Roku has patented a way to show ads over anything you plug into your TV

ForgottenFlux@lemmy.world to Technology@lemmy.world – 830 points – Roku has patented a way to show ads over anything you plug into your TV
arstechnica.com

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.

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tl;dr never buy anything Roku, ever again. Got it.

Yeah... I've been evaluating moving to Plex or Jellyfin.

Kinda getting done with a lot of this smart stuff. The Monopolies are flexing and I don't enjoy it.

Just do it. I ripped our DVDs and put them on my NAS with minidlna configured, and I can now stream my stuff directly to my TV through the "Photos and Videos" app. My other TV has a Raspberry Pi running Kodi, so if my next TV doesn't support dlna, I'll just do that.

Screw all of these companies and their predatory practices.

Jeff Geerling discusses having done the same, in one of his videos.

Do it, it's great. The NVidia Shield is a great client for it but is getting more and more adds on the homescreen. The are alternative loaders without the add you can put on it.

You've got it the other way around. Roku sell their TVs at a loss. Buy one, use it as a dumb screen and help them go bankrupt faster.

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Good way to kill their product..

I can't imagine anyone that would leave the device plugged in after the first ad comes up. Pretty much anyone using such a device would also know how to unplug them. They clearly have other uses for that screen, so it's not a total loss to keep it unplugged till the user can switch to a different brand.

Ah it's a Roku TV entirely. Reminds me of the Samsung TV ads

Roku TV sets come with ads. Generally, these are restricted to Roku's home and menu screens, its screensavers, and its first-party video channels, and once you start playing video, the only ads you'll see are the ones from the service you're streaming from. That said, Roku TVs have shown ads atop live TV before.

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 [...]

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...

Samsung, but I’d rather report back when I see if it’s a mistake.

I intend to keep using my AppleTV and hope that’s the end of it. But the Samsung was a process of elimination of Roku and LG via shitty experience with the WebOS on the work TV. If Tizen doesn’t stay out of the way then I’ll start playing router games.

I'm glad they patented it so that any of the products I actually buy won't be able to do this

If it’s patented, it can also be hacked more easily.

Why?

I think they're erroneously stating that there will be so much technical information in the patent that it will be trivial to reverse engineer and remove from Roku products.

Unfortunately that isn't the case.

Ahh you're right that's probably what they meant, but yeah in that case every patented software would be hacked

Well, the idea is that anything and everything can be hacked. It’s just that the difficulty varies wildly; some being trivial whereas others are impossible until someone finds an exploit. If you’re working with a total black box, you’ll have to make many assumptions, which means that figuring stuff out may take a while. If there’s at least some documentation, such as a patent, you won’t have to guess absolutely everything. That doesn’t guarantee that it’s going to be easy. Maybe the patent doesn’t go into much technical detail, but still manages to describe the product in just enough legal detail that the company can sue anyone trying to come too close.

It will be licensed to manufacturers with advertising incentives and packaged into consumer electronics.

Savvy electronics users will supply their own HDMI cables; this product will be for people who only understand enough to plug the ends between their box and the entertainment system.

Hell, you might even see these cables being handed out for “free”, akin to the AOL disc days.

The amount of ewaste they will be producing when they push that update. Should be against some environmental laws.

Not what laws are for.

Is what guillotines are for.

Give me freedom from advertising or give me death.

Roku would gladly do the latter if they thought it profitable

Roku somehow thinking that the Ferengi rules of acquisition was a how-to guide book.

Bread and circuses. They're gouging us on the bread and making the circuses inaccessible, these dipshits are practically begging for a red terror, by making the worst outcome still better than the ongoing white.

If I were making their decisions for them; I'm not sure I could do much better at priming the populace for revolution.

Can’t we put these devices in some kind of dev mode and install software to stop this shit?

I assume these devices run some kind of Linux kernel, with a stripped down Linux distro.

