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?
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 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.
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
The little asterisk symbol on the screen is leading me to believe it's a Roku.
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.
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.
Anytime you see the word "smart" in the name of the product, remember to mentally replace the word "smart" with "tracking".
"Ad enabled"
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.
"To disable ACR on a Roku TV, the privacy policy says to "visit your Roku TV's Settings menu (Settings > Privacy > Smart TV Experience) and de-select 'Use Info from TV Inputs."
'Use Info from TV Inputs.”
Well that is an incredibly misleading name that sounds like something I would want to keep enabled.
They’re taking pictures of what you’re watching on the screen and sending it to random 3rd party data collectors to analyze and then harass you with ads.
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.
Some people get big computer monitors instead of a TV, because of shit like this.
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.
this is one major reason i switched to a projector. The "smart" malware trend has not caught up to home cinema projectors
You like this episode of Futurama. Would you also like to watch this episode of Futurama?
We noticed you found a way to watch this episode without ads. We suggest watching it from one of our providers so they get a cut.
We need a Lemmy community dedicated to find, repair and exchange dumb TV. These are become increasingly rare and increasingly needed.
The comments suggesting the system sends 2 screenshots a second is truly worrying.
It might take 2 screenshots a second, but I suspect that will be hashed in some way, even if just to save their on incoming bandwidth rather than for privacy reasons.
It's still fucking absolute bullshit though, and has at least told me that anything with Roku written on it is well worth avoiding.
See this shit. They're fucking proud of it.
on my TV
good joke
On your Roku TV go to Settings > Privacy > Select Smart TV Experience and disable "Use Info from TV Inputs"
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.
And this concludes the enshitification of everything.
concludes
Oh my, you're quite optimistic today
"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 :(
The pitch doesn't need to make logical sense. The entire purpose of horrible shit like this is so some asswipe with a marketing degree can say "look boss, I did a thing". Welcome to late stage capitalism, where no one ever gets fired for shoving another advertisement in somewhere.
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.
Turn off Smart TV experience on your Roku.
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.
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