content recognition 209 00:15:18,020 --> 00:15:21,140 where they take a scan of what's on your screen and compare it to a database. 210 00:15:21,140 --> 00:15:24,700 All that weird stuff. It's literally not sophisticated enough to do that. 211 00:15:24,700 --> 00:15:30,780 And it won't slow down, right? Like, think about how sluggish older smart TVs are now, 212 00:15:30,780 --> 00:15:33,900 because they care so little about the user experience 213 00:15:33,900 --> 00:15:37,060 for an operating system, because they kind of want you to upgrade. 214 00:15:37,060 --> 00:15:42,820 It's worth noting that this model specifically is kind of on its way out, but they have a new 75-inch model 215 00:15:42,820 --> 00:15:48,900 that is coming in. We'll have that link down below. Yeah. So in conclusion, it's a pretty bad TV. 216 00:15:48,900 --> 00:15:53,780 But they're also not charging a lot of money for it. And it comes with benefits that I think 217 00:15:53,780 --> 00:15:59,300 could be well worth the trade-offs for people who value privacy and simplicity. 218 00:15:59,300 --> 00:16:02,540 Like, watch this. I don't want to watch this TV anymore. 219 00:16:02,540 --> 00:16:06,460 I press one button, it's off. And watch this. 220 00:16:06,460 --> 00:16:12,140 You don't want to watch this YouTube video anymore. I press one button and segue to our sponsor. 221 00:16:12,140 --> 00:16:17,060 Thanks for watching this video. If you enjoyed this one, how about you check out the dumbest TV I've seen in a minute. 222 00:16:17,060 --> 00:16:20,860 It's the absolutely massive AWOL Cobb like LED wall. 223 00:16:20,860 --> 00:16:23,300 It's so big, it's dumb.