[HN Gopher] Dear Roku, you ruined my TV
___________________________________________________________________
Dear Roku, you ruined my TV
Author : some-guy
Score : 132 points
Date : 2024-07-08 19:12 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theverge.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theverge.com)
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| [dupe]
|
| Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40879492
| karmakaze wrote:
| I don't know what this looks like but I probably hate it. It's
| like the frame interpolation that some TVs had to generate 120p
| frames from 60p. I actually prefer the original 24p (or 24p
| double-exposed to 48 like cinema projectors do) for films.
|
| What really bugs me are the "Remastered" versions of songs on
| Spotify that sound like they were produced with today's audience
| in mind and doesn't sound like the original recording of the
| time, which has way more character and inherent texture by the
| artists _without the soulless robo-producer repaint job_. That
| would all be fine, except that they _remove the original_ non-
| Remastered versions.
| pimeys wrote:
| For the second part, 100%. I started years ago already
| collecting my own flac files, and I'm quite careful on picking
| the best mastering if possible. In 2024, finally, some of the
| latest remasters are great (like the new Steely Dans from
| Bernie Grundman). But between 2000-2015 or something a remaster
| of an album was usually just compressed to the maximum and made
| very _loud_.
|
| For some of my favorite albums I have multiple masters
| available, because they can be very different how they sound
| and sometimes I can't choose the best one.
|
| Oh, and for most of the people none of this really matters...
| m348e912 wrote:
| Where do you find masters? I only know of stems ripped from
| games like Rock Band.
| bloomingeek wrote:
| Mp3Caprice
| m348e912 wrote:
| The site seems to sell high quality 320kpbs mp3s but as
| far as I can tell none of them are seperate multi-channel
| recordings (aka masters)
| pimeys wrote:
| There is nothing official available. There may or may not
| be services in the internet that meticulously archive every
| possible master and of course you can go to discogs to buy
| a physical copy of a certain version of the album if
| somebody still has it.
|
| This is for me over two decades of hard work and deep
| interest into music. I highly value my collection.
| mrob wrote:
| Earache Records released several remasters of classic metal
| albums with increased dynamic range:
|
| https://bandcamp.com/search?q=full+dynamic+range&item_type=a.
| ..
|
| (also finds some other high dynamic range albums)
| neuralRiot wrote:
| > I don't know what this looks like but I probably hate it.
|
| A simple description would be: It makes film movies look like
| direct-to-video productions, so basically everything looks like
| a soap opera. Horrible indeed.
| kstrauser wrote:
| I've even commonly heard it referred to as "soap opera mode".
| vundercind wrote:
| Real film does have (effectively--the aperture's closed half
| the time so you don't see a smear of moving film) a blacked out
| every-other-frame which makes the perceived motion smoother
| (some digital projectors can replicate this, though it halves
| the effective brightness so you need a _really_ bright one for
| it to work ok) but yeah, I'd take a little judder over faked
| digital smoothing. It looks awful.
|
| [edit] I just mean that an actual film projector does achieve
| smoother motion than most TVs displaying 24 fps the best they
| can "naturally", but a TV's natural best is still far better
| than the alternative of alien-looking digital motion smoothing.
| xur17 wrote:
| > It's like the frame interpolation that some TVs had to
| generate 120p frames from 60p. I actually prefer the original
| 24p (or 24p double-exposed to 48 like cinema projectors do) for
| films.
|
| I realize that I might just be the exception here, but I
| honestly really like it.
| kstrauser wrote:
| I'm glad other systems offer it as an option for people who
| enjoy it. I can't fathom the decision process that
| permanently enabled it for everyone.
| adamomada wrote:
| They made the feature, they're gonna enable it or nobody
| would use it and it would have been a waste of time making
|
| You're really gonna hate the fact that 99% of people think
| this is what stuff on their digital television is supposed
| to look like.
|
| (Which is exactly why Roku did it)
| kstrauser wrote:
| That's just not true. My non-Roku TV has this as an
| option alongside dozens of others I can turn on and off.
|
| I'm gonna need to see some data on that. The nearly
| universally description I hear from regular, non-techie
| people is "my TV started looking weird", especially when
| they're watching content they're familiar with. If a
| brand new movie or show looked like this and that's the
| only way I'd ever seen it, fine, so be it. I remember
| seeing "Raiders of the Lost Ark" in soap opera mode on
| our then-new TV and thinking "WTF is this and how do I
| turn it off?". That's _not_ what Indiana Jones movies are
| supposed to look like.
| adamomada wrote:
| > I'm gonna need to see some data on that.
|
| It's enabled by default on all smart TVs. Q.E.D.
| romwell wrote:
| Which is why Roku decided to _take away the option to
| disable it_ for people who understand and notice the
| effect and actively _don 't want it_?
|
| Pardon me, it makes zero sense at all.
| olyjohn wrote:
| If you have to force people to turn it on, maybe it sucks
| and you shouldn't waste your time developing it.
| t0mas88 wrote:
| Same for me. I can't stand watching sports with fast motion
| or large panning scenes on a low refresh rate screen.
|
| But agree with the post above that 24p double exposed is even
| better. Smooth and no artefacts. Luckily that's an option
| Sony TVs have by default if you pick cinema mode.
| adamomada wrote:
| For sports it's the one and only time I enjoy 60 Hz
| content, to the point that 25/30 feeds look like garbage. I
| mainly watch footer and hockey, slower sports it might not
| look so bad.
| hedora wrote:
| I got an Apple TV 4K a while back to replace my Roku.
