I am sorry but I absolutely disagree..
You can of course disagree, but you would be wrong Im afraid.
I have got a degree in Electronic & Electrical engineering (apart from 25+ years in the industry) so I know what Im talking about.
To stream a video to a TV you need to run an app on the TV (software , not hardware)this is pretty much regardless of make and model..
Actually you dont HAVE to run an app at all and this kind of proves my point.
Imagine for a moment you are just using the tv as a display and nothing else, and using an external player for the source. No apps are being used on the tv what so ever, just selecting for example HDMI1 and nothing else. This will be using the TV hardware on its own (for ease of description Im including the firmware / TV's OS which is constantly running when its powered up) and its only the internal hardware & selected input that is decrypting the stream from the player and placing it on the screen. No software on the TV gets involved at all.
This goes to show that no smart app is actually
necessary to display the same quality of image on the screen ( obviously dependant on the player & interconnect also).
This shows the hardware ALWAYS comes 1st, above which is the firmware / OS and then above that is any smart app you care to mention
All apps are not equal and it absolutely is not a given that any given app can access all functions of the hardware, and they are certainly not all written in house by the manufacturer..
I already said the same originally , when comparing optimized apps to standard 3rd party ones. Obviously 3rd party apps are by default not written by the manufacturer.
I do understand what you are saying but I absolutely think you are wrong and could give you plenty of examples of other hardware that is capable of doing things that the controlling software can not access.
List these examples then because market forces wouldnt allow this to happen and manufacturers wouldnt be putting on sale equiipment their own software couldnt make the most of (allowing for firmware issues etc).
Obviously there are systems like set top boxes etc which are sold "bare metal" without an OS and for an instance a KODI supplier picks it up and starts using it for their reference box and therefore its not the OEM (original equipment manufacturer) doing the reselling - in these kinds of instances there will be plenty of examples. We were of course talking about the original manufacturer.
I get Domi's point.
Although SMART tv's were not the same Apple hardware based platform , bluecube has, they share similarities; and even if there is hevc hardware decode capability on the Apple/smarttv the different apps may not all use it (or use is as efficiently) so MPC-HC may play without stutter, but vlc may have issues, and similarly on smart tv netflix maybe good but media on a usb stick may stutter (because netflix out of self interest invested in good implementation/programmers)
I dont disagree at all, but then again you are talking about 3rd party apps or the OEM ones. Also as you said some programmers take care of the software and how its written and some dont.
I was reading the other day about how a new Sony TV prefers Sony USB sticks and streams perfectly from them, yet other makes (which are reputedly better when it comes to storage) the same files stutter. This could be down to many things, but the hardware itself is capable (in the TV) and its the delivery / software which is having problems. VLC would be a 3rd party app and therefore more likely to not be optimized by the manufacturer.
