I got this popup ad on my TV **while watching a DVD**
we live in hell
I don't even understand the pitch? you have the disc playing, in your hands, your ownership, no buffering, no subscription required. and they're saying....hey do you want a worse experience?
1877
Comments508
Protip: Do not connect your TV to the Internet.
I ended up giving up and just putting a Linux PC attached to my TV as a media center. I host plex on it.
This is the way (Jellyfin here)
I'm new to all this. Got any recommendations how to learn about Jellyfin?
Of use jellyfin, but I have too many friends with only consoles that rely on my server. Sigh
I don't see how this is giving up though. Been doing this to close to two decades in one form of another and I wouldn't consider any other way. Except kodi instead of plexus here.
I mean, steam made it work with games, you telling me that 6-7 of these giant media companies can't get it to work for video? The giving up part is that you have to embrace piracy (again?) to get to acceptable levels of service per dollar
I still watch TV through a Laptop running Windows Media Centre. MS have given up on trying to kill it. The Microsoft remote has seen better days but is still functioning.
Until Plex gets unbearable as well. They have been getting a lot shittier lately.
I have my Steam Deck attached to my TV. It's great for watching pirated sports streams via web browser.
I still get Roku recommendations on plex content from my Apple TV. They are doing content recognition off of the hdmi input
or just get a cheap-ass android box (like xiaomi or google)
Honestly, I'm just using a cheap Android TV box with stremio and smart tube. Those two apps pretty much cover everything I'd wanna watch. Those $20 Walmart ones are super easy to root/bootloader unlock too, so you can put lineageOS on it if you want
Protip: destroy your 'smart' TV.
Protip: burn your house
Protip: burn down the world
Protip: read Protips
The real protips are always in the comments
^This
Protip: tip the pros
You go ahead and destroy something that cost you hundreds of dollars. Be it a TV or cans of Bud Light, I'm not going to destroy something I already got out of some need for a moral victory.
I hate 'smart' TVs. I wish they didn't exist. But telling someone to destroy the one they already had- meaning that if they want to watch TV, they'll just have to buy another- doesn't really make much sense to me.
That sounds actually reasonable, but I'm not taking any advice from a flying squid.
Or, if you must (cringe), use anonymous credentials, have a router level VPN, and maybe even run pihole. But much better to just hook up a PC to your TV and run all of your apps off of that.
What? Am i supposed to watch tv? Hell nah
What brand? so I know NOT to buy it
I believe it's Roku. That purple symbol in the bottom right is on the remote as well.
Very budget so this doesn't surprise me.
Also beneath the purple asterisk is the words "Roku TV" in grey on the bezel
Fuck Roku. Don't buy these. They shove ads down your throat constantly, and they proactively, aggressively stop methods of circumvention.
Wtf I thought roku TV were one of the good ones. I use a Roku thing that you plug in and I haven't seen this yet.
The good ones go bad eventually :(
The Roku box was one of the good ones... about ten years ago. Though maybe this is just a TV thing. TIL Roku makes actual screens.
In the past few years especially, I've seen so many unshakable "good ones" go bad. Some, in the worst possible way.
My Sharp TV runs Roku software. Suffice it to say I do not have it web connected and use an android box instead
The poster really needs to just turn off the Smart TV experience.
No. No, they are not one of the good ones.
I use a Roku as well and never have this happen so I dunno
The little asterisk symbol on the screen is leading me to believe it's a Roku.
I have two roku tvs. The day I see this is the day they get disconnected.
You can probably use a pi-hole to block those things.
The amount of Roku stuff my PiHole blocks is asinine. I just recently added a blocklist for smart TVs and it ballooned the query counts like mad.
+1 for PiHole. Worth the ~$40 for the Pi Zero W and accessories alone.
That's because they retry failed connections until they can phone home again. They aren't normally making tens of thousands of requests.
It can scream into the void for as long as it wants.
I fucking hate my Roku Tv. One of my roku TV became unusable after software update. Can’t be rolled back. I’m just stuck with a perfectly fine screen and shit software. And yes even connecting another device via HDMI is an issue because the TV restarts randomly for “updates” while watching external sources.
Hrm, that's a pretty good argument for buying a tv and leaving the built in smart features without internet access. Sorry about your issues.
I'd there no way to factory reset it?
I can factory reset but not downgrade the firmware. The newer firmware is too demanding for the crappy chip in the TV.
Shoutout to the PiHole team. Love you guys and the work you do.
Which smart TV blocklist are you using? Should probably add that into my pihole.
Posted under Phar's comment, but here's the direct link
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Perflyst/PiHoleBlocklist/master/SmartTV.txt
I really need to get around to that on my pfsense
What block list is that?
