- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.world
A patent application from the company spotted by Lowpass describes a system for displaying ads over any device connected over HDMI, a list that could include cable boxes, game consoles, DVD or Blu-ray players, PCs, or even other video streaming devices. Roku filed for the patent in August 2023 and it was published in November 2023, though it hasn’t yet been granted.
The technology described would detect whether content was paused in multiple ways—if the video being displayed is static, if there’s no audio being played, if a pause symbol is shown anywhere on screen, or if (on a TV with HDMI-CEC enabled) a pause signal has been received from some passthrough remote control. The system would analyze the paused image and use metadata “to identify one or more objects” in the video frame, transmit that identification information to a network, and receive and display a “relevant ad” over top of whatever the paused content is.
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This is the best summary I could come up with:
Now, the company is apparently experimenting with ways to show ads over top of even more of the things you plug into your TV.
A patent application from the company spotted by Lowpass describes a system for displaying ads over any device connected over HDMI, a list that could include cable boxes, game consoles, DVD or Blu-ray players, PCs, or even other video streaming devices.
This theoretical Roku TV’s internal hardware would be capable of taking the original source video feed, rendering an ad, and then combining the two into a single displayed image.
Among the business risks disclosed on Roku’s financial filings from its 2023 fiscal year (PDF), the company says that its “future growth depends on the acceptance and growth of streaming TV advertising and advertising platforms.”
If implemented as described, this system both gives Roku another place to put ads, and gives the company another source of user data that can be used to encourage advertisers to spend on its platforms.
It seems as though a Roku TV that was capable of this kind of ad insertion would need more sophisticated internal hardware than most current sets currently come with—this is the same company that feuded with Google a few years back because it didn’t want to pay for more-expensive chips that could decode Google’s AV1 video codec.
The original article contains 591 words, the summary contains 221 words. Saved 63%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Time to go back to books, fellas. This party is done.
Amazon/Audible walks in.
“Guess what industry I just exploited the shit out of!”
Time to create an app that runs a moving pixel and or subsonic tone during pause to thwart these fuckers
I’m waiting for Version 2.0 where they don’t care about whether you’re watching content or not and just randomly inject ads every 20 minutes.
Hopefully this ends up something they never actually do like that sony patent for ads that only go away if you call out the name of the product.
Sony fabitch!
Aight. So it’s time for me to start taking this seriously. Has anyone tried using like a GrapheneOS or LineageOS as a Roku or FireTV replacement? Is there anything like that which will support an experience with a regular remote control and have apps like Netflix and Hulu work?
Kodi. But it’s a mess compared to roku.
Hopefully this will enlarge the user base of kodi
Kodi is not suitable for the average user. Some streaming apps like Disney+ require a full chromeOS download just for extracting the DRM part. Roku instead offers for a few bucks a ready-to-go system.
I always wonder why some products just simply have all these DRM features and others don’t. Is DRM just a monopol for the chosen ones?
It’s exactly a monopoly for the chosen ones, gate keeping at its worst. Anything that isn’t blessed is going to be a bit more effort to get working, but I wouldn’t say Kodi is unsuitable for the average user on the grounds of the widevine module though, the DRM module extraction is automated when installing a plugin that requires it.
you could install Android on a raspberry pi with a usb remote.
I’d use a used laptop/desktop on Linux, e.g. something like steamOS, and then use jellyfin to stream stuff to this laptop. The media i watch is pirated, because it is more convenient and better quality than if I stream it through streaming service, even tho I pay for “4k” on these services.
But this displays over HDMI, correct?
Oh, I have read it wrong, upsii, yea it’s over HDMI Well, I guess Roku TV owner have to hope that there comes a way to flash a custom rom on that TV, indeed. But unlocking a bootloader and to find/make drivers for all that proprietary hardware seems like a hard job to me…
The problem with those TV apps is DRM. All the major streaming services require that you either use a locked down platform (probably checking SafetyNet and more on Android TV) or settle for their browser UI which lacks dpad support and gets quality throttled to 1080p or lower.