The problem there is proprietary hardware blobs, no one's made open-source drivers for any of the myriad TV manufacturers, each with their own OS.

How do emby or jellyfin devs develop clients on roku?

I would think, if you have that level of access, you could also stop or patch whatever OS services they run.

Surely you can ssh into these devices right?

The API for developing apps is absolutely open, but the OS isn't. They'd give you some kind of development environment (like Android with Android studio), and a way to get logs out. The apps are often vetted by the platform like Android and iOS apps are, and they'd be able to override anything your app could do anyway.

So think consoles, phones, tablets, etc. The OS is locked down, but you can develop apps for it.

So probably no SSH access unless you find a backdoor or something. Your time is better spent buying something without that crap, like certain projectors, commercial displays, etc. They subsidize the cost of the TVs with that nonsense, so they're going to prevent you from removing it.

roku generally puts a lot of effort into security

"security" for themselves, not the customer, I guess

i'm trying to say that they're pretty locked down

Now, if only they would invent the exact opposite of this, I would buy it

I want zero ads. Ever.

They did! Its called a pihole plus ublock origin plus piracy.

You can't buy it, only the hardware, but the software is all free.

Still doesnt block youtube ads 😩

For ad-free youtube on Android TV: SmartTube

For ad-free youtube on mobile Android devices: ReVanced

For desktop: Firefox + uBlock origin

Ad free YouTube on RokuOS? TIZEN?

Ad free YouTube on iOS?

Sadly, Firefox + ublock is becoming unreliable. I routinely can’t play YouTube videos on my desktop computer with that setup (+ a vpn) because google just won’t serve them. I just get perpetual loading screens.

You can't defend against ads with pihole if the ads server has the same address as content server

This is true. Hence the piracy. Only way to go ad free.

But with the risk of malware infection, unfortunately.

When something is free, you're the product.

I'd advise to continue to use non-pirated products, but only from those companies, whose service you're satisfied with.
And if there's none, don't consume product at all. It's not like movies are vital for you.

Vlc is pretty good, and I run a pretty strange distro. If I'm extra scared, I'll use qubes or get a sacrifice machine.

I think the poor having culture is important. Either art is important, or it Fucking isn't. You seem to be arguing its the frivolity, not the substance and fruit of civilization.

Video isnt my favorite medium, I have a lot of criticisms of it, but its still art, still precious. And so everyone deserves to have it.

And so everyone deserves to have it.

And authors along with those, who maintain content distributing infrastructure, deserve to be rewarded for their labour.

But I can't pay them. Its not generally an option. Have you seen the terms on their Fucking contracts?

Literally the closest I can get is wandering around Los Angeles giving money to people who look vaguely familiar or give off writerly vibes.

But I can't pay them.

Then don't consume the product. It's entertainment, not vital goods.

By the way, where do their salaries come from, in your opinion?

Okay but then noone should. Theres no way to give money to the people who made this shit. I'm not saying I'm poor, I'm saying there is no vector by which I could.

And I just said why I'm gonna, and why I'm gonna give more away to everyone else. I'm gonna buy extra tools to do that, just to spite your classist 'the poor should have no culture' bullshit.

Theres no way to give money to the people who made this shit.

But there is. Part of the money you pay distributors goes to the creators.

And by the way: distributors not just "speculate on digital goods" or whatever you seem to imply. They distribute. That means they make goods available through the internet in a convenient way.

Servers won't pay for themselves.

Wait were you calling amazon video Hulu and Netflix convenient? Are you an ad fetishist? Is the best part of a movie figuring out where and how to watch it? I can't understand another way to believe this.

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part of the money you pay to the owners

Lol no it doesn't. I saw the contracts the AFL-CIA pushed on the workers, and I know being good bought or beloved doesn't get people hired again because the shit heads who do get the money send it on cocaine and child slaves and private jets and the worst possible decisions with the capital and IP dipshits like you give them.

