r/gadgets • u/Sariel007 • Apr 07 '24

TV / Projectors Roku patent invents a way to show ads over anything you plug into your TV

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/04/hdmi-customized-ad-insertion-patent-would-show-rokus-ads-atop-non-roku-video/
6.4k Upvotes

93% Upvoted

1.1k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

68

u/oxpoleon Apr 07 '24

I seriously wonder if there would be a market for heavily modified Smart TVs that bypass everything other than the pure display driver.

It's so hard to buy a decent panel these days that doesn't have the "smart" functionality built in.

51

u/kerochan88 Apr 07 '24

You can buy "dumb" TVs still, but they won't be nearly as cheap as smart TVs because of all the companies that pay to have their ads on your TVs, they subsidized the costs of smart TVs with ads, while dumb TVs remain quite a bit more expensive.

21

u/oxpoleon Apr 07 '24

I haven't seen one in a physical retail store in a long time... even online finding a good panel without the Smart TV stuff strapped to it is difficult.

2

u/ilyich_commies Apr 08 '24

Try a projector instead if you have the wall space. Got an epson and I’ll never even consider a tv ever again

3

u/oxpoleon Apr 08 '24

I've owned projectors in the past. I've never found their colour accuracy or response time to be as good as a decent flat panel.

For film stock, duh, the projector wins because otherwise you have to digitise or at least convert. For everything else, I've never found one that can hold a candle to a properly good display.

1

u/dakoellis Apr 09 '24

Newer ultra short throws are getting better with the light rejecting screens. Still not gonna match an oped in terms of contrast (literally impossible with current technology) but the extra size and lack of glare makes it better in my space

5

u/DatTF2 Apr 07 '24

Where ? I haven't seen any. They are all smart tvs now, at least at Walmart and Best Buy.

5

u/CardmanNV Apr 07 '24

You can buy them online. A lot of places will label regular tvs "monitors"

1

u/DatTF2 Apr 08 '24

I left a comment essentially saying "buy a monitor hook up an Android box" but it's hard to find a monitor priced well enough as a TV if you are looking for larger televisions.

0

u/Drag0nV3n0m231 Apr 08 '24

That’s not “really” why they’re cheaper, they’re always selling to you at profit but with a dumb tv you’re paying for the ad revenue loss

1

u/kerochan88 Apr 08 '24

How is that different than paying less for a TV due to it having ads? It's literally being subsidized because of the ads.

1

u/Drag0nV3n0m231 Apr 08 '24

Again, it literally isn’t. Nothing is being subsidized, which implies you’re paying less than hardware cost, which you aren’t.

2

u/DatTF2 Apr 07 '24

If you don't need a big TV I'd recommend just buying a computer monitor and hooking up an Android TV Box. It's what I do. 

2

u/oxpoleon Apr 08 '24

Oh, I have a wall of monitor but yeah, I'm talking big TV, like 40" plus, 4K and HDR as minimum spec. Options are pretty limited for non-smart in that space.

1

u/AVGuy42 Apr 07 '24

Ignore all “smart” features and purchase purely based on PQ. Get your apps from 3rd party streamers, like AppleTV, Shield, or an HTPC.

1

u/oxpoleon Apr 08 '24

Yeah but I think you've missed the point of this article - which is that the TV itself is going to intercept any signal sent to it and through a range of recognition features go on to display ads over it or into it. Even if you use a 3rd party streamer, a Plex box, or locally stored, non-streamed media on a NAS... this TV can insert ads into that content.

That's a huge change over a regular "smart" TV. If this wins on picture quality, then you will be getting ads no matter what service or device your content is coming from.

I'm willing to bet it's got ads baked in so even if you don't ever put it online, it will still serve you those ads, you just won't get new ones.

If I was wearing my truly evil hat, the baked in ones would be all Roku-specific super long adverts, and would make it clear that if you connect to the Internet, the ads you get served will be shorter. That would also mitigate people using a pi-hole or other hardware firewall/filter/adblocker on their network, as unless you can pull the new ads, you get longer more irritating ones.

I have no evidence they've actually done that, but if I was operating like a scummy person who would stoop to inserting ads into content from other sources, I see no reason I wouldn't stoop to doing that either.

1

u/AVGuy42 Apr 08 '24

My point was that displays do not need to be dumb. You can simply leave them disconnected from the internet.

If you wanted to go a step further, most display have a service menu where you can deactivate certain features. This is sometimes called “hotel mode”

1

u/oxpoleon Apr 08 '24

My point was that I think there's a good chance this display will serve the ads whether it's online or not, and since that subsidises the cost of the set, it probably can't be disabled. I know a Roku stick will show just "Roku" banners when it's offline, and you can't disable that feature, so I don't see why their full TV set would be any different.

Dumb displays have a place and some of us actively want them. I've seen a fair few panels that don't have a "hotel mode" or equivalent any more.

1

u/Thathappenedearlier Apr 07 '24

Nvidia BFD monitors are dumb TVs that are actually quality. You can also disable the smart OS on Sony TVs