A patent application from the company spotted by Lowpass describes a system for displaying ads over any device connected over HDMI, a list that could include cable boxes, game consoles, DVD or Blu-ray players, PCs, or even other video streaming devices. Roku filed for the patent in August 2023 and it was published in November 2023, though it hasn’t yet been granted.
The technology described would detect whether content was paused in multiple ways—if the video being displayed is static, if there’s no audio being played, if a pause symbol is shown anywhere on screen, or if (on a TV with HDMI-CEC enabled) a pause signal has been received from some passthrough remote control. The system would analyze the paused image and use metadata “to identify one or more objects” in the video frame, transmit that identification information to a network, and receive and display a “relevant ad” over top of whatever the paused content is.
*their tv
Thanks to OP for reinforcing my choice to forever avoid smart TV’s.
Edit: if you want a non-smart TV look for hospitality TVs.
Also, “how to ask everyone capable to hack your shit product without asking everyone to hack your shit product.”
Or just buy whatever TV you want, never connect it to the internet, and then plug in a separate box where you’ll actually get the content from.
Smart TVs aren’t actually that smart if they have no internet and you entirely bypass their home screen to go straight to whatever box you have.
Some will show ads anyway, or so I’ve heard. They’re fn asshats
I don’t see how. Unless it has, like, 20 predefined stored ads. But even then it might be refreshing in 20 years to see a commercial for Kia. Be like, “Oh yeah! I remember Kia! Man, crazy how long it’s been since Kia’s have been around. Such a bad car.”
I wish I could find the source but I do remember seeing an article about it. Maybe it’s a broken memory.
IIRC, it was Vizio brand TVs that had not yet been connected to a network and they were already showing ads implying that they had in fact been shipped with ads in their cache, or perhaps having been connected to a network for testing
Or for computer monitor
Computer monitors are significantly more expensive for the same size and are overkill for the applications TVs are generally used for.
Fuck Roku. If we stop buying their shit. They’ll eventually be bankrupt to implement this feature. So Fuck roku
So then some other ad-tech company can buy the patent for cheap during the wind-down.
Roku would just start selling the televisions well below cost or even free since they make WAY more money from ADs.
So boring companies.
This is like Windows putting ads in the fucking startmenu…
More like Windows showing ads even when you boot Linux
More like your monitor showing you ads is while using Linux.
Please don’t give them ideas.
Is this real? I’ve never seen a native ad in windows and honestly don’t know if maybe it’s some kind of a regional thing.
On fresh installs before running the debloater scripts there’s plenty of Try Candy Crush and it’s already got Office 365 pinned and accidentally clicking that takes you to the store page, and there’s some other shit I can’t remember by name
if the video being displayed is static
Imagine you’re playing Skyrim and while reading one of the books your TV covers up the content with an ad! That would be infuriating!
I was thinking Diablo 2 is gonna be rendered unplayable. It’ll probably view “IL” in “SKILL” or a rune or small charm as a pause symbol and make it so you can’t open your inventory
Edit: Oh shit, the ‘II’ in Diablo II
I’m pretty sure there is points in some movies that have static content briefly as well.
I don’t have to imagine roku injecting ads, I’ve already seen it. Had a movie going on my tablet, screen shared to the tv over wifi, tv screen had an ad “you can watch this movie on our bullshit streaming service!”. This was 2 years ago. I will never buy a smart tv. And fuck roku specifically.
Well, fuck, that’s pretty gross.
Removed by mod
The amount of ewaste they will be producing when they push that update. Should be against some environmental laws.
I’m glad they patented it so that any of the products I actually buy won’t be able to do this
Parents can be licensed for use by other companies.
Autocorrect or comment on society?
ROKU has patented a way for me to not even look at their tvs.
I’m tired boss…
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Now, the company is apparently experimenting with ways to show ads over top of even more of the things you plug into your TV.
A patent application from the company spotted by Lowpass describes a system for displaying ads over any device connected over HDMI, a list that could include cable boxes, game consoles, DVD or Blu-ray players, PCs, or even other video streaming devices.
This theoretical Roku TV’s internal hardware would be capable of taking the original source video feed, rendering an ad, and then combining the two into a single displayed image.
Among the business risks disclosed on Roku’s financial filings from its 2023 fiscal year (PDF), the company says that its “future growth depends on the acceptance and growth of streaming TV advertising and advertising platforms.”
If implemented as described, this system both gives Roku another place to put ads, and gives the company another source of user data that can be used to encourage advertisers to spend on its platforms.
It seems as though a Roku TV that was capable of this kind of ad insertion would need more sophisticated internal hardware than most current sets currently come with—this is the same company that feuded with Google a few years back because it didn’t want to pay for more-expensive chips that could decode Google’s AV1 video codec.
The original article contains 591 words, the summary contains 221 words. Saved 63%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
So we just ordered a new tv and just want the universe to know that Roku wasn’t even considered and this shit is why.
I mean, yeah sure, but are the alternatives that much better in this respect? Which alternative non-ad-ridden, privacy-respecting smart tv would you recommend (or ended up buying)? Asking for my future tv choice…
We have a HiSense Android TV (most are now Google TV, but they’re essentially the same). There are ads by default, but you can install a custom launcher with no ads, so the experience is much better.
I use Projectivity launcher and it looks nicer, has no ads, and it’s much faster and more responsive.
As soon as I figured out how to install a custom launcher, I researched how to disable ads similarly on our Roku TVs and discovered all of the secret menus that could have disabled them, except they no longer work.
So the Roku level of lockdown on their custom OS is much worse now versus an android-based OS.
roku has patented a way to go fuck itself
