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

My TV started playing a video in full screen by itself. What happened?

support.vizio.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 268 posts

Re: My TV started playing a video in full screen by itself. What happened?

#111

Post by paradite »

42772827 wrote: post #80
paradite wrote: post #73

You can turn it off. This is just a poorly worded FAQ. At the beginning, there is an FAQ that says you can't turn off ads in scenic mode. Q: Can I turn Scenic Mode ads off? A: No, not at this time... But in fact you can turn the Scenic mode off completely, but it buried later in the content of an FAQ about settings. Q: Can I change any settings for Scenic Mode? A: Yes. To use Scenic Mode with or without volume, navig…

"Poorly worded" makes it sound like incompetence. This was deceptively worded.

Maybe it is. Maybe it's not.

I prefer to state facts and leave interpretations to others.

Re: My TV started playing a video in full screen by itself. What happened?

#112

Post by cortesoft »

gruez wrote: post #43
reactordev wrote: post #11

I refuse to buy any “smart tv”. If that means going without a TV, then I’m going without one and will use the largest monitor I can use with a small beelink Linux box. We’re prey for their bottom line as they can’t sell TV’s for a profit without running ads all over it. I’m done. I’m out. Back to books, vinyl, fresh press, gnu, board games, and going outside.

Why not buy a smart TV and don't connect it to wifi?

Smart TVs are slower to do things like turn on

Re: My TV started playing a video in full screen by itself. What happened?

#113

Post by foobarchu »

like_any_other wrote: post #103
jorvi wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be honest, this is part of why TVs can be offered for so cheap these days. Same reason really cheap phones are stuffed with bloatware. Luckily with TVs you can freeload: just never connect it to the internet and only apply updates via USB. Stick an Apple TV / Chromecast / console into it for playback. This might even become standard operating procedure considering Samsung is getting into the ad game, and LG and So…

> To be honest, this is part of why TVs can be offered for so cheap these days I spent $3,000 on a Samsung Smart TV -- and all I got were ads and unwanted content - https://www.zdnet.com/home-and-office/home-entertainment/i-s... It'll be a cold day in hell when I believe corporate lies that they're doing all of this for my benefit. Especially when they neither clearly disclose all the ads and spying before purchase,…

Also when they add these "features" to TVs that were purchased without them.

Like how would it be received if the builder of your house could come in and put up ad murals on your walls without asking? Would we accept "it subsidizes costs" as an answer?

Re: My TV started playing a video in full screen by itself. What happened?

#114

Post by genocidicbunny »

ffsm8 wrote: post #109
jasinjames wrote: post #87

If you have a "smart" TV you'd like to avoid connecting to the internet for reasons like this, you can try disconnecting the wireless module entirely. I had a Sony Bravia TV I didn't trust, and after popping off the back I disconnected the wireless module's ribbon cable. The android-TV OS handled it gracefully, and now I don't have to worry about it attempting to smuggle data through any other WLANs in my apartment b…

I have an 6 yo LG OLED and bought a Xbox series x on release. I've had the firmware update disabled too, because I couldn't think of a reason why I would want it to update. I'm not using it as a smart device after all. Well, when I got the Xbox, it worked. But a few months after, it wouldn't receive any signal on my TV. After some googling, it turned out that the Xbox had a firmware update which now made them incompa…

I wonder if the incompatibility was due to something like HDCP, and needing new keys or something similar. The Xbox is fairly strict on enforcing DRM, and that might be why it wouldn't output to the TV after a while.

I recall that when I was doing console gamedev stuff, some monitors would not work if you set the console devkits into 'retail' mode, especially some of the old cheap LCDs that IT had stashed away to use as temporary loaners if someone's monitor was broken.

Re: My TV started playing a video in full screen by itself. What happened?

#115

Post by cortesoft »

42772827 wrote: post #80
paradite wrote: post #73

You can turn it off. This is just a poorly worded FAQ. At the beginning, there is an FAQ that says you can't turn off ads in scenic mode. Q: Can I turn Scenic Mode ads off? A: No, not at this time... But in fact you can turn the Scenic mode off completely, but it buried later in the content of an FAQ about settings. Q: Can I change any settings for Scenic Mode? A: Yes. To use Scenic Mode with or without volume, navig…

"Poorly worded" makes it sound like incompetence. This was deceptively worded.

Why would they want to make it seem like they are forcing you to watch ads? They tell you in other sections you can turn the functionality off, they aren't hiding it.

I don't get why they would try to make themselves sound worse than they are.

Re: My TV started playing a video in full screen by itself. What happened?

#116

Post by systemswizard »

zahlman wrote: post #64
ninjin wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure seems like a "wonderful" company. Their Wikipedia page lists the personal data collection lawsuit and them also likely being GPL violators at that with a court date in September this year: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vizio#Legal_issues

All that plus they expect to run JavaScript on my computer to show any of this page content.

To addon to this they are also owned by WalMart

Re: My TV started playing a video in full screen by itself. What happened?

#117

Post by lutusp »

The good news: large-panel TV sets are inexpensive for their performance.

The bad news: like many modern products, and as freely confessed in the linked article, you don't own the TV, it owns you.

The remedy: Connect the TV to your computer as a dumb monitor -- make it show only content you directly control. And disable the TV's network connection -- without that connection, it can't show ads.

My large-panel TV serves only as a computer monitor. My Linux computer runs the Brave browser and has a frequently updated ad-block list in /etc/hosts. This means no "Scenic Mode" ads and no YouTube corporate ads, only ads embedded by video content creators, which I skip over with a pointing device because the video is being controlled by a browser, not a TV.

The FBI recommends use of ad blockers to guard against fraud and malware (https://www.pcmag.com/news/fbi-recommends-installing-an-ad-b...). On the other hand, some sites refuse to function if an ad blocker is in use. Those sites don't deserve access to my eyeballs.

If all this fails, I pick up a book. Books don't have ads ... so far.

Re: My TV started playing a video in full screen by itself. What happened?

#118

Post by rerdavies »

jamesy0ung wrote: post #39

Just don't connect it to the internet and use an Apple TV instead.

Just don't buy an Android TV box. My ancient, very dumb, and totally wonderful Chromecast died, and I had to replace it with a Chromecast TV device. It's turned my TV into a 24-hour a day ad faucet. Transformed from a device that does remote Chromecasting very very well, to a insufficiently provisioned Android TV box that crashes and locks up frequenly when you are doing remote chromecasting. :-(

Re: My TV started playing a video in full screen by itself. What happened?

#119

Post by reaperducer »

kulahan wrote: post #35
reactordev wrote: post #11

I refuse to buy any “smart tv”. If that means going without a TV, then I’m going without one and will use the largest monitor I can use with a small beelink Linux box. We’re prey for their bottom line as they can’t sell TV’s for a profit without running ads all over it. I’m done. I’m out. Back to books, vinyl, fresh press, gnu, board games, and going outside.

I’m pretty sure you can buy “industrial” TVs from standard vendors which might fit the bill for you. They’re much pricier though, if I’m remembering correctly.

I once priced a generic panel from B&H and it wasn't very much more than paying for a smart TV with nearly the same specs.

That's why I don't buy the "but ads make it cheaper" lie.

Re: My TV started playing a video in full screen by itself. What happened?

#120

Post by rerdavies »

stalfosknight wrote: post #82

This is why all of my TVs are airgapped. I don’t understand why some people don’t just get an Apple TV or similar and keep their TV completely ignorant of the LAN and internet.

I'm not sure there are a lot of similars left, now that Android TV has become an ad faucet.
Post reply on HN