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Samsung TV owners complain about increasingly obtrusive ads

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Re: Samsung TV owners complain about increasingly obtrusive ads

#741

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. We are asking for TVs without internet access, but the market has decided for us.

"We" are a tiny minority. The vast majority of people just don't care and want the most TV for the least money. It's a "tyranny of the majority" kind of situation. For TV manufacturers, it's not worth catering to the tiny minority of customers who think like us.

How do you know that? I am going to go out on a limb here and say you have not done background research on TV manufacturers who focus exclusively on inexpensive dumb TVs, so how can you know it's not worth it to them?

It is entirely possible there are other factors as to why we are not buying from them right now, such as supplier-related issues unbeknownst to us.

In short, the economy is more complex than claiming "demand" and saying we are done.

Re: Samsung TV owners complain about increasingly obtrusive ads

#743
post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In some stupid meeting somewhere: A: ...and in conclusion, it's a win-win situation. Users will benefit from ads and our revenue will go up. B: People don't like ads on their TV. A: But they do. I refer you to slides 18 through 25 where you can see engagement metrics for our ad rollout on the old model. If people wouldn't like ads they wouldn't be clicking on them so much . B: I don't like ads. Do you like ads on you…

I suspect that a large part of this ad- and marketing-driven economy is based on this. The reason they predict their revenue will go up (which it will, at least in the short term until the market adjusts) is because they have a lot of customers already lined up to pay them to show ads on their TVs. Those customers' marketing departments decided to pay money to include their ads on TVs because a similar process was fo…

>I am not convinced that the majority of the advertising & marketing initiatives out there actually translate to more profit.

The big companies have people who check if the ads are working. Every have the clerk ask for your zip code? That is because they are checking if the ad sent to some zip codes worked. It is noisy data, but statistics is all about finding signal in noisy data.

Re: Samsung TV owners complain about increasingly obtrusive ads

#744

I purchased a Samsung TV about two years ago for $1,200. It was my first 4K TV and I loved it. I made the purchase around the same time I dropped my cable subscription, I just couldn't stand the advertisements anymore. The panel was thin (with almost no bezels), the picture quality was superb and I was sold on the "Smart TV" features like having built in access to Netflix, etc. For a while it was great, then I notice…

Depends on how complicated you want things to be.

I recently bought a Sony TV, it's an amazing display but I have zero patience for their janky android flavoured UI.

I never setup wifi, I have 3x HDMI ports connected:

1x port for a cable set top box

1x port with a raspberry pi running OSMC

1x port with a google Chromecast

I will use the cable for local news or documentaries. For Youtube/Netflix/Spotify streaming, I will use the Chromecast dongle. I use the OSMC media center for torrents, internet radio and some live TV channels from my home country.

It sounds convoluted but I find it easier to just toogle HDMI ports and have a solution that is optimal for I want to do, rather than to try use any of the solutions out there that claim they can do everything but end up falling short.

Re: Samsung TV owners complain about increasingly obtrusive ads

#745
post #404
post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's exactly what I've been doing with my 2019 Samsung TV and and a Shield Pro. The TV is unplugged from the internet and all my streaming is done from the Shield, which is even better because: 1. The Netflix/Prime Video etc apps are snappier because of the beefier SoC 2. Content looks better, because DLSS does a better job at upscaling than the TV's native upscaler 3. I can use it to stream games from my PC, which…

Re. point 3. Have you streamed yet or it’s just an option right now? Something I’m considering but I’ve not looked into. Wondering about lag, and if I have to run upstairs to my pc to start games etc.

Can only speak for Steam's streaming here, but your mileage will probably vary. Your system needs to be fairly beefy (you will get a bit of a performance hit from streaming games). I run a geforce 1060 and it'll stream any new games at 1080p / 60fps but I'd go beefier for 2K/4K streaming. I'm still on a dumb 1080p TV so that'll be more important if your TV is >1080p.

Biggest obstacle here was the wifi in this house is unreliable. We tried getting a wifi extender and even a new wireless router but we kept getting latency issues. We opted to get a powerline adapter for a stable connection. MOCA is also worth looking into if connectivity is a problem.

And finally, running to the other room to start games. Again, this is steam, but I'm guessing shield has the same limitation: if your system isn't logged in or the screen is locked, you will probably have problems starting games remotely in those cases. You'll want to setup remote desktop almost for sure (you can VNC or there's a way to logout of RDP too without locking the screen automatically). I also have a Wake on LAN shortcut setup to wake the PC up remotely.

Finally, sometimes games won't pipe audio remotely because they don't switch to the "virtual streaming audio device" these apps use properly. As far as I can tell this is on a game-by-game basis and depends how they coded it, but for that I have a pretty ridiculous work around (I remotely start a command line tool via openssh to force the audio device to "steam streaming speakers" then restart the game after that). The games with these problems seem pretty rare though, I'd say maybe 5% of the games I've tried.

Overall it's awesome and I glad I spent a day or two figuring it out. I don't get noticeable lag and I can stream pretty much any game to my living room on the TV now. Also got a "Couchmaster" for a kb/mouse setup. I can also emulate things like Wii U games and stream them remotely to the TV like having an actual system.

Hope this helps.

Re: Samsung TV owners complain about increasingly obtrusive ads

#746
post #594

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eventually TVs will VPN out. Dat revenue is way too sweet...

As long as it's on my network, I can still block the VPN endpoint, or simply block based on source IP, or put the TV in a non-routable subnet.

...Assuming it displays anything at all without being able to phone home.

Chances are good the TVs of the future will just display full screen error messages if they haven’t been able to upload your content engagement metrics in the last 15 minutes.

Re: Samsung TV owners complain about increasingly obtrusive ads

#748
post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not the solution. Adding a PiHole to your network is not the solution. Disabling features in other places of your network is not the solution. What if Samsung decides that it will try to connect to open networks for updates or what not? What then? Ask your neighbour to install PiHole on his network? No. This is an example of a game of cat and mouse that shouldn't exist - you pay money for a TV and that's not…

Some Samsung TVs already try and connect to open WiFi networks if you don't connect them yourself. see https://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/bpr6xs/if_you_choo... My next idea - Faraday cages for smart TVs

Or Faraday cages for entire rooms in my house!

Re: Samsung TV owners complain about increasingly obtrusive ads

#749
post #733

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lol Sony just pushed an update to the homescreen of android TVs that pushes ads for shows and services on the very top of the screen.

They do it, because we let them do it. They obviously can get away with it.

In fairness, how would people even react? Almost all major TV platforms have ads and all of this is on products long after sale. If everyone is guilty, how does anyone get punished?

Re: Samsung TV owners complain about increasingly obtrusive ads

#750

I purchased a Samsung TV about two years ago for $1,200. It was my first 4K TV and I loved it. I made the purchase around the same time I dropped my cable subscription, I just couldn't stand the advertisements anymore. The panel was thin (with almost no bezels), the picture quality was superb and I was sold on the "Smart TV" features like having built in access to Netflix, etc. For a while it was great, then I notice…

You could try using a pi-hole as your DNS server on your local network to block ads across all connected devices. https://pi-hole.net/

reminds me of this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23074827
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