Circumventing that DRM is possible, but no project at the scale of a platform like those would dare the both legal risk and support headache of making those circumventions (which are very liable to break) a core part of the OS.
Kodi (and distros using it like LibreELEC) exist for people who want a FOSS platform for using non DRM encumbered media with a TV remote interface.
Maybe not the solution you were asking for, but the Nvidia Shield on the stock code has been a fair compromise for me. The ads on the main screen are relatively unobtrusive, and sometimes even vaguely relevant to our viewing preferences. We largely watch Hulu, Prime and YouTube+ (with free access to AppleTV and Netflix, but I haven’t set those up yet). For ads, we pretty much only deal with Amazon’s new advertising in included Prime content. We’ll probably stop viewing that content once the series we’re currently watching wraps.
For context, my daily driver phone is LineageOS which is rooted all to heck to smack down intrusive advertising and tracking (Magisk, AdAway, AppManager to disable in-app trackers, uBlock on the browser, etc…), and my home network uses a pihole for DNS and malware blocking. I really hate advertisers.
On the pihole, the Shield is actually only the #3 top offender of blocked requests, behind my wife’s work laptop and my kid’s Steam rig. The main offender on the Shield was the ESPN app, which I removed because I never really watch sports outside of tye idd division game, which most of the time I meet friends out at the local pub anyway. Otherwise the Shield has been a well behaved appliance.
So it’s not the perfect ad-free experience, but its hardly the advertising dystopia of broadcast TV.
So we just ordered a new tv and just want the universe to know that Roku wasn’t even considered and this shit is why.
I mean, yeah sure, but are the alternatives that much better in this respect? Which alternative non-ad-ridden, privacy-respecting smart tv would you recommend (or ended up buying)? Asking for my future tv choice…
Commercial displays are your best bet, although they can be quite expensive.
Thankfully they patented it, hopefully deterring anyone else from also doing it
lol as if they couldn’t license it
The newest LG GX (4?) is actually removing ads from their UI, I think it is totally ad-free. It is expensive as fuck though, it makes sense to deliver a premium experience.
I think the point is that “not having ads” shouldn’t be allowed to become the premium experience when it used to be the standard experience.
It’s weird now though that TVs didn’t have ads, and now people are willing to pay more because it could have ads but it doesn’t
I never considered Roku and I’m glad.
I had been considering a Roku stick instead of an Amazon fire stick to try and get out of the Amazon bubble.
I now see that Roku basically want to create their own bubble too so probably better to only let one shitty company (Amazon) get my viewing habits.
As long as the Amazon ones still come with Android, just throwing an APK of some FOSS media cwnter onto it is the cheapest way to get a reasonably modern “homebrew” appliance. The ads in the home screen are IMO a compromise I can deal with under that specific circumstances.
Now, if only they would invent the exact opposite of this, I would buy it
I want zero ads. Ever.
They did! Its called a pihole plus ublock origin plus piracy.
You can’t buy it, only the hardware, but the software is all free.
You can’t defend against ads with pihole if the ads server has the same address as content server
This is true. Hence the piracy. Only way to go ad free.
But with the risk of malware infection, unfortunately.
When something is free, you’re the product.
I’d advise to continue to use non-pirated products, but only from those companies, whose service you’re satisfied with.
And if there’s none, don’t consume product at all. It’s not like movies are vital for you.Vlc is pretty good, and I run a pretty strange distro. If I’m extra scared, I’ll use qubes or get a sacrifice machine.
I think the poor having culture is important. Either art is important, or it Fucking isn’t. You seem to be arguing its the frivolity, not the substance and fruit of civilization.
Video isnt my favorite medium, I have a lot of criticisms of it, but its still art, still precious. And so everyone deserves to have it.
And so everyone deserves to have it.
And authors along with those, who maintain content distributing infrastructure, deserve to be rewarded for their labour.
But I can’t pay them. Its not generally an option. Have you seen the terms on their Fucking contracts?
Literally the closest I can get is wandering around Los Angeles giving money to people who look vaguely familiar or give off writerly vibes.