Pretty sure it's the smart TV blocklist from Wally3k / Firebog. I'll confirm and update later if I find out otherwise.
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Perflyst/PiHoleBlocklist/master/SmartTV.txt
You can, but don't forget to also block other outbound DNS connections in your firewall. Lots of "smart" devices are hard coded to use 8.8.8.8 regardless of what DHCP says. Pihole won't stop those, so you have to block it at the firewall.
Or redirect them to the PiHole.
And don’t forget to block/redirect secure DNS on port 853.
No, you can’t. I’m running pihole and have a TCL Roku tv connected via HDMI to an Apple TV, and the ROKU APP RECOGNIZES CONTENT FROM IT and makes the suggestion, overlaying it OVER THE HDMI STREAM.
It’s the worst
You can actually turn that off in the Roku settings. I did when I saw it demanding I watch my content from my PC on their shitty ad bloated sponsors.
I am now realizing it might be more work than it's worth for Roku even though I used to prefer their systems being a bit more stable.
Ew that's approaching dystopian levels of grossness. My tv should not be watching along with me.
Pi-hole FTW.
Or a private DNS service that allows filtering like nextdns
They put one too many ads on the home screen... then they made them larger...
fuck em. they get nothing now.
blocked their ad servers at the DNS level.
I guarantee you someone paid Roku to do this
Those channels precisely. They get ad revenue when you watch it on their channels. If they can get Roku to bring them traffic, Roku would charge for that. No engineering effort goes unpaid.
I have an old Roku Express or something similar and love it. It has an RF remote and a very responsive UI. But it is slowly becoming crappier with the infrequent updates.
Name and shame!
It’s literally on the screen….
It says Roku TV
But not exactly obvious. Don't be a jerk.
See the problem is that you let a display device connect to the internet
Connected a Samsung smart TV to my network when we first got it. The thing damn-near crashed my pi-hole asking for so many ad/tracking domains. Factory reset it later that same day. I think my % of requests blocked went from 15% to 68% in just the 3 hours or so the Smart TV was connected.
They started to wisen up and hard-coded dns requests to 8.8.8.8 to bypass dns ad blockers now. Heck, some apps like Netflix already do it for years now. If your router can transparently redirect all dns requests to your pi-hole, you should use that feature.
So they recognize that the owner of the product is trying to prevent them from collecting data, and actively try to circumvent the owner's security measures? This shit should be illegal, and carry a huge fine. You paid for the device, and it's connected to your network, which you control. I'm sick and tired of corporations thinking it's totally okay to be straight-up spyware and adware. Some supposedly legitimate companies these days make old-school computer viruses look down right respectful.
Not only that, I have the entire Roku domain blocked on my network, and even though there’s no reason for it, as evidenced by the fact that there’s no problem running it for a month, and it doesn’t happen to all TVs, depending when it was last handled, it breaks my Plex app every 30 days in such a way that it needs to be fully reinstalled, which requires unblocking Roku, allowing phone home of the prior month’s data. Old, but not obsolete, app versions should still work fine - have a kodi Plex app that hasn’t been updated in years and that works without issue. So this is absolutely an intentional choice to force users to at least cough up their viewing data, even if they can’t give you their ads. And they can collect a surprising amount of information through those apps.
Took me a couple months to figure out what was happening (by waiting 2 months and doing the reinstall on the same day for all of them and checking the next time one broke, then staggering them the next time) but I’m no longer using the apps and will probably just factory reset all three of them, leave them off the network entirely.
The amount of work they do as a company to make my private experience complete shit because I don’t want them invasively collecting my info and shoving ads down my throat… is absolutely disgusting.
Remember Bonzi Buddy? I bet lil' purple monke sent less snoop data than big purple roku.
It's the MOST blocked thing in Pi-Hole on my entire network!
or use the blocking feature of your firewall. Here’s Roku being persistent and ignoring my pihole. Firewalla for the win.
Firewalla's are great. All the features of pfsense and then some, in a fine little hardware form factor.
Heads up if you have the purple though : they had a bad hardware batch that had a soldering flaw on the lan side nic that would eventually make your upload reduce to KB/s. I replaced far too many waps before I found a thread about it and realized it was the firewall.
Replacement was simple and free, but they should have been more proactive reaching out to purple buyers.
The countries listed there are really peculiar to me (I know that’s not the part of the image you were referring to).
Like obviously U.S. is up top because presumably you live there but either way lots of internet traffic goes in/out of the country even for those that don’t… but I wonder why Germany and France? Russia and China can be sort of assumed I guess a lot of malware spawns from there. Especially China imho even though Russia is on the hot seat rn and it’s common to think of the country when thinking of hackers they just don’t have China’s huge internet/tech infrastructure to send out as much… manure I guess overall, everywhere. Russia seems to try to target malware whereas China just spews it indiscriminately. Feel free to correct if I’m wrong I’m no security expert.
