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Dear Roku, you ruined my TV

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Re: Dear Roku, you ruined my TV

#171

Post by hagbard_c »

azinman2 wrote: post #168
hagbard_c wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you base your trust in Apple on? I don't trust them any more than I trust Google or Microsoft or Amazon or whatever other data-hungry corporate entity you may think of.

For AppleTV the hardware is far more expensive than the alternatives because it’s not subsidized by selling your viewing habits. The privacy policies tell you this, as does public knowledge. Companies like Roku which make most of their money on analyzing and selling your data do so publicly because they want people to know they should buy this info from them. Apple as a whole has had its traffic analyzed across devic…

You work at Apple and you think Apple is trustworthy. I'm fairly sure people who work at Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Amazon and the others say the same about their employers. The mere fact that Apple products are expensive does not make Apple trustworthy, it just means they target the 'premium' market segment. Here's some food for thought for those who put too much trust in Apple:

https://gizmodo.com/apple-iphone-analytics-tracking-even-whe...

https://www.wired.com/story/apple-is-an-ad-company-now/

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/sep/23/apple-use...

There's more to be found on this subject, just feed a search engine with questions related to apple tracking and gathering data on its users.

Please note that '...but they are not as bad as Google/Microsoft/Amazon/Facebook/etc' does not exculpate Apple. They may well be but that is not what I compare them to. I compare them to that Google-free device running an AOSP-derived distribution connecting to the server-under-the-stairs, not to any other corporate entity. In that comparison they fail spectacularly, hence my preference for running free software.

Re: Dear Roku, you ruined my TV

#172

Post by hagbard_c »

plasticeagle wrote: post #155
hagbard_c wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If there are devices around with cellular data access which do not require subscriptions that sounds like something which would be ripe for, shall we say, alternative use cases. Are there? I have not seen these yet but that does not mean much. I do know that if I ever get my hands on one the supplier will rue the day they decided to add a surreptitious data exfiltration channel to their products.

Yes there are. Construction equipment manufacturers sometimes buy a worldwide low data rate cellular plan, and give every machine they ship the ability to phone home. I recall that there was also an e-reader with similar functionality.

Yes, I know about such connections in heavy equipment and cars and about the old Kindle with 'lifetime' data, what I was wondering about is whether there are surreptitious cellular links built into consumer electronics which enable those devices to exfiltrate user data even when the user does not allow them internet access. I have not heard of such devices yet but that does not mean they do not exist.

Re: Dear Roku, you ruined my TV

#173

Post by nh23423fefe »

rewgs wrote: post #81

Does anyone want or like motion smoothing? It’s seemingly universally hated by a majority of those who care (myself included), and a minority of those who don’t. Why are TV manufacturers so dead-set on shoving it down our throats?

I prefer it. When I go to other people's houses their tv looks worse to me. The motion looks jittery and stulted to me.

Re: Dear Roku, you ruined my TV

#174

Post by adamomada »

lsaferite wrote: post #162
adamomada wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you and this is why I choose android or android-based streaming devices, in my case Fire TV. There’s enough hackability built into android that you can use e.g. tasker or other dedicated macro apps to do just enough customization that it ends up working the way you want. I know I’m the minority and most people don’t care or take it for granted how the thing works, but I don’t. In my case I basically woul…

As a related aside, I have a Fire Cube device on one of my TVs along with Jellyfin. I've been ripping all of my Blurays and DVDs to a local NAS with the objective of having my content available even if my internet connection is down. I discovered, the hard way, that the Fire TV won't function AT ALL without an active internet connection. It just says it cannot load the home page with no option to open any installed a…

Hey I hope you see this: you can use your fire cube offline, the thing that doesn’t work is the home screen. But if you hold down the home button, you can get to the app quick launcher (first or second selection, depending if you use profiles) and launch the app directly

I get around this with my custom setup but the hold down home / quick launch is available on all fire tv devices since the beginning.

Re: Dear Roku, you ruined my TV

#175

Post by karmakaze »

devilbunny wrote: post #137
lherron wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My 2013 Panasonic plasma is still going strong with AppleTV as the primary input source.

Well, short of Pioneer Kuro units, the Panasonic plasmas were the best screens of their time and are still very, very good.

I was sad both to hear that Pioneer got out of the plasma TV business, and also to let go of mine. It was funny how Pioneer basically perfected the form then promptly exited--true to name I guess. Panasonic bought Pioneer's TV biz, so that was the upside.