Still doesnt block youtube ads 😩
Are you… Are you using the yt APP!?
Roku TV 😞
For ad-free youtube on Android TV: SmartTube
For ad-free youtube on mobile Android devices: ReVanced
For desktop: Firefox + uBlock origin
Also for Android: NewPipe
Also for desktop: FreeTubeOr GrayJay for Android
Sadly, Firefox + ublock is becoming unreliable. I routinely can’t play YouTube videos on my desktop computer with that setup (+ a vpn) because google just won’t serve them. I just get perpetual loading screens.
My TV set is like a dumb monitor: HDMI in, colorful image out, basta.
Not even audio. And of course it does not get any internet connection. And I don’t feed it any caviar.
TIL what ‘basta’ means.
Enough, stop. TIL.
Sounds like a class action lawsuit waiting to happen.
Imagine that you pay for an ad free streaming service through your roku, like HBO for example. And now you have ads streaming over it?
People will sue for a way to disable it over ad free paid content.
Also, this will lead to way more pirating. People are sick of advertisements.That’ll be why they just pushed a “agree to our new license with arbitrage or your tv is a brick” update
Even if people sue, doesn’t mean they have any legal grounds to win. What law is Roku breaking? You can’t sue your TV manufacturer for not being 4k when you pay for 4k content. Your content display technology has the right to display content how they see fit.
I see this as a job for the free market. As consumers we need to show Roku how we feel about that.
Yes the free market always wins!
The free free market requiring a cool hat and tropical bird.
If I purchase a TV, that I now own, and after I own it the company “updates” my TV that I now have to watch ads in order to use the TV I purchased without that condition?
At minimum it’s a breach of contract
a job for the free market
Hey, as long as there is a way for ordinary people to attend shareholders meetings in person and have direct physical access to the humans who made these decisions, I’m sure everything will work out in the end.
The free market has failed dude. THIS IS THE RESULT of it!
Capitalism and our current implementation has many failings. A company making a really shitty anti-consumer decision when there are plenty of alternative competitors and options is not one of them.
Capitalism rewards the most ruthless pursuits of money. Without regulations monopolies, shit products, and the cheapest wages possible are the end results of it as those are the most efficient ways to get as much profit as possible. In the end, any company that doesnt participate in such tactics gets out competed
Capitalism, has a bunch of problems. Those are some of them. Frankly I think it’s due to collapse and I hope we’ll be better for it. But Roku? Monopoly? They’re a mediocre company making a possibility short sighted decision. This is capitalism working as intended. Don’t buy it if you don’t like it.
If you don’t like capitalism call out real problems, because this just sounds like you’ll take anything that looks bad and blame it on capitalism. Which weakens the overall argument against it, IMO.
Bud, you just agreed with me what the real problems are, yeah monopoly doesnt apply to Roku, but shit product DOES with this change. But all THREE are huge problems for “regulation FREE MARKETS” which is what I listed them in response to
Edit: Formatting
Ah, I think I misunderstood. My mistake. I would make the point that I think many consumers would actually prefer the cheap ad riddled version of many services. Like, many streaming services people complain about having ads, have an ad free tier they’re unwilling to pay for. But I assume you’d make the argument that’s from the poverty created by the other problems within capitalism. Which is a valid criticism.
People who don’t pirate already are fools.
Let 'm pirate. Teach them how to do it better even.
Ever since Roku deplatformed Alex Jones I knew they were unprincipled and no good. Glad I left and never looked back.
That’s some scummy shit…
Everything owned will do this sooner or later.
owned
I do not think that word means what you think it means.
The amount of ewaste they will be producing when they push that update. Should be against some environmental laws.
Can’t we put these devices in some kind of dev mode and install software to stop this shit?
I assume these devices run some kind of Linux kernel, with a stripped down Linux distro.
The problem there is proprietary hardware blobs, no one’s made open-source drivers for any of the myriad TV manufacturers, each with their own OS.
roku generally puts a lot of effort into security
“security” for themselves, not the customer, I guess
Not what laws are for.
Is what guillotines are for.
Give me freedom from advertising or give me death.
