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Samsung's smart TVs are inserting unwanted ads into users' own movies

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Re: Samsung's smart TVs are inserting unwanted ads into users' own movies

#121

Post by spiritplumber »

jessaustin wrote: post #119
spiritplumber wrote: post #114

Step 1: Buy a projector. Step 2: Buy a roku box, or a used laptop. Step 3: Buy a decent pair of speakers. Step 4: Set it all up. Step 5: Enjoy a large screen that is also portable, and that probably cost significantly less than the same-size TV would have.

Do you have recommendations for projectors? Anything that can be used during the day?

Good blackout curtains. Pretty much anything with HDMI input will do, honestly... I generally get projectors from places that recycle office furniture, you can get a 4000 lumen XGA projector for $75 that way.

I prefer LCD over DLP because they degrade more gracefully.

http://robots-everywhere.com/re_wiki/index.php?n=Main.Projec... may help with lamp life if you end up with something pre-LED.

Re: Samsung's smart TVs are inserting unwanted ads into users' own movies

#122

Post by morganvachon »

bitL wrote: post #107
morganvachon wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you do all your shopping in brick-and-mortar stores that only carry expensive Samsung and LG TVs, I'd believe that. But there's a wealth of "dumb" TVs available online and even in big-box stores like Best Buy and Walmart. I'd say if someone is savvy enough to know they don't want a "smart" TV, they will know where to look for a good deal.

Unfortunately, it seems there are no 4K dumb TVs :-(

Sure there are. Twenty seconds on Amazon yielded this:

http://smile.amazon.com/Upstar-P55EWX-55-Inch-Definition-Wid...

That's at the budget end of the spectrum, but there are non-"smart" 4K TVs among the better brands as well. This site has reviews of several low to high-end 4K TVs:

http://www.whathifi.com/products/tvs/4k-tvs

Or, you could get a 4K computer monitor, and an HDMI splitter to port the sound over to your surround system. There are always options.

Re: Samsung's smart TVs are inserting unwanted ads into users' own movies

#123

Post by Htsthbjig »

ChrisLTD wrote: post #31
snarfy wrote: post #26

> Samsung explained that these sorts of ads were supposed to be opt-in only and was working with Yahoo to improve the system. No user would opt-in to commercials, ever. I don't believe for a second this system was designed with opt-in in mind. Whenever an ill conceived feature like this is brought to the light, it's always explained as a bug, glitch, or some screw up in engineering. Well, it's not a bug. It was speci…

Smart TVs are a good idea. Who doesn't want less crap plugged into their TV? However, TV manufacturers – for some reason – are ill-suited to developing the software that would make for a good experience.

I don't. I bought a 55 inches LG OLED and basically connect it to a computer.

It is an amazing device for work. In 2 or tree years I will change my computer, but not my screen.

People are buying 4Ks screens today, with quantum dots LCDs and OLED you could display color for which no specification exist yet!!

In one or two years you will have devices that could use the color space.

There is very little content for 4K. No affordable computer is going to display google earth at 4Ks and 60 fps, but in the near future they will appear.

Re: Samsung's smart TVs are inserting unwanted ads into users' own movies

#124

Post by jessaustin »

arca_vorago wrote: post #115

You know what I'm curious about? Why so many people rail against GPL for business use, claiming it makes it more difficult to monetize a product, but then companies like Samsung and Google turn around and use GNU/Linux and other GPL code on a project and then lock it down with proprietary blobs and DRM. Doesn't seem to really be hurting them at all, but it is certainly hurting consumers that linux is being used to ab…

I haven't used one of these TVs, but if they're using linux and you can't patch it, why haven't they been sued? That is the point of the GPL.