I don't get my films from Netflix. I torrent them; distribution is a community effort!

Don't worry; I give back, keep my seed ratio high, never shut off a torrent until its at least 3:1 etc.

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I've just invented a way to never use a Roku product again, and I've chosen not to patent it.

The process is this:

  1. Don't buy anything from Roku anymore.

My TV set is like a dumb monitor: HDMI in, colorful image out, basta.

Not even audio. And of course it does not get any internet connection. And I don't feed it any caviar.

Sounds like a class action lawsuit waiting to happen.
Imagine that you pay for an ad free streaming service through your roku, like HBO for example. And now you have ads streaming over it?
People will sue for a way to disable it over ad free paid content.
Also, this will lead to way more pirating. People are sick of advertisements.

That’ll be why they just pushed a “agree to our new license with arbitrage or your tv is a brick” update

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The best way to prevent ads is to figure out every way in which they can be served in the future, and patenting every one.

And then do nothing with them.

Utility patents expire after 20 years (under US patent law; might have different rules somewhere else).

Just trademark them and you'll own them for as long as disney owns mickey

Hopefully this ends up something they never actually do like that sony patent for ads that only go away if you call out the name of the product.

if they patent this, it could be slightly good thing because it might prevent other companies from doing it

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This is like Windows putting ads in the fucking startmenu....

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

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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!

Or maybe just reading any text on your TV ever. Say you use an epub reader on your screen because you like reading rhat way. Do these corpo guys even think this will make ads any more effective and likable? The opposite! I've been avoid ads ever more and any time I see a new technology to bring ads in any context I leave a little middle finger behind.

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

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Roku filed for the patent in August 2023 and it was published in November 2023, though it hasn’t yet been granted

So they haven't patented shit.

So I guess fuck people who use static images as screensavers

I mean... Yes? I hate this idea and Roku will lose me as a customer over this, but yes they are specifically targeting screensavers. Idle time is ad time to these people.

I'll be a customer for as long as they sell these fairly high quality displays at a loss. I get a 4k TV, they lose money because they aren't recouping the cost of producing the TV via ads, it's win/lose in the best possible way

Aight. So it’s time for me to start taking this seriously. Has anyone tried using like a GrapheneOS or LineageOS as a Roku or FireTV replacement? Is there anything like that which will support an experience with a regular remote control and have apps like Netflix and Hulu work?

The problem with those TV apps is DRM. All the major streaming services require that you either use a locked down platform (probably checking SafetyNet and more on Android TV) or settle for their browser UI which lacks dpad support and gets quality throttled to 1080p or lower.

Circumventing that DRM is possible, but no project at the scale of a platform like those would dare the both legal risk and support headache of making those circumventions (which are very liable to break) a core part of the OS.

Kodi (and distros using it like LibreELEC) exist for people who want a FOSS platform for using non DRM encumbered media with a TV remote interface.

Kodi. But it's a mess compared to roku.

Hopefully this will enlarge the user base of kodi

Kodi is not suitable for the average user. Some streaming apps like Disney+ require a full chromeOS download just for extracting the DRM part. Roku instead offers for a few bucks a ready-to-go system.

I always wonder why some products just simply have all these DRM features and others don't. Is DRM just a monopol for the chosen ones?

It's exactly a monopoly for the chosen ones, gate keeping at its worst. Anything that isn't blessed is going to be a bit more effort to get working, but I wouldn't say Kodi is unsuitable for the average user on the grounds of the widevine module though, the DRM module extraction is automated when installing a plugin that requires it.

Maybe not the solution you were asking for, but the Nvidia Shield on the stock code has been a fair compromise for me. The ads on the main screen are relatively unobtrusive, and sometimes even vaguely relevant to our viewing preferences. We largely watch Hulu, Prime and YouTube+ (with free access to AppleTV and Netflix, but I haven't set those up yet). For ads, we pretty much only deal with Amazon's new advertising in included Prime content. We'll probably stop viewing that content once the series we're currently watching wraps.

