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?

  • @[email protected]
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    22 years ago

    Of course! How else are you supposed to rent things you already own? Of course ownership is no cure for renting out these days.

  • The Barto
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    422 years ago

    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.

    • KptnAutismus
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      32 years ago

      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.

        • The Barto
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          22 years ago

          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.

  • @[email protected]
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    1412 years ago

    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.

  • @[email protected]
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    282 years ago

    Yes, worse, but also more money on something you don’t own - you just don’t get it, bro… It’s progress sorry I always confuse those words, profits.

  • @[email protected]
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    22 years ago

    I agree in general, but to mention one potential benefit: DVD only supports SD resolutions, streaming services may have the same content in HD.

  • Dave
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    3782 years ago

    Protip: Do not connect your TV to the Internet.

      • Flying Squid
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        162 years ago

        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.

    • @[email protected]
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      82 years ago

      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.

    • @[email protected]
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      1312 years ago

      I ended up giving up and just putting a Linux PC attached to my TV as a media center. I host plex on it.

      • @[email protected]
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        342 years ago

        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.

        • @[email protected]
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          22 years ago

          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.

        • @[email protected]
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          102 years ago

          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

      • @[email protected]
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        32 years ago

        I still get Roku recommendations on plex content from my Apple TV. They are doing content recognition off of the hdmi input

      • @[email protected]
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        12 years ago

        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

      • Dandroid
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        72 years ago

        I have my Steam Deck attached to my TV. It’s great for watching pirated sports streams via web browser.

      • voxel
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        22 years ago

        or just get a cheap-ass android box (like xiaomi or google)

        • @[email protected]
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          22 years ago

          Of use jellyfin, but I have too many friends with only consoles that rely on my server. Sigh

          • @[email protected]
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            52 years ago

            So here’s how I’m running things: At the top level it’s a Raspberry pi 5 running raspbian, then everything else (jellyfin, prowlarr, radarr, sonarr, Usenet download software, etc) is a docker container. If that sounds like how you want to do it feel free to message me and I can try to get you on your feet

            • @[email protected]
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              12 years ago

              I’m using OMV headless and have zero luck with Docker or Portainer.

              Is it going to be easier to set up Docker using Raspbian with a GUI?

            • Apathy Tree
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              32 years ago

              I’m not who you replied to but I’ve been looking to set up something like this (I have a year old dedicated tower for hosting)

              But I don’t know anything about docker, and it seems like a pretty big learn - is it required for the sonarr radarr and overseerr stuff, or just a nice to have thing?

              • @[email protected]
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                42 years ago

                It’s not required it’s just a lot smoother to update and sort things out. I recommend it but you don’t need it.

          • KptnAutismus
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            142 years ago

            while often outdated, there are youtube tutorials. you could buy a cheap thinkcentre or set up a virtual machine to try it out.

            personally, i run truenas scale with jellyfin as an “app” on my old PC.

          • DominusOfMegadeus
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            2 years ago

            Honestly you can just run the app on your computer and tv connected devices. You don’t have to get fancy. I had trouble getting it setup to recognize and remember my library server address at first, but somehow I got it to work. I don’t like the UI though, and just use PLEX instead.

  • Hellfire103
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    22 years ago

    As Professor Farnsworth once said, “I don’t want to live on this planet anymore”.

    • @[email protected]
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      2 years ago

      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.

      • @[email protected]
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        82 years ago

        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

        • Konala Koala
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          22 years ago

          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.

        • @[email protected]
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          2 years ago

          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.

      • KptnAutismus
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        32 years ago

        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.

    • snowe
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      222 years ago

      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.

      • @[email protected]
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        82 years ago

        My Roku TV will be in a landfill before I allow it to send 1s and 0s through anything but the HDMI cord

        • Konala Koala
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          12 years ago

          More like everything will be in a landfill before you allow it to send 1s and 0s through anything but the HDMI cord.

        • @[email protected]
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          22 years ago

          How does it stream things/what’s the point of a Roku if it’s not connected to the Internet?

          • Konala Koala
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            12 years ago

            It will still be connected to the Internet via the HDMI cord.

            • @[email protected]
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              12 years ago

              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

          • @[email protected]
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            2 years ago

            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

            • @[email protected]
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              32 years ago

              Ah, for some reason I thought you were referring to a Roku stick/box, not a smart TV, my mistake 👍.

      • @[email protected]
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        2 years ago

        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

      • @[email protected]
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        22 years ago

        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.

    • @[email protected]
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      1122 years ago

      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.

      • @[email protected]
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        592 years ago

        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.

        • SokathHisEyesOpen
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          562 years ago

          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.

          • @[email protected]
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            182 years ago

            There’s a misconception here. Unless you can control what code is running on it, you are not the owner.
            This is what the FSF warned us about.

          • Apathy Tree
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            82 years ago

            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.

          • @[email protected]
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            22 years ago

            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!

        • @[email protected]
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          22 years ago

          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.

        • @[email protected]
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          12 years ago

          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.

        • irotsoma
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          92 years ago

          Easy enough to do with NAT unless it uses DNS over https. Then you have to block a lot more than just DNS.

        • @[email protected]
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          72 years ago

          I deny all DNS traffic except traffic going to my router IP so my pfBlocker will always work.

          • @[email protected]
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            112 years ago

            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.

        • @[email protected]
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          202 years ago

          or use the blocking feature of your firewall. Here’s Roku being persistent and ignoring my pihole. Firewalla for the win.

          • mosiacmango
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            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.

          • PopShark
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            12 years ago

            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.

    • SokathHisEyesOpen
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      82 years ago

      My TV is connected to the Internet and doesn’t do this. There’s a setting to turn it off.

      • @[email protected]
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        92 years ago

        Mine doesn’t have anything like this and is connected to the internet, no settings to change either. LG Oled

        • SokathHisEyesOpen
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          32 years ago

          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.

    • @[email protected]
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      42 years ago

      No, the fault is with the people who make the TV. It’s not the customers fault that other people are evil.

      • @[email protected]
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        2 years ago

        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

  • @[email protected]
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    82 years ago

    Don’t buy cheap TVs subsidized from ads 🤷‍♂️

    What do you expect when you buy a 43 inch TV for $150?

  • @[email protected]
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    1632 years ago

    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.

  • Victor
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    722 years ago

    Now that is some serious privacy invading.