I just bought a Samsung UN50JU7100FXZA
50 inch LED accessible TV.
Holy crap! This isn't a TV, it's a damned computer with tuners, a big monitor, and speakers.
What makes this TV accessible is that it has a text to speech system that reads to me all of the TV's menu and settings options as well as external information such as information about TV shows from the electronic program guide.
Once it knows what each of the channels is, Discovery, History, ABC, NBC, etc., it can download program guides from the Internet, and it will read it to me when I use it. That will make it easy to know what's currently on and what's coming up.
It also has the ability to be controlled by vocal phrases, like, "tune to" or "volume up", etc. What would be really cool, once I get all the channels set up is if I could say "tune to history channel" and it searched my channel line up for the History channel and tuned to it, no need to remember channel numbers any more. What would be even neater, though I'm not expecting it, is if I could say "tune to Shark Tank" and it searched the program guide for Shark Tank and if it was on, tuned to it.
If I hooked up a USB hard drive to it, the TV has the ability to record scheduled TV programs to it for viewing at a later, more convenient time. Unfortunately that feature is disabled in the US and Canada. Rats! I'll bet I have the lawyers paid by the motion picture and music industry association to thank for that. Otherwise, I can't think of any logical reason why recording programs for watching later shouldn't work just because I live in the US or Canada. Normally, I'm not inclined to hack things because everytime there's an update to the device, you have to redo the hack, but the ability to record programs for later viewing is such a useful feature that I'll be watching for a hack to reenable it
The TV can be hooked up to the Internet for streaming services like Netflix, Amazon Instant Video, YouTube, Pandora, and others. It also has a web browser in it! I don't expect to be using any of those, but I will have it hooked up to the Internet so it can get the program guides.
I'm not sure I like the remote for the new TV. The remote for the old TV had nice, well defined, raised, and rubberized buttons that were easy to find and use. The new remote's buttons are small, designed to blend into the remote, and made of the same material, making them not so easy to find and use. For that reason, I plan to see how much voice command can do to minimize the need to use the remote.
One thing that I thought was interesting. My old TV has a 46 inch screen, my new TV's screen is 50 Inches, and yet the old TV weighs more than the new TV does.
There is a lot to explore here, it should keep me out of mischief for a while.