For context, my daily driver phone is LineageOS which is rooted all to heck to smack down intrusive advertising and tracking (Magisk, AdAway, AppManager to disable in-app trackers, uBlock on the browser, etc...), and my home network uses a pihole for DNS and malware blocking. I really hate advertisers.

On the pihole, the Shield is actually only the #3 top offender of blocked requests, behind my wife's work laptop and my kid's Steam rig. The main offender on the Shield was the ESPN app, which I removed because I never really watch sports outside of tye idd division game, which most of the time I meet friends out at the local pub anyway. Otherwise the Shield has been a well behaved appliance.

So it's not the perfect ad-free experience, but its hardly the advertising dystopia of broadcast TV.

I’d use a used laptop/desktop on Linux, e.g. something like steamOS, and then use jellyfin to stream stuff to this laptop. The media i watch is pirated, because it is more convenient and better quality than if I stream it through streaming service, even tho I pay for "4k" on these services.

Time to create an app that runs a moving pixel and or subsonic tone during pause to thwart these fuckers

I'm waiting for Version 2.0 where they don't care about whether you're watching content or not and just randomly inject ads every 20 minutes.

That's the endgame for sure. This first phase is to test the water and soften the blow when they will hijack the signal to show you ads.

Ever watch an extra wide screen film? That black bar above and below licensed content is the perfect place to inform you about exciting products and opportunities!

Did you know that your eyes only look at one spot at a time? Our customer optimizers are working hard to design a system to use AI to identify this spot in every frame, so that we can fill the rest of the screen with even more consumer opportunities! This applies to audio gaps too - we'll fill in those awkward silences with exclusive content!

And wait for them to find a way to inject ads into your sleep cycle a la Futurama! Did you know that on average, people spend one-third of their lives sleeping? This means that if someone sleeps eight hours a night, they will sleep for 229,961 hours in their lifetime, which is about one-third of their life. Think of all the missed opportunities to spend!

I would assume that these ads still need an internet connection to play. Another great reason to use an external box to play your media and leave the smart TV offline.

The whole point of having a Roku tv, however is for it to be connected to the internet and it works between all of the apps and your phone.

We have a 10 year old Roku TV and it's actually been pretty great that's streaming.

Actually the whole point of having a Roku TV is that it’s cheap. Unlike many other TV Os’ people don’t necessarily buy Roku TV’s on purpose. Roku has just cornered the market on providing cheap smart OS’ to the cheapest of TV manufacturers. Chiefly TCL, which became incredibly popular as a surprisingly good value TVs in the last five years. I’d imagine they did so by providing the OS for next to nothing to these manufacturers, with the intention to steal as much end user data to sell off as humanly possible.

That backlog of books and DVDs in my closet is more and more attractive each day.

I never considered Roku and I'm glad.

I had been considering a Roku stick instead of an Amazon fire stick to try and get out of the Amazon bubble.

I now see that Roku basically want to create their own bubble too so probably better to only let one shitty company (Amazon) get my viewing habits.

As long as the Amazon ones still come with Android, just throwing an APK of some FOSS media cwnter onto it is the cheapest way to get a reasonably modern "homebrew" appliance. The ads in the home screen are IMO a compromise I can deal with under that specific circumstances.

They have become the evil they were once apart from.

In a streaming landscape dominated by ad companies like Google and Amazon, Roku was once the viable alternative. Unfortunately, in the 21st century, enshitification comes for us all eventually.

There should be a special division in all patenting offices called Burning With Fire ™

Thankfully they patented it, hopefully deterring anyone else from also doing it

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.

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.

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.

It will be interesting to see how the technology fares with something like pi-hole.

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!

Anyone know what I should be running Plex on instead? I don't want to just hook my computer up to the TV. Rokus are like $10, so ideally around that price point lol

This is why Rokus are $10

Spend more if you don't want this.

