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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

#61

Post by astrodust »

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.

Every "Smart TV" I've seen is like a dumbed down version of a real device like a Chromecast or an Apple TV.

How do you make something so brutally garbage, anyway? Some of these TVs take so long to register a button press you have to wonder if they aren't using a 6502 inside to power the thing.

The only experience that's worse is those set-top boxes the cable companies provide you with. The Amiga had near flawless, real-time response and these things refresh at, maybe, a few frames per second.

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

#62

Post by a3n »

andybak wrote: post #42
ChrisLTD wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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…

I haven't bought a TV for five years (a Samsung, as it happens, plugged into a Roku). Can you even buy a TV that isn't smart these days?

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

#63

Post by jfb »

toxican wrote: post #36
tedunangst wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the sound of it, the ads only appear when using smart TV apps? So you could still use a "smart" TV but with normal inputs.

Then why not just save yourself some money and get a "dumb" TV? I can only imagine they jack the price up a hundred or two for the "smart"

Because the panels are commodities and market pressures are such that "Smart" TV features are the battleground that the manufacturers are trying to differentiate on. You can get a reference monitor, which will be the same panel as a $800 Smart TV for $4k.

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

#64

Post by mpeg »

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…

You can actually update hardware on recent Samsung smart tvs without changing the screen, it's a separate component that slots into the TV

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

#65

Post by a3n »

lultimouomo wrote: post #35

> By either selecting that I agree or by not selecting that I disagree, I agree to the Yahoo Connected TV Terms of Service Written under the deselected "I Agree" checkbox, with no "I disagree" option visible. This has to be some kind of record. And on a TV that you paid hundreds if not thousands of dollars, not in some spooky shareware download.

Not defending it, but I notice there's a scroll button at the bottom of that panel. Perhaps disagree is below the fold.

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

#67

Post by pjmlp »

a3n wrote: post #62
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…

I haven't bought a TV for five years (a Samsung, as it happens, plugged into a Roku). Can you even buy a TV that isn't smart these days?

In Europe yes.

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

#68

Post by vpeters25 »

Sharlin wrote: post #16

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

At least in my case the apps for Netflix and Amazon get a lot of use. Netflix support was one of the key features I wanted when purchasing my current SmartTV.

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

#69

Post by blissflixx »

lucaspiller wrote: post #22
Fundlab wrote: post #6

Personally a dumb tv/roku/media server has been my go to choice. This whole smartTV hype is still beyond me. Could someone please touch on the advantages of a smart TV offerings over my setup?

I purposely bought a Philips smart TV this year as the only stuff I really watch is Netflix, iPlayer, YouTube and my own ripped content. This TV advertised apps for all of that and DLNA support, so I figured I wouldn't need any other boxes. I have used XBMC before and that worked great, except there is still no Netflix support, so I figured I'd try something with it built in. Netflix works perfectly, and I really can…

You might be interested in trying out a little Raspberry Pi side project that I've been working on for the last few months:

https://github.com/blissland/blissflixx

You'll be able stream BBC iPlayer (as well as lots of other stuff) directly to your TV instead of having to download using get_iplayer. Nobody but me uses it yet so be prepared to find some bugs - but it should be fairly usable.

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

#70

Post by michaelt »

rblatz wrote: post #21
cauterized wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there such a things as a wanted ad?

Lots of people watch the Super Bowl for the ads.

I'll believe there are "wanted ads" when Samsung and Yahoo set the ads to off by default and let customers opt in.
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