I use ControlD for DNS filtering and I don’t think I can view analytics like that by country? Wish I could though it seems really interesting now what my blocked connections would look like by country/region.
Easy enough to do with NAT unless it uses DNS over https. Then you have to block a lot more than just DNS.
Is DNS over https distinguishable from other https traffic?
In theory, no, but you can always block known DoH dns providers (both their ip address and their domain). It's pain in the ass though.
List of known dns providers
I deny all DNS traffic except traffic going to my router IP so my pfBlocker will always work.
There’s always DNS over HTTPS. It’s really hard to nab that shit out if it’s going upstream to the same server that’s hosting the content.
That's my next project now that I have my pihole set up. My basic ass router from my ISP does not support that though.
Side question: do you know of any openWRT supported routers in the $100-150 range with external antennas? Everything I've taken a look at is either an internal antenna, or like $400.
What do you mean with internal/external antenna? Does something like asus rt-ax53u ($85) counts as having external antennas? https://openwrt.org/toh/asus/rt-ax53u
Yeah. That's perfect. Thanks!
goolag dns
I recall having similar issues with Chrome. Instead of checking in with the pihole, it just went ahead and bypassed it by using a different DNS.
Yep - this. I absolutely abhor "smart" TVs for just this reason.
But, even lack of internet sometimes isn't enough. I recently, and inadvertently, left the wireless adapter on my TV enabled, after having to temporarily join it to my wireless for a firmware update (digital TV tuning needed updating for my region). After I was done, I cleared the wireless config, but I didn't think to go into the other menu where you can entirely disable the wireless adapter.
Little did I realise that meant the TV started broadcasting its own SSID, for friggin' Apple Airplay or some other shit. I found this out when my 9yo daughter was suddenly exposed to some adult content for about 10 seconds. Best guess is a nearby neighbour mistook my TV for theirs.
I've obviously disabled the wireless adapter again, but this has been a terribly difficult lesson I've had to learn.
For anyone concerned, my daughter is OK. My wife had a good chat with her about it. She had considerably more talking down to do with me - I was ready to start knocking on doors, to have my own chat.
I work in IT at a fitness center and we have TVs in front of the treadmills. They are not enterprise TVs, just standard Samsung TVs. Above the treadmills, we have a conference room. After setting up a conference room with wireless screen sharing, I found that all of the TV's below show up when trying to cast. Obviously I tried to disable them, but there is no way to do so outside of physically ripping out the antenna. I called support and everything. Why the fuck was that decision made
Yeah - I had to dig around in my Samsung to find it. Under Settings | Network | Expert there's a radio button labelled Wireless. Disabling that turns wireless off completely. Mine's a 65" Q60A QLED 4K bought in 2021. Same on my Samsung 43" in the bedroom, so seems fairly common across the models, at least in the Q range.
Sounds like the next conference you are going to have in that room is with the Supervisor or the CEO about either downgrading that shit and have everything wired instead, or physically ripping out the antenna is going to happen.
Lol it's a nonprofit, shit ain't gonna happen
honestly, whoever connected to your TV is probably used to their device being the first one to show up. i would blame the streaming protocol for not requiring one of those one-time pin thingys.
Yeah, that's absolutely a good point.
All new Roku devices do that, even if it’s not a Roku tv. Roku went from one of the best video devices to the worst in one fell swoop. Literally the only good off the shelf device is the Apple TV.
My Roku TV will be in a landfill before I allow it to send 1s and 0s through anything but the HDMI cord
How does it stream things/what's the point of a Roku if it's not connected to the Internet?
I feel like I'm explaining how you use a screen without touching it. Is this what it's like to be old?
You use HDMI. There are ports on the side of the device that allow video input from devices like computers and Xboxes. I use my computer and Xbox to watch Youtube and TV shows.
If you're asking why I have a smart TV instead of a dumb TV, that's because we live in 2023 and finding a TV without a wifi adapter is like finding a phone without a blighted notch
Ah, for some reason I thought you were referring to a Roku stick/box, not a smart TV, my mistake 👍.
It will still be connected to the Internet via the HDMI cord.
I'm unaware of any widely adopted use of HEC. Certainly none of the modern consoles use HEC, and I don't think my smart TV is compatible with it either
roku tv
roku manufacturers 🤓 📺 in addition to streaming devices
More like everything will be in a landfill before you allow it to send 1s and 0s through anything but the HDMI cord.
I let my Xbox send 1s and 0s through the ethernet cable
You can get mini PCs for solo cheap now and just load Linux up on it. Check out Beelink brand. I have a couple and they've been great.
