Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Dear Roku, you ruined my TV

theverge.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 181 posts

Re: Dear Roku, you ruined my TV

#111

Post by throwway120385 »

paulcole wrote: post #105
madeofpalk wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kind of, yes. Terminology used in Australian consumer law is that devices must be "fit for purpose" and of "acceptable quality", especially in regards to other similar products. A software update changing the product in a significant and negative way after purchase definitely would be grounds for a "remedy".

It's a TV! It plays video. How is that not "fit for purpose" and of "acceptable quality." Honestly just seems nuts to me for the law to be so vague. Why don't they just say, "Refund under any circumstance the customer feels inconvenienced and upset" and be done with it? I find that much more honest and easier to follow than what you're describing. Caveat emptor and all.

I think you're being unreasonable. "Acceptable quality" is whatever a reasonable person accepts an argument for. If Roku doesn't want to run afoul of these laws perhaps they should make these kinds of features optional instead of forcing them on people? I remember back in the day when a software update removed my ability to play FM radio on my phone and that was certainly frustrating for me. I personally continued using the phone but I could see how someone who purchased the phone for that feature would be dismayed at its sudden removal.

The whole point of these laws is to prevent manufacturers from squeezing people by making products that fail early, or that are difficult to use. If you don't understand why this is important then I'd question how much life experience you really have.

Re: Dear Roku, you ruined my TV

#112

Post by recursive »

pugworthy wrote: post #109

The article says... > If you’re someone who doesn’t notice motion smoothing or doesn’t particularly care about it... This basically is me. It then proceeds to describe a number of things that would be blatantly obvious and asks you to imagine if you couldn't turn them off. Yes, if my Kindle's fonts all went 3x size, I'd both notice and probably care. But this "logic" fails to work with that previously quoted sentence…

No one's asking you to care. Some people wouldn't notice tripled text size, even though it's similarly hard for me to imagine.

I usually notice motion interpolation within a second of watching. I also find it to be intolerable.

Maybe people like you can come out ahead on the newly reduced prices on these RokuTV's with recently reduced market value.

Re: Dear Roku, you ruined my TV

#113

Post by recursive »

jes5199 wrote: post #100
cm2012 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It looks like a 90s/2000s soap opera, like Days of our Lives. I always turn it off on TVs I use.

I've heard that before and it just sounds so strange - why would interpolated frames on a HDTV remind people of the production values from standard definition televisions?

It's the frame rate. People are accustomed to seeing video at ~30fps. But old soap operas were somehow at ~60fps, among other things. I think this motion interpolation thing looks significantly worse than the old soap operas, because the interpolated frames break down when there's too much movement, which is exactly when they could have the most value, if you believed they had any value proposition at all.

Re: Dear Roku, you ruined my TV

#114

Post by RichardCA »

karmakaze wrote: post #4

I don't know what this looks like but I probably hate it. It's like the frame interpolation that some TVs had to generate 120p frames from 60p. I actually prefer the original 24p (or 24p double-exposed to 48 like cinema projectors do) for films. What really bugs me are the "Remastered" versions of songs on Spotify that sound like they were produced with today's audience in mind and doesn't sound like the original rec…

For the music listening use case, if you can get your hands on a CD and rip it to FLAC that's the way to go.

When the CD format first took hold in the early/mid 80's, it was common for the record labels to push out CD's that were just straight digital transfers of the original analog mastering that was used to create the vinyl LP.

Now we're here 40 years later, and you can still find those CD's on Ebay and rip them using a program like foobar2000, and the result is basically flawless for all the common playback use cases (I'm not here to make the audiophile argument).

I'm also impressed that the 80's and 90's era CD's are not going bad on me. Boomers and Gen-X-ers will always have that box full of treasured CD's, and not a single one of them has failed on me so far.