Re: Samsung's smart TVs are inserting unwanted ads into users' own movies

#125

Post by marcosdumay »

spuz wrote: post #32
pfisch wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They will never be awesome. It is like having built in navigation in your car vs an iPhone. Built in is proprietary bs that will always be out of date, and hardware refreshes will take like 5+ years because how often do you get a new tv. Right now my roku runs about 1000x faster than my smart tv and is really just superior in every way. Stand alone boxes will always be better because the software will be better and h…

That really doesn't make sense logically. The physical location of the computer doesn't affect whether it is proprietary or open source, or how frequently it will receive updates. The navigation on your phone is probably better than the one in your car right now, but when Apple or Google take over the car system market you will have Apple CarPlay or Android Auto in modern cars that have high quality software with fas…

> The physical location of the computer doesn't affect whether it is proprietary or open source

Yes, it does. When it comes bundled with another product, it'll be proprietary. Companies just don't bundle products to increase your freedom or their competitors power.

Re: Samsung's smart TVs are inserting unwanted ads into users' own movies

#126

Post by ghkbrew »

occam65 wrote: post #78

That's it, I've had it. I'm going to set my router to take all traffic from the MAC address of my TV and route it to 127.0.0.1. I'll disable the redirect when I want to check for firmware updates, but that's it.

I personally prefer to keep my glorified display panel disconnected from any sort of ip network.

It puts the HDMI input on the screen or else it gets the hose again.

Re: Samsung's smart TVs are inserting unwanted ads into users' own movies

#127

Post by Sami_Lehtinen »

Sharlin wrote: post #16

So... do smart TVs actually have a single feature that's actually useful to the consumer?

No? I use my TV purely as monitor from a few HDMI video sources. Of course the TV malware could still scan for open wifi's and leak my information even if I haven't connected it to any of the other networks. Btw. Does HDMI standard allow data relay, so they could use connected devices to relay the data to 3rd parties over alternate network connections?

Re: Samsung's smart TVs are inserting unwanted ads into users' own movies

#128

Post by sheensleeves »

belorn wrote: post #90

This business practice of hiding secret drawbacks in Terms of Service need be sent to the courts and stopped. In the history of contact law, the practice has come, been outlawed, reinvented, been outlawed again, and repeated with new schemes every 10-20 year or so. Last time it was Hidden fees and surcharges, before that, incomplete prices and hidden costs. The law adapted and with it business practices, but the lure…

Wikipedia: "Asymmetric recognition in this way is authority without responsibility, on the side of the Master, and responsibility without authority, on the side of the Slave. And Hegel's argument is that unless authority and responsibility are commensurate and reciprocal, no actual normative statuses are instituted." (EULA=master, customer=slave.)

Re: Samsung's smart TVs are inserting unwanted ads into users' own movies

#129

Post by JonFish85 »

Just a continuation on a theme, and I'd expect this to become a bigger thing. I imagine that advertising will continue to move closer and closer to the consumer and away from the "medium". Until recently, media ads were essentially controlled by the networks (whether radio or TV), but I would expect the trend to be towards cutting them out of it a bit.

In-game advertising is already a ~$1bn/year thing, and this seems a logical extension of that. Imagine if your TV could insert ads depending on exactly what you were watching, based on your specific habits--it's an ad company's wet dream. Coca Cola wouldn't have to spend the time figuring out which programs to advertise to, they could target specific customers without having to go to a second-order of research (who do we want to advertise to, and where are they?). That second step is completely cut out.

I hate it, but I could definitely see a trend in this direction. Isn't this essentially exactly what Google Glass is about? If Google can figure out exactly what you're looking at, exactly where you are and draw conclusions from that data, they have extraordinarily valuable information for advertisers.

Re: Samsung's smart TVs are inserting unwanted ads into users' own movies

#130

Post by DanBC »

HeXetic wrote: post #104
andybak wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Smart TVs are a terrible idea for the same reason that combined printer and scanners are a bad idea but with the negative aspect magnified many times. The cost and life expectancy of each part is very different and you don't want their replacement/upgrade to be tied together. A display panel should last you more than a decade and probably costs many 100s or 1000s. The 'smart' bit is probably worth less than $200 and…

> combined printer and scanners are a bad idea So, photocopiers are a bad idea? Because that's what that is.

Parent post is clearly talking about domestic printers that come with a scanner too, and not photocopiers.

But, actually, scanning+printing photocopiers (rather than traditional photocopiers) suck too: http://www.dkriesel.com/en/blog/2013/0802_xerox-workcentres_...?

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