Edit: so, not solo
I prefer the Nvidia shield over Apple TV. It supports direct streaming of Dolby Vision/Atmos on Plex. Pretty sure the Apple TV is missing some key codecs.
Infuse fills in the gaps. Don’t even need a plex server anymore (it works better imho)
No, the fault is with the people who make the TV. It’s not the customers fault that other people are evil.
It's kinda both. Like, if I walk up to someone on the street who says they're gonna stab me, and I get stabbed, the fault is obviously on them for stabbing me, but at the same time I got exactly what he said I'd get
My TV is connected to the Internet and doesn't do this. There's a setting to turn it off.
Mine doesn't have anything like this and is connected to the internet, no settings to change either. LG Oled
I have an LG OLED too. There's a setting for recommended content, or something like that. I turned anything off that looked like it meant ads or tracking.
Anytime you see the word "smart" in the name of the product, remember to mentally replace the word "smart" with "tracking".
"Ad enabled"
Same with IoT
The S in IoT stands for security, and the P stands for privacy.
😂😂😂
This is called Automatic Content Recognition and it can be disabled in the settings, highly recommend doing that. It should have asked you whether you wanted it enabled when you set up the TV, as it's legally required to be opt-in in the US opposed to opt-out. Since you're using a Roku Smart TV, it specifically is taking two full resolution "video snapshots" every second.
This is why my TV does not have internet access.
Even if you must own a smart TV (because it's impossible to buy a large-ish TV anymore that isn't), I see no reason to actually connect it to any network. But! I notice recent models will bitch at you on every single power on if you leave them disconnected. So you're not even safe from being annoyed then.
That's the route I took. I recently bought a 48" 4K monitor, hooked a mini PC up to it, and now I stream my movie and TV show collection through Plex. I still have Internet access on my "TV," but I'm in control of what pops up (I block all ads on my home network). I just use a small wireless keyboard and mouse instead of a remote.
I haven't actually owned a TV since about 2008. I have better media options through computers, and the technology just keeps getting better. Cable and public access television are a pain because you're constantly bombarded with ads. With my own computer, I can circumvent ads and get a solid viewing experience.
Where am I gonna get an 85" monitor for under $1k?
Under the heading: "Digital Signage Display"
For under $1,000?
I did a projector. Pretty close in price and I have a very modest, but serviceable 135" screen and no ads.
If I found out a TV required internet access to function, I'd return it to wherever I bought it next day.
Luckily I have a old-ish flatscreen that doesn't require internet but does have a netflix and other channels I can setup if I want. The Netflix client is so old it won't connect to their servers any more. That's OK. My Roku still works.
I have yet to see one that won't eventually let you use it as a dumb display after you dismiss one (or more) nags first. But I'm sure that's coming eventually. The worst offender I found yet is the "cheap" Black Friday sale Amazon Fire TV my boss got to use as a security monitor in one of our satellite locations. That fucking thing won't even show a picture until you dismiss its network nag, and then its sign-in-with-Amazon nag. At least I found you can disable the Amazon account nag in the options. The network connection one you can't.
We've just resolved never to turn it off. You can't dismiss the nag screen with the bezel buttons, either. You have to use the remote, so that's now permanently double-stick taped to the desk the TV is on.
Next time he'll just buy a fucking computer monitor like I told him to.
The TVs I've seen that do this have been smart enough to not get naggy about a lack of Internet until 30+ days after first power on. Then you get popups or autoplay videos begging you to connect it.
My Hisense has been pretty decent, surprisingly. But for my next TV I'm honestly thinking of going with a commercial display.
Right after you can’t return it anymore?? Evil
I bought a 65" HiSense last month. I was psyched the first time I set it up, and it gave me the option to configure it as a dumb TV without the Android TV experience or a network connection.
I'm tempted to do a master reset on mine to see if I got that option. I have the Roku edition and I know that I can specify what source it defaults to on power on. I can also turn off content recognition, which is what's going on in OP's case. But using it as just a dumb TV would be awesome.
Theres definitely a setting for turning off content recognition... but... even if I say "no", I don't trust my dogs not to eat food I leave within reach.
These companies want the data, they profit from the data, they probably won't get caught if they take the data, and even if they do they won't get punished, and even if they do it'll still be worth it. You have to turn off the network or block the traffic to be sure.
Yeah, that's why I've come to just pay the premium for professional displays instead of consumer TVs.
How much more is it?
That's a great way to go. There are also still some budget options (Sceptre comes to mind) that don't have any smart features in some models. My buddy just picked one up.
It's an absolutely terrible TV, but for his use case it's perfect. He's using it as a karaoke monitor for parties at his house. It's mounted in a covered patio and is dumb as hell.
Wonder how much an 83" OLED would cost me for a premium professional display.