Spend more on what?

I've been using Apple TVs for this since they came out. I still have my original. It's always worked perfectly.

Nvidia shield is a good option, or any cheap android box

Why not? To get a picture on a big screen, I just use a really long cable from my desktop.

I control mouse/keyboard input via KDE connect, or grab the actual wireless mouse and keyboard from my desk.

It's just not convenient, and not everyone in my house is as techy as I am, so having it work like a basic streaming setup is important. I also don't want to run more cables through the attic lol

This is the issue. Roku is good for kids, wife, and me, three vastly different skill levels. My garage? It's just my PC hooked up to a receiver that can go to a projector or a TV. I need something a little more user friendly inside. A buddy has the Nvidia Shield that I think is solid, but the Roku I have at home has a fantastic UI, or at least one were familiar with, which I think is key.

Fair enough, dad uses a chromecast, mum has a miui android TV stick that started off ok but the new Android TV version is pretty ad-heavy. Siblings don't have big screens at all, and simply use laptops and phones for media consumption.

Dads savvy enough that he'll just use the HTPC he has if the chromecast gets obnoxious, but mom could use something more bespoke. Getting that for 10 bucks without having her trade in her digital soul so to speak isn't happening. "Cheapest" option I can think of is something like an RPI with OSMC/Kodi/JMP + a FLIRC receiver. For what that will cost, a Shield or OSMC Vero starts looking reasonable.

I've had an Nvidia shield TV for like 6 years now. Very happy with it.

This has been recommended a couple times now. I'll check it out. Thanks!

There are tons of cheap android boxes on Amazon and AliExpress and stuff. Even a raspberry Pi does an ok job.

(Right now) I am jappy with my GOOGLE Chromecast with Android TV.
I enabled the App only mode and just watch Youtube and Jellyfin on it.
Besides youtube showings ads I have not seen any other in app only mode (though I believe the start screen has a banner though I am not sure as I automatically ignore it and launch my app).

Just a thought: What if I were to buy a TV with a port other than HDMI and use a converter from Roku device to that port? For example, hdmi to display port or whatever.

Is there a consumer tv out there that has display port as an option?

Monitors for sure, but I’m talking 70” OLEDs and whatnot.

that gets rid of cec but everything else would still work. you really just have to plug your other devices into the TV directly instead of into the roku. the problem will be the tvs with roku integrated directly

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The newest LG GX (4?) is actually removing ads from their UI, I think it is totally ad-free. It is expensive as fuck though, it makes sense to deliver a premium experience.

I think the point is that "not having ads" shouldn't be allowed to become the premium experience when it used to be the standard experience.

It’s weird now though that TVs didn’t have ads, and now people are willing to pay more because it could have ads but it doesn’t

I don't understand why anyone uses one of these,when you can stream anything you want for free on your computer in your web browser.

Is this sarcasm, or do you genuinely not understand watching TV?

Anything you would watch on tv is available free on the internet. No subscriptions, even Netflix. I"m not being sarcastic. Hang your f'ing monitor on the wall, then. That's all that makes this "tv" different. Well, and its advertisements.

I don't know why anyone wants to connect their TV to the Internet...

To watch things? To stream music? Game streaming? To avoid the additional expense, cable clutter, and additional remotes of android TV boxes (which also contain ads out of the box anyway)?

Honestly what kind of question is this lol. It's pretty obvious why people connect their TVs to the internet.

Try finding a dumb tv for sale of relevant size and quality. I know you don't have to connect it to wifi... Usually. But I just want a TV that doesn't have all this shit in it to begin with.

O I'm not saying it's easy. Just don't connect it. I've got tvs with all that crap but they're connected to my media extenders that I can control, vs a TV that for w/e fucking reason needs updates.

Ever since Roku deplatformed Alex Jones I knew they were unprincipled and no good. Glad I left and never looked back.