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Roku says it may lose YouTube TV app after Google made anti-competitive demands

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Re: Roku says it may lose YouTube TV app after Google made anti-competitive demands

#341

Post by Crespyl »

bmlzootown wrote: post #322
etempleton wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AppleTV, AndroidTV, FireTV, Roku, WebOS, Tizen, Comcast X1, ATT TV, Xbox, PlayStation, etc—the space is incredibly fractured. Outside of the TVs with Roku built in I wonder how many people will buy Roku devices in the future. It will be hard for Roku to continue to compete if they have say, 10-20 percent market share. I use a Roku now, but I don’t think I will in the future. My tv is older, so no built in apps. Roku…

Not to even mention that Brightscript, the proprietary language running the device, can be a nightmare at times. I've encountered so many quirks/issues that just don't exist/happen on other platforms like AndroidTV/tvOS. The entire smart-tv space is definitely fractured, and trying to develop for so many platforms all at once can be frustrating, especially when you're doing so in your spare time. Thankfully, at least…

I was also disappointed when the Twitch and Reuters channels were dropped.

Fortunately there's an unofficial "uncertified" third party channel you can add to get back basic Twitch support: https://www.fanbyte.com/guides/how-to-watch-twitch-on-roku-d...

I haven't found anything similar for Reuters, so I just have their YouTube feed now, but I still miss the nicely packaged 15-30 minute segments.

Re: Roku says it may lose YouTube TV app after Google made anti-competitive demands

#343

Post by ameen »

nvrspyx wrote: post #315
mikeryan wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TV manufacturers have mostly chosen to create and maintain their own ecosystems. This is actually a declining trend. LG and Samsung do but Moore's law has gotten it to a point where Android TV and, in fact Roku's platform are becoming much more prevalent on TVs, particularly some of the newer lower end devices. There's a large cost to maintaining your own HTML based platform (which is what most 3rd parties are) and t…

My TV has Roku built-in and it’s extremely frustrating. It’s super slow, it uses some surround sound virtualization (or something) for the stereo speakers with no option to turn it off despite being terrible (you can barely hear speech, but music and effects are extremely loud), the remote has shortcut buttons for things I don’t even use (google play and sling), there’s advertisements every time I turn on my tv and o…

Chromecast video quality is atrocious though. I have a Chromecast Ultra on my Roku TV (TCL 6-series QLED) considered to be a mid-range panel and has decent color accuracy, but on Chromecast all of it is out the window, the same video on the YouTube TV (native app) on Roku is so much better looking and accurate.

Not sure who’s to blame here.

Re: Roku says it may lose YouTube TV app after Google made anti-competitive demands

#344

Post by ameen »

bmlzootown wrote: post #322
etempleton wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AppleTV, AndroidTV, FireTV, Roku, WebOS, Tizen, Comcast X1, ATT TV, Xbox, PlayStation, etc—the space is incredibly fractured. Outside of the TVs with Roku built in I wonder how many people will buy Roku devices in the future. It will be hard for Roku to continue to compete if they have say, 10-20 percent market share. I use a Roku now, but I don’t think I will in the future. My tv is older, so no built in apps. Roku…

Not to even mention that Brightscript, the proprietary language running the device, can be a nightmare at times. I've encountered so many quirks/issues that just don't exist/happen on other platforms like AndroidTV/tvOS. The entire smart-tv space is definitely fractured, and trying to develop for so many platforms all at once can be frustrating, especially when you're doing so in your spare time. Thankfully, at least…

Chromecast Ultra has an Ethernet port. But the color accuracy is off and the video quality (atleast on Chromecast YouTube) seems poorer (overblown highlights, inaccurate colors, etc) vs Native YouTube app on Roku.

Re: Roku says it may lose YouTube TV app after Google made anti-competitive demands

#345

Post by nvrspyx »

ameen wrote: post #343
nvrspyx wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My TV has Roku built-in and it’s extremely frustrating. It’s super slow, it uses some surround sound virtualization (or something) for the stereo speakers with no option to turn it off despite being terrible (you can barely hear speech, but music and effects are extremely loud), the remote has shortcut buttons for things I don’t even use (google play and sling), there’s advertisements every time I turn on my tv and o…

Chromecast video quality is atrocious though. I have a Chromecast Ultra on my Roku TV (TCL 6-series QLED) considered to be a mid-range panel and has decent color accuracy, but on Chromecast all of it is out the window, the same video on the YouTube TV (native app) on Roku is so much better looking and accurate. Not sure who’s to blame here.

That's interesting because what I forgot to mention is that while I have a 4K TV, it seems that the Roku apps refuse to play anything at a 4K resolution. The Chromecast Ultra seems to output 4K just fine.