Re: Dear Roku, you ruined my TV

#176

Post by thfuran »

ssl-3 wrote: post #166
thfuran wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I don't know why people want horrible low frame rates. It's distracting every time a shot pans. But it seems a lot of people do.

We don't want "low frame rates". A lower frame rate is not the goal. If films were commonly shot and released at 120FPS, then we'd see videophiles clamoring to get the hardware in-place in their homes to support that framerate. But we're not there. Films are 24FPS. That's what the content is . That's what the filmmakers worked with for the entirety of filming, editing, post, and distribution processes. And the proces…

>A lower frame rate is not the goal.

>If films were commonly shot and released at 120FPS, then we'd see videophiles clamoring to get the hardware in-place in their homes to support that framerate.

I'm not sure that's actually the consensus opinion. Some of the complaints about frame interpolation are about specific kinds of artifacting, but many are of "the soap opera effect", and those same complaints were levied against The Hobbit, which was actually filmed at a higher frame rate.

Re: Dear Roku, you ruined my TV

#177

Post by karmakaze »

neuralRiot wrote: post #10
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…

> I don't know what this looks like but I probably hate it. A simple description would be: It makes film movies look like direct-to-video productions, so basically everything looks like a soap opera. Horrible indeed.

Yeah that's what I'd feared--I hate that soap opera effect. It makes fictional escapes into film look like every day life or a TV newscast.

I suspect that the mode was originally made for large screen TVs that mostly sold well for watching sports.

Re: Dear Roku, you ruined my TV

#178

Post by qubitcoder »

Waterluvian wrote: post #49

I hated my stupid TCL Roku TV so I got a TCL Android TV and it’s worse. The terrible incompetence of the team who manages to make a UI that lags out by multiple seconds when trying to cursor to the OFF option is frustrating. But I’m sure it makes their Project Manager overlords happy because it’s easy to supply ads to. If anyone here wants to solve a real problem and get rich doing so: start a company that makes dumb…

I will never buy an Android TV again after a horrible experience with a high-end Sony TV. It was extraordinarily laggy. Even changing the volume was a nightmare. Quite possibly the worst UI experience ever.

Pro-tip: Go with higher-end LG OLEDs. They are fantastic, super fast, and designed for cinephiles. You can often get "certified excellent" open-box deals at Best Buy for a very reasonable price. They're equivalent to brand new.

People on Hacker News love to complain about ads. I hate them too, and go to great lengths to block them. To be clear, they're referring to the "suggested content" on the Home screen, which I'm not sure many people use. Either way, all of that is easily disabled in the settings.

If used with an Apple TV, set top box, or, best of all, 4K Blu-ray, it's a premium experience where you're in control of all the picture settings.

Check out @hdtvtest on YouTube for in-depth dives.

Re: Dear Roku, you ruined my TV

#179

Post by lsaferite »

adamomada wrote: post #174
lsaferite wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a related aside, I have a Fire Cube device on one of my TVs along with Jellyfin. I've been ripping all of my Blurays and DVDs to a local NAS with the objective of having my content available even if my internet connection is down. I discovered, the hard way, that the Fire TV won't function AT ALL without an active internet connection. It just says it cannot load the home page with no option to open any installed a…

Hey I hope you see this: you can use your fire cube offline, the thing that doesn’t work is the home screen. But if you hold down the home button, you can get to the app quick launcher (first or second selection, depending if you use profiles) and launch the app directly I get around this with my custom setup but the hold down home / quick launch is available on all fire tv devices since the beginning.

Thanks! I'll try that this weekend.

Re: Dear Roku, you ruined my TV

#180

Post by plasticeagle »

hagbard_c wrote: post #172
plasticeagle wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes there are. Construction equipment manufacturers sometimes buy a worldwide low data rate cellular plan, and give every machine they ship the ability to phone home. I recall that there was also an e-reader with similar functionality.

Yes, I know about such connections in heavy equipment and cars and about the old Kindle with 'lifetime' data, what I was wondering about is whether there are surreptitious cellular links built into consumer electronics which enable those devices to exfiltrate user data even when the user does not allow them internet access. I have not heard of such devices yet but that does not mean they do not exist.

I feel like there probably aren't. It would be impossible to hide this for very long and it's expensive to implement.
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