Re: Dear Roku, you ruined my TV

#115

Post by paulcole »

throwway120385 wrote: post #111
paulcole wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a TV! It plays video. How is that not "fit for purpose" and of "acceptable quality." Honestly just seems nuts to me for the law to be so vague. Why don't they just say, "Refund under any circumstance the customer feels inconvenienced and upset" and be done with it? I find that much more honest and easier to follow than what you're describing. Caveat emptor and all.

I think you're being unreasonable. "Acceptable quality" is whatever a reasonable person accepts an argument for. If Roku doesn't want to run afoul of these laws perhaps they should make these kinds of features optional instead of forcing them on people? I remember back in the day when a software update removed my ability to play FM radio on my phone and that was certainly frustrating for me. I personally continued us…

> If Roku doesn't want to run afoul of these laws perhaps they should make these kinds of features optional instead of forcing them on people?

Maybe they don't care about running afoul of these laws? Or feel that they are on solid ground?

> The whole point of these laws is to prevent manufacturers from squeezing people by making products that fail early, or that are difficult to use.

But neither of those things happened in this case did they? The TV still TVs (it didn't fail early) and it's not suddenly more difficult to use. The person just dislikes the update.

> I personally continued using the phone but I could see how someone who purchased the phone for that feature would be dismayed at its sudden removal.

I guess this is where we differ. Somebody feeling dismayed does not mean the company owes them a refund (in my opinion) and governments should not (in my opinion) be writing laws that protect people from being dismayed with their purchases.

Re: Dear Roku, you ruined my TV

#116

Post by ranger207 »

pugworthy wrote: post #109

The article says... > If you’re someone who doesn’t notice motion smoothing or doesn’t particularly care about it... This basically is me. It then proceeds to describe a number of things that would be blatantly obvious and asks you to imagine if you couldn't turn them off. Yes, if my Kindle's fonts all went 3x size, I'd both notice and probably care. But this "logic" fails to work with that previously quoted sentence…

It's asking you to empathize with users who can notice motion smoothing by imagining that you suffer a major noticable annoyance. The logic flows perfectly well in that sentence.

Re: Dear Roku, you ruined my TV

#117

Post by chuckadams »

I have a Roku stick, and volume on the remote only works with Roku sound bars. My Amazon stick and Apple TV remotes handled it no sweat.

Then there’s the constant screwing around with the home screen. I think I’ll be going back to AppleTV next time around.

Re: Dear Roku, you ruined my TV

#118

Post by recursive »

ipsento606 wrote: post #110
rightbyte wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe it is good for tracking the ball in sports? (Note: A hypothesis. I don't watch sports ...)

it's good - or at least, fine - for stuff that you want to look as true-to-life as possible. Sports, nature documentaries, news coverage (if you're into that) it's absolutely awful for everything else

I don't think it's even fine for anything. In all the implementations I've seen, as soon as the action gets too big/complicated, the interpolated frames are dropped. Right when you need the intermediate frames most, it seems to drop to the source frame rate. (maybe just for part of the screen?)

Re: Dear Roku, you ruined my TV

#119

Post by adamomada »

romwell wrote: post #102
adamomada wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They made the feature, they’re gonna enable it or nobody would use it and it would have been a waste of time making You’re really gonna hate the fact that 99% of people think this is what stuff on their digital television is supposed to look like. (Which is exactly why Roku did it)

Which is why Roku decided to take away the option to disable it for people who understand and notice the effect and actively don't want it ? Pardon me, it makes zero sense at all.

I was trying to say that we’re in an extreme minority; they didn’t even think more than ten people would disable it. What’s the reason that makes sense? They forgot?

Re: Dear Roku, you ruined my TV

#120

Post by axus »

jes5199 wrote: post #100
cm2012 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It looks like a 90s/2000s soap opera, like Days of our Lives. I always turn it off on TVs I use.

I've heard that before and it just sounds so strange - why would interpolated frames on a HDTV remind people of the production values from standard definition televisions?

I've seen those soap operas and it's true. I'm having trouble finding an online source that really shows what it looked like.

The number of people who've never had to watch an old soap opera is increasing.

Post reply on HN