At least the LG TVs don't try to pull any shit like OP posted about. At least mine hasn't.
Thankfully mine (about two yrs old now) only whined for the first couple weeks then gave up on me.
Now the only issue I have is the time it takes for android to boot. It's like having to wait for your tv to warm up all over again except without the high pitched noise old tv sets had.
This article is a year old, but it's still possible to buy dumb tvs.
I agree with you for the most part that there's no reason to connect them to the internet, however:
Most modern TVs have Bluetooth and WiFi radios, therefore they're never truly isolated, and consequently that means if there's a security flaw, it can potentially be exploited without physical access.
Now your priorities (and frankly, hardware) will obviously differ from mine, but that risk alone is enough of a reason for me to connect things up in order to receive software updates. Of course, the privilege of getting software updates for your telly is not ubiquitous, but most manufacturers can issue updates if there is a good enough reason to do so
If its never been connected to the internet....wtf are they gonna do if they hack it? what are they going to get? it will have no credit card information, no personal information of any kind.
They could connect it to the Internet, I guess.
The problem is that because the hardware is there, a determined person with physical access can change the settings to join a network you don't control.
Ideally, you can open the TV and remove the wifi modules but I suspect that might be beyond the skills of most TV owners.
Tbh, I stopped owning a TV since college. I watch everything on my computer or phone now.
Wait....so the fear here is that they will take my tv, that i don't have connected to the internet and....connect it to a network i don't have? Whats the point of going through that trouble? Whats the gain?
Connectivity!
There's microphones and even cameras in many of these TVs.
Those radios may have a flaw that allows someone to connect to them without direct physical access, wardriving is a similar idea. Particularly the Bluetooth stack, since modern TVs often use Bluetooth for their remotes, so it's always going to be powered and active.
Then you've got to remember a lot of TVs have shit like cameras and mics now days. Even without that, if an attacker can take control of something with a WiFi radio, it can become a jumping point to exploit other devices near your TV. I mean it doesn't even need to be an exploit, e.g. if your phone disappears from WiFi range, maybe you've gone out—that's a good time to rob you.
Sure it's all pretty unlikely, but it's a non zero threat. Particularly when you consider that TV OS software is often like swiss cheese when it comes to security.
Another option for the even more security-minded is to physically disable the radios.
I think newish tvs offer advanced image quality features like HDR and Dolby Vision through their own apps rather than through web browser; if you don’t have a new generation console in your house and wanna enjoy your new TV full capabilities you will need to connect the damn thing to the internet
Wait, what? I'm thinking about getting the LG C2/3, and wasn't going to connect it to the internet.
Guess I'll have to get myself a PiHole and figure out how to block tracking.
I have an LG C3 and that thing is amazing; the issue with HDR/Dolby Vision/etc is not because LG, but rather that you need a system that has an app that supports those capabilities, like if you have a subscription to Apple TV and don’t wanna connect your TV to the internet you need an Nvidia Shield/Apple TV/PS5/Xbox series X because just a HTPC won't do it because the web browsing app doesn't offers HDR and the Apple TV Windows app is trash
Ok, so I won't lose any HDR/other image settings with a PS5 and Google TV?
I have mine connected so I can control it from Home Assistant. It's blocked from WAN though.
And this is why we buy dumb TVs
Now that is some serious privacy invading.
Dumb tv with the latest panel tech is too much to ask for these days too.
You like this episode of Futurama. Would you also like to watch this episode of Futurama?
We need a Lemmy community dedicated to find, repair and exchange dumb TV. These are become increasingly rare and increasingly needed.
good joke
The comments suggesting the system sends 2 screenshots a second is truly worrying.
On your Roku TV go to Settings > Privacy > Select Smart TV Experience and disable "Use Info from TV Inputs"
Crazy but expected it isn't off by default
Because who would willingly turn that on? Lol
The SMART thing to do is to buy a DUMB TV. Pay a little more and get a real TV- you know. A display, with speakers and HDMI inputs. Nothing else.
Drink verification can, peasant.
Disable ACR on your TV. There was a news report that came out last week about this very thing.
"Automatic content recognition" https://advertising.roku.com/resources/blog/insights-analysis/acr-the-future-of-tv-and-audience-data#! Roku is not the only ones doing it :(
So the only way to opt out of this hell is to kill your internet connection? That sucks!
I blocked the servers with my pihole. Coincidentally, my two smart TVs are the two most blocked devices on my network. It’s not even close.
This was with only ~1 hour of TV watching, while the device in the third spot is my phone (which I had been using all day). And yet the second TV still had almost 3x as many blocked requests.
Smart TVs are fucking invasive.
I really need to learn how to set that up.