I haven't noticed any differences in color though, so I can't speak to that. Maybe the HDMI input has different picture settings set than the base Roku? I'm sure you've tried that though, so I don't know.

Re: Roku says it may lose YouTube TV app after Google made anti-competitive demands

#346

Post by modo_mario »

panopticon wrote: post #186
jedimastert wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Same reason I use spotify I think it's pretty safe to call Spotify a big tech company at this point

It's a weird world where a company that does billions in annual revenue isn't considered big.

It's big but it's tied to a single service as opposed to being some huge conglomerate like microsoft or google that has it's hands into dozens of markets.

Re: Roku says it may lose YouTube TV app after Google made anti-competitive demands

#347

Post by modo_mario »

etempleton wrote: post #179
cdiddy2 wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use roku simply because its not connected to a big tech company. Same reason I use spotify. I wonder how many others there are like me

It is the small advertising companies that deploy the truly terrifying advertising tracking.

Is spotify an advertising company now?

Also how are the small advertising companies doing the truly terrifying advertising tracking? Are they tracking me across the web when i go to seemingly completely unrelated sites like google, fb, etc?

Re: Roku says it may lose YouTube TV app after Google made anti-competitive demands

#348

Post by ryeguy_24 »

There are a lot of negative remarks about Roku in here and I’m baffled.

I think their user interface and experience have been flawless for the past 5-7 years. I’ve had Roku 3, Roku 4K, and now a TCL Roku TV. The remote control is super snappy. The mainstream apps work really well (Netflix, Hulu, Prime, Plex, YouTube, PBS Kids). I can’t speak to the developer or business side of the company but for a steaming device/platform, I haven’t had a single complaint.

I bought an Apple TV 2 years ago for HomeKit hub purposes and to this damn day, I have no idea how to control it with the remote control (does the remote have momentum, is it a cursor? no idea). But my 3 year old has no problem with the Roku.

The streaming platform space is fractured for sure, but I think Roku is one of the best there is.

So, why shouldn’t they seek revenue from apps? Apple friggin charges 30% for iOS ecosystem no? Roku deserves to be paid for what they have built.

As for this Google/Roku issue, this is nothing more than a strike for likely unreasonable or unfair treatment. Google has every right to strike but strikes generally just piss off the customers. So, go ahead and take YouTube off of Roku and Roku can just build a skinned TV browser to view YouTube videos on their website.

Maybe the solution is to evolve the TV web browser experience in the same way that we have evolved to mobile friendly sites. Maybe TV friendly sites could eliminate some of these issues. But this opens up the app/web debate and I generally think native app experience is better.

At the end of day, Google has increased the advertisement frequency and quantity recently and the experience is beginning to suck. They are making more and more money from advertising so coming off of Roku is just a reduction of eyeballs for them.

Re: Roku says it may lose YouTube TV app after Google made anti-competitive demands

#349

Post by katbyte »

ameen wrote: post #343
nvrspyx wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My TV has Roku built-in and it’s extremely frustrating. It’s super slow, it uses some surround sound virtualization (or something) for the stereo speakers with no option to turn it off despite being terrible (you can barely hear speech, but music and effects are extremely loud), the remote has shortcut buttons for things I don’t even use (google play and sling), there’s advertisements every time I turn on my tv and o…

Chromecast video quality is atrocious though. I have a Chromecast Ultra on my Roku TV (TCL 6-series QLED) considered to be a mid-range panel and has decent color accuracy, but on Chromecast all of it is out the window, the same video on the YouTube TV (native app) on Roku is so much better looking and accurate. Not sure who’s to blame here.

Getting devices and tvs to play nice can be a pain for any given set - I don’t have a roku but comparing builtin YouTube/Netflix on a 4K hdr Sony oled with chrome cast and Apple TV they were all about the same with built in performing the best (optimized for the tv I presume) - apple tv with infuse using Emby as a library was best

Chrome cast is also greatly affected by what your casting with, VLC, Videostream, chrome can all produce very different results depending on the content

Re: Roku says it may lose YouTube TV app after Google made anti-competitive demands

#350

Post by throwaway189262 »

ryeguy_24 wrote: post #348

There are a lot of negative remarks about Roku in here and I’m baffled. I think their user interface and experience have been flawless for the past 5-7 years. I’ve had Roku 3, Roku 4K, and now a TCL Roku TV. The remote control is super snappy. The mainstream apps work really well (Netflix, Hulu, Prime, Plex, YouTube, PBS Kids). I can’t speak to the developer or business side of the company but for a steaming device/p…

I loved Roku but they lost me when their latest model would only show regular 1080p on a 2K HDR-10 screen. And yes it supports HDCP and all that crap. Roku just never tested downscaling apparently.
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