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Fox to buy Roku

wsj.com

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Re: Fox to buy Roku

#321

Post by renegade-otter »

freeAgent wrote: post #186
andrewla wrote: post #4

As a long-time[1] customer of Roku I am tentatively extremely pessimistic. I have always been unhappy with Roku's decision to get involved in streaming content at all, because it could potentially cut into their service-agnostic architecture. Bad enough in my mind that they had in-platform ads instead of just charging for hardware, but way worse when they are actively competing with streaming services. And now it loo…

Ironically, I think the Apple TV is the best streaming box out there. Of course, Apple is both the manufacturer and a streamer in their own right. And they definitely privilege their own store and streaming over other services. However, everything else already sucks so much with UIs chock full of ads that Apple wins anyway. It’s awful.

Subjective, of course, but Apple is the new HBO. They don't have the massive amount of content, but they go for quality.

Re: Fox to buy Roku

#322

Post by tredre3 »

munk-a wrote: post #229
freeAgent wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ironically, I think the Apple TV is the best streaming box out there. Of course, Apple is both the manufacturer and a streamer in their own right. And they definitely privilege their own store and streaming over other services. However, everything else already sucks so much with UIs chock full of ads that Apple wins anyway. It’s awful.

Unironically, the best streaming box out there is a PC where you can hook up ad block and stream content from independent content providers like Dropout and Nebula using their web-based UI. We seem to have an economic cycle of enshittification => piracy => people realizing they've over enshittified => goto 10. We were in phase 3 a few years ago, now we're in phase 1 and it's an insane race to the bottom.

The desktop is the best streaming box only if:

- You run Windows because nothing else will let you stream in 4k

- You ignore the absolutely sub-par UI/UX couch experience

And I say this as someone who's been running a media center pc in various forms for decades.

Re: Fox to buy Roku

#324

Post by usefulcat »

SamBam wrote: post #104
mleo wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Begin? I haven’t heard anything positive about Roku in 10 years or so. They had to race to the bottom to compete with Amazon and Google. And maybe they mostly survived til now, but all I hear is complaints about ads.

Nah. I have a Roku 3 stick and a brand-new $700 projector with Google TV. The Roku 3 is light-years ahead in terms of speed and UI ergonomics over the Google machine. And both are better than the smart TVs I've used. But I fear this need means this time is ending, and we'll only be left with crap.

> both are better than the smart TVs I've used.

I mean, ok, but that's still a pretty low bar.

I used various Rokus for.. I dunno, must have been at least 10 years. Switched to the Apple TV last year because Roku keeps adding more and more ads to their devices.

The Apple TV is much nicer than any Roku I've used. Performance and reliability are excellent, and ads are minimal. Only for Apple's streaming service, only when that app is selected, and no audio.

Re: Fox to buy Roku

#325

Post by Rohansi »

pier25 wrote: post #307
beastman82 wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what are the shield issues? I've had 2 of them for 10 years and I haven't noticed anything.

For years it had frame rate issues. Every second or so when watching eg Netflix you would see a micro stutter if the content wasn't at 24fps (eg PAL content at 25fps). I think this was improved recently but it's been years since I've used the Shield for anything but Plex. As for Plex I've had way too many issues to list. Networking issues, having to restart the Plex app after the device went to sleep, etc. When I swi…

> since I got it 10 years ago

Probably one of the big issues here. It's probably still the best Android TV you can get today but that's really sad because the SoC in it came out in 2015 (with some improvements in 2019). It was probably worse than what was in Apple TV at the time and Apple refreshed it two times since then.

Re: Fox to buy Roku

#326

Post by Arainach »

Benanov wrote: post #310
Arainach wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Amazon was the rightful owner of my fastforward button What do you mean by this? The back button is involved in system UI and apps should be limited in their ability to steal it, but fast forward is an action that makes no sense outside the context of an app

Can't skip ahead to sections of their content you want to view and instead are forced to watch it in sequence. Either that or can't skip ads, ala legal dvd playback

I'm still not seeing the part where this is Roku's fault at all. It's Amazon's app responding to the controls the way Amazon wants it.

There's no platform with a standardized "fast forward" experience - Apple TV, Google TV, Fire Sticks, whatever are apps running on a device and those apps all implement their own navigation controls.

Re: Fox to buy Roku

#327

Post by adamrezich »

Schiendelman wrote: post #311
nrmitchi wrote: post #96

I may be lambasted for saying this, but I do not believe that Fox (or any large media company, really) should be permitted to purchase direct access to the TV hardware of roughly 30-50% of american households.

On the other hand, that would mean no Apple TV, no Fire TV stick... I suspect that would have downsides for the market.

There's a huge difference between making your own streaming box that people have to buy in order to use, and buying the company that makes the streaming box built into basically every new TV.

Re: Fox to buy Roku

#329

Post by mikestew »

hbn wrote: post #285
freeAgent wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ironically, I think the Apple TV is the best streaming box out there. Of course, Apple is both the manufacturer and a streamer in their own right. And they definitely privilege their own store and streaming over other services. However, everything else already sucks so much with UIs chock full of ads that Apple wins anyway. It’s awful.

The only issue with Apple TV is they still can't figure out a good remote. I feel like I need to hold my breath and be very intentional with my swipes so when I'm e.g. swiping up/down to get to a menu where I can turn on subtitles I don't accidentally swipe left or right, sending me scrubbing 17 minutes forward. Either touch is a bad input mechanism for controlling your TV, or Apple hasn't figured it out.

I’ve had one of these remotes almost since they came out:

https://function101.com/products/button-remote-for-apple-tv?...

The newer Apple Remote has directional buttons, and you can then turn off the touch pad.

Re: Fox to buy Roku

#330

Post by tredre3 »

nazgulsenpai wrote: post #245
malfist wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That works until the ads are hosted from the same domain name

Then my little Celeron junker will also double as a router. Probably going to have do that anyway since YouTube on PS4 and Roku both serve adds from (what I assume are) hardcoded IP addresses.

How would a router help you in that scenario? Is your plan is to selectively MITM streaming services with a proxy running on that same machine?
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