It’s easier than ever these days. The hardest part is figuring out how to configure your router to point devices to it. Because router manufacturers love to bury that setting somewhere deep. For actually setting up the pihole, it’s usually just a matter of flashing the memory card with the right image, then finding some decent block lists. But even the block lists are easy to find nowadays.
Or worse, you have an ISP-provided modem + router that has it locked down. Yes I could buy a router and put it the modem in bridge mode blah blah, so I just configure each device manually.
Yeah, the combined modem/routers are almost all garbage. You really are better off bridging it and letting your own router do the work. Because the ISP has a vested interest in giving you the cheapest router possible.
It’s actually not that bad; I certainly wouldn’t choose it (it’s an Arris) but I don’t want to put $400 down for a router. (I have no idea what a router costs. I’d also spend a month researching the exact perfect router and then take weeks with custom firmware and configuration and miss spending time with the family.)
It’s complicated.
Username does not check out :(
Not really, if you're a little technical.
What if you're a big technical?
It’s complicated.
Then Pihole is just the beginning.
/Matrix soundtrack plays
/complimentary donuts and coffee are over on the side table
yeah lol, no real need to obfuscate those ip fyi
No. It's actually simple to disable. On the Roku TV just go to:
Settings > Privacy > Select Smart TV Experience and disable “Use Info from TV Inputs”
Thank you!
And this concludes the enshitification of everything.
I try and see the world as only half full of shit on most days.
Hey! How dare you only pay once for a lifetime of viewing, you should be paying monthly... No daily, for the right to view pieces of cultural history.
30$ monthly subscription rate + 5$ to rent each movie + 2$/hour for 4K. gotta make the business model as profitable as possible, otherwise the shareholders will start selling shares.
publicly traded companies are stupid.
Stop giving them ideas. I demand that you delete this, or I'll report you!
They already know this, look at take two studios, their ceo thinks we don't pay enough for games and we should be charged by the hours we play.
If they had their way all of our income would be theirs and we'd get a shiny token to watch one episode of a show you don't like.
Turn off Smart TV experience on your Roku.
Disable Roku Snooping
It’s called “Post-Purchase Monetization”, and it’s why your 65” OLED tv is so cheap. They capture and sell your viewing data - but only if you hook it up to an internet connection. So don’t hook them up to an internet connection.
I have two TVs. One is 15 years old, the other is so old that, even though it is still HD (only 720p but it's fine for me) it still has component video.
I will use those TVs until they die and not buy a new one unless I have no choice. I haven't seen a single feature on a "smart" TV that I want and a lot that I don't.
Dumb TV forever.
One reason why I opted for a monitor instead of a TV. AFAIK monitors don't do this shit.
Yes, worse, but also more money on something you don't own - you just don't get it, bro... It's
progresssorry I always confuse those words, profits.That's terrible. This is why we need Foss
Pihole or similar DNS blocking. I can't recommend it enough. My smart TVs are the #1 offender on my network. The only thing that will try to pull in more ads are my wife's mobile games.
Can confirm, pi hole is awesome.
Some initial configuration required especially if you are doing it by device instead of at the router, but the results are well worth it.
Can confirm, well worth the $30 for the Libre le Potato that I run it on.
Wait, can I run pihole on any device? (I'll probably look it up in the meantime)
Yes! You can run piHole on nearly any linux device.
If they can do it, they will. It's ad dollars to them, as good as any others.
Don't let them do it. Buy dumb electronics, or at least smart electronics you can use airgapped.
I rooted my 2013 Samsung TV and overclocked it from 800 to 1200Mhz (the whole system is actually build for 1200Mhz but only the Highend-Ones are qualified for it). To my surprise the amount of data it send to Samsung was quite reasonable but still I removed most of it. Full removal of Internet is not an option because then I lose HbbTV and Prime TV which is like 50% of what I use that device for. And since I rooted it I also use it for BS and the public broadcasting mediatheks. Also, it now runs Quake2 in 1920x1080 in ~20fps.
Three Words: Digital Signage Display
So when I searched for that, this is the first result that came up:
https://www.officeworks.com.au/shop/officeworks/p/jvl-55-led-uhd-digital-signage-display-jvl055tv
Seems pretty enshittified.
Where do you normally get yours? Do you have brand recommendations?
That's getting increasingly difficult to do.
The enshittification continues.
tiny, but it does work
Get any TV. Build HTPC. Never let the TV access the network itself.
I've been doing this for 15 years. It gets easier and less expensive each year as hardware improves.
Judging from the trend, soon smart tvs may include a cellular modem (always on, paid by the manufacturer) or support mesh networking (passing your data through your neighbour's tv) so it can always send out telemetry data and retrieving ads. Amazon already did it via Amazon Sidewalk, which is said to cover over 90% of people in the US.
Yikes. Soon you'll need to buy a Faraday cage that fits your TV and sofa.
Do you know of any good guides on this? I started messing with Linux plasma bigscreen and got twisted
Buy a Raspi 4 or 5 if you can get it. Canakit has slightly overpriced but compreshsive kits. Digikey tends to get raspi 5s faster then other stores if you want the latest and greatest, but it's a b2b company that is kinda annoying to buy from as a retail customer. A 4gb model is all you need from either gen. Keep to a 32gb or larger sd card.
Install libreelec as the operating system. They have a usb program that will flash a usb drive to do this for you. It will automatically boot into kodi, which in is a linux based media center. You can then point kodi to any file server you have, or plug in a usb drive into the raspi with your movies/shows. Kodi aslo has great addons, so you can add things like youtube/nebula/etc.
For advanced use, setup jellyfin on a home server, then use the jellyfin kodi addon to sync all your media. This is really nice when you have kodi setup on multiple tvs, as it will sync when you pause shows/movies, can auto skip intros, stream live tv and make sure all your systems are up to date about with what media you have available.
For a great universal remote, buy a flirc ir recivever that plugs into usb and a flirc skip remote. Flirc is a great company in this space.
That remote reminds me of Logitech harmony but it's waaaay cheaper
The OS bit is what I'm missing. I've got Kodi on a old i3 right now running Debian and Otaku. I've also got old pi4s I've never done anything with (unfinished projects).
I've also heard of jellyfin before. That'll be later once i have local media. For now I want a front end for streaming media from online sources. Seems like I have to look at Kodi addons.
And Netflix downscales resolution on Linux btw. It's almost like you have to host your own media and pirate it all to get the best experience
https://youtu.be/o4GZUCwVRLs?si=tynu6xkxEWNoyzXT
or plex
How well does Plex run on a RasPi (or other SBC), and have you found a good remote control solution for it? I'm still using Plex on Google Chromcest TVs - the li'l remote just makes it so much easier.
For my dad’s roku TV I’ve got an app on my phone. It just automatically works if my phone’s on the same network.
No idea if plex could receive something similar but if it’s got some kind of API then one could be built.
Yeah, hoping to avoid apps. My wife and kids don't all have the same aptitude or capability for that.
For the pi there's always the option of getting a Bluetooth remote and writing your own script to send the commands when they're triggered - it's easier than you think because chatgpt can do all the awkward stuff for you
Not a bad idea, and scripting doesn't worry me. But, I've just remembered I have an old Astone media player remote and USB dongle somewhere. Might have to have a play.
Flirc skip one + flirc ir usb. Great remote combo for kodi.
Hmmm - looks promising. Looks like I can get one shipped to me in Australia via Amazon at a reasonable price too. Thanks for the tip!
You need their usb irc adapter too, but with both it should do the trick.
They have really nice raspi4 metal cases too, but they will block wifi if you use it. They work great when wired in though.
Yeah, very cool. The USB adapter is available on Amazon too.
Ah yes I want to watch the exact same thing I am watching but from another provider, definitely just take my money, hypercapitalist
Is this a samsung tv? If it is one of the cheap tv's like Vizio and such they have this live advertising which is awful. I always buy non-smart TV's but now they actually cost more then the smart ones if you are going for a big 65-85" TV.
How? Did you got your dvd player hacked?
I can almost guarantee this was some stupid marketing exec's idea. Someone had to write the code that interprets that you're watching an episode that someone else has available for streaming. Any software dev worth their salt would have seen this request and said "This is the dumbest fucking idea I have ever seen in my life" and they probably had to make it anyway because it pays the bills.
Thats instant grounds for breaking Consumer law here in the UK. I'd be returning the TV and if they didnt accept. Small claim court.
What model TV do you have?
Because you can!!! 👍💪 Need to flex that your paying for streaming services to your friends. Lol
Because it's more convenient
I can kinda see a potential use case for this. That you have say cable tv or local dtv. You tune to a program you've never seen before and it's good. The option to watch more on a streaming service might be wanted.
But for most people, it's just plain intrusive.
The streaming service needs subscribers. Think of the shareholders
⛵🏴☠️
I hate motion smoothing.
Motion interpolation is the best thing ever.
Wtf? Really?
I like it. We always turn it on.
yeah, just because you're not used to it, doesn't make 24hz good.
That's like saying modern animation is garbage and we should stick to stop-motion animation.
2 words people: Pihole and Unbound.
Learn them, use them, and promote them.
Unbound is going to need some context.
Here you go
When I tested a roku (I think that's what this is, based on the button and color) stick a few years ago, it was awful - network errors during setup, atrocious password limits, and once I completed setup it had a ad that took 1/4 of the home page and it wouldn't calm the fuck down pinging servers even when idle. I actually returned it the next day, I wanted my like $40 back.
My ex bought one a couple years later and I cringed so hard. No way in fuck I'd let that infestation on my network again.
That must be why s/he is you ex.
Oh, more of a "I thought you loved me" and a dash of "I didn't sign up for this" after I had a stroke. Love is cheap to some... sometimes the one closest to you.
Never used the Roku stick, but I used their high end wired Internet model for a long time and it was great for what it was. I haven't tried any of the stick devices because I always questioned the performance they would have.
My oldest Roku device is a stick and it still works great... Just doesn't do 4K like my newer one (which itself is like 7 years old at this point).
That's more burn it with fire then mildly infuriating. Never go "Smart" not even once.
terrible; keep your tv off the internet; it used the mic to determine that
It's worse than the mic. They're taking screenshots and sending them to a server that analyzes the image to determine what you're watching.
Proof? There are other (some equally creepy) ways that it could get this info. Depending upon how the DVD player is connected, it could simply be getting info from that. It could also be taking occasional screenshots. There are other things as well.
Edit: poster below links to Roku and they use screenshots.
My LG tv just update and now anytime I turn the tv on I have to wait 2 minutes for the default screen to go away. It has ads and app suggestions.
I only use a fire stick and don’t have the original remote. So nothing I can do but wait
Just got the same update. If you can get a remote you can go into settings and turn off the new Home experience.
If you lost your remote, you might be able to connect a USB mouse or keyboard to control it.
That’s a good idea. I’ll try that
If it's like mine there's an option to return to the old interface
Mine doesn't do that 🤷♂️ Although it doesn't keep bugging me to accept the Google Assistant ToS, which isn't new and I've already done it like three times.
That's the reason i bought a dumb tv. No i don't need those subpar computer running my tv with a chance of crashing and which i can't control what fuckery they do, i have my PC tq.
Of course! How else are you supposed to rent things you already own? Of course ownership is no cure for renting out these days.
I agree in general, but to mention one potential benefit: DVD only supports SD resolutions, streaming services may have the same content in HD.
As Professor Farnsworth once said, "I don't want to live on this planet anymore".
The fuck?
Bro throw that tv. Its roku, absolute garbage. Never buy a roku, never
Pretty soon you won't be allowed to use a tv to watch stuff that isn't state approved media from a state approved source. I had an airbnb once that was set up in such a way that you could sign in to any streaming service you wanted but hdmi was blocked. I doubt the owner intentionally did that but it's scary to actually see this type of shit firsthand.
From a matter of convenience I could actually appreciate what they are trying to do.
Binge watching TV on disc, especially DVD, is frustrating. If you aren’t using the extra content (such as commentary), streaming is much better, as you can binge more episodes at a time or watch certain episodes without having to switch discs.
If I was unaware this was available on a streaming service I had, I’d appreciate the reminder. But I’d appreciate it more at or before the main menu, not during the content, and certainly not more than once (or reset when the disc is removed).
Don't buy cheap TVs subsidized from ads 🤷♂️
What do you expect when you buy a 43 inch TV for $150?
If this is hell, it ain't so bad....
"we see your penis is below average in length and girth; click OK on your remote or say 'more information' to learn about how to fix that" as you step into your bedroom to get dressed
You prefer skis or snowboard for that slippery slope?
You're the one at the top, saying "it ain't so bad"
Sledge. Because where we going we don't need control.
Also what's a slippery slope when our privacy has been slowly getting invaded more and more. Imagine telling people from 30 years ago their vhs player know what they watch and an ads from Blockbuster will popup on screen recommending them what to rent next, and the internet keep track on where you visit and know what you like.
Telling people at blockbuster, where they kept track of your rental history and sent the information to movie studios, to rent movies that had unskippable pre-roll ads, you had to rent from a store filled with promotional material for what you should rent next, and then you had to rewind it all the way for the next victim XD
Also the quality was shit, the screen was tiny, the lines were long, the human interaction was insufferable, the late fees were exorbitant, and the hardware was expensive and a unitasker.
Don't gaslight me about the good old days, I remember my dad walking behind the curtain.
Seems like all you doing is proving there's no slippery slope because company is in fact getting more invasive.
Great job, maybe your dad also peek at what people's watching and break into others house and recommend them related movie 🤣
Ads 20 years ago are just some dumb gify banners. Now your hdmi input got sniffed by your tv and identified by some fancy ai stuff in order to serve you the most profitable ads. I'm excited to see what kind of innovative ads we'll experience 20 years from now /s
Bonus: Sony's smart tv patent
indeed
There are patents for nuclear bicycles.
If only there was a marketplace of ideas to determine what patents were worth anything. Maybe some invisible hand all those libertarian privacy nuts are always on about.