|
| It sets my ancient sony 1080p TV to 24 fps when playing back 24
| fps content.
|
| On top of that, it let me recalibrate the colors using my
| iPhone camera.
|
| Anyway, I bought it to reduce ad tracking, and was pleasantly
| surprised that it was roughly equivalent to buying a new TV.
| longtimelistnr wrote:
| Yes that is my favorite part of the apple tv as well, that it
| adjusts output to the source frames and resolution. As long
| as you have a good looking panel with nice color you'll never
| need to get rid of it. 1080 can really look gorgeous even
| with everything today being 4k
| lherron wrote:
| My 2013 Panasonic plasma is still going strong with AppleTV
| as the primary input source.
| christkv wrote:
| The loudness war has ruined a lot of music on streaming
| services for me. Remasters where you lose the ability to
| distinguish instruments. No way to listen to the original
| version.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war
|
| So it's back to digging out and ripping my old cds.
| MarkLowenstein wrote:
| It makes things in the foreground have very sharp edges and
| _seem_ brighter than the things in the background. They call it
| "soap opera effect" because it reminds you of the way those
| sets and people are lit.
|
| But also--never seemingly noticed--the technology leads to very
| crisp changes in direction of the camera panning. So you see a
| very smooth pan, stopping with no deceleration period, and then
| a quick new pan in a different direction, with no acceleration.
| It's disorienting and makes everything look fake. IMO this is
| the most annoying part, but it's hard to identify and
| articulate.
| K7PJP wrote:
| > What really bugs me are the "Remastered" versions of songs on
| Spotify that sound like ... [a] soulless robo-producer repaint
| job.
|
| Spotify serves up a _stereo_ version of The Flamingos ' "I Only
| Have Eyes for You" that completely destroys the atmosphere of
| the song. It's nearly criminal.
| RichardCA wrote:
| If you can get your hands on a CD and rip it to FLAC that's the
| way to go.
|
| When the CD format first took hold in the early/mid 80's, it
| was common for the record labels to push out CD's that were
| just a straight digital transfers of the original analog
| mastering that was used to create the vinyl LP.
|
| Now we're here 40 years later, and you can find those CD's on
| Ebay and rip them using a program like foobar2000, and the
| result is basically flawless (for common playback use cases,
| I'm not making the audiophile argument). I'm also impressed
| that the 80's and 90's era CD's are not going bad on me.
| bigjimmyk3 wrote:
| Earlier this year my roku-enabled TV started showing some new
| Terms Of Service, and it wouldn't let me watch anything unless I
| agreed to them.
|
| ...or unplugged it from the network.
|
| Now, it sounds like they may have done me a favor.
| ncallaway wrote:
| The fine print of that TOS allowed you to opt out if you mailed
| a letter to a specific legal department at Roku within a
| certain time frame.
|
| Also, that should be a crime.
| bloomingeek wrote:
| Yes! Because they are treating you as if you don't own _your_
| TV.
| HenryBemis wrote:
| "If it ain't broke, don't fix/update it."
|
| That's my moto. Apart from Firefox, my banking apps and Signal, I
| don't update anything, ever. Not the TV, not the media-box,
| nothing. Eventually it leads to tragedy and discomfort.
|
| Sometimes I custom update my Win machines for Security patches,
| but anything that has to do with usability, UI, function, etc. I
| leave it as is. (I firewall all my apps in my machine anyway).
| criddell wrote:
| Not a problem if you buy a Sony Bravia TV. I bought one and it
| only took a little over a year before they stopped shipping
| updates to it.
| recursive wrote:
| I don't even give my TV the wifi password. I'm paranoid that
| it's going to update something without my consent. I fear the
| day they come with cellular modems and bypass the wifi
| entirely.
| criddell wrote:
| I used to worry about cellular modems, but now I think it
| will be just plain old wifi they use. There's Comcast
| Xfinity, Amazon Sidewalk, and probably other companies that
| turn their device into a communal wifi hotspot.
| rolph wrote:
| HDMI can be used to move tcp/ip packets [HEC], all it takes
| is one media device with connectivity, and a firmware that
| provides tunneling capability, and your TV will leak over the
| HDMI connector.
|
| one pin [pin14] on the HDMI connector allows this to happen;
| disable it and that problem wont exist until specs &
| standards revision happens.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HDMI
| hagbard_c wrote:
| That is why you connect it to a source which does not have
| direct internet access. Use an adversarial mindset when
| dealing with commercial services, they _are_ out to get you
| after all.
| thebruce87m wrote:
| Cellular modems and passwords? No need, it will just connect
| automatically to some mesh network outwith your control:
| https://www.wired.com/story/how-amazon-sidewalk-works/
| voiceblue wrote:
| I wish that had been my motto earlier. I bought a resin 3d
| printer off craigslist in perfect working condition, tried to
| update the firmware (for no good reason), and ended up promptly
| bricking the thing. I got it fixed in the end, but it was a
| huge unnecessary waste of time and energy.
|
| More recently, I updated my Vision Pro to the OS beta, which
| broke my ability to open files off my NAS. That, too, is fixed
| now...but again, I should've just left well enough alone.
| knowaveragejoe wrote:
| I have a TCL with what I assume is Roku TV, and I'll never
| connect it to the internet for this exact purpose.
| Zaskoda wrote:
| My next TV purchase will be a dumb TV.
| x3n0ph3n3 wrote:
| Good luck finding one, but this has nothing to do with Smart
| TVs, and everything to do with what you hook up to a TV.
| partdavid wrote:
| I'm not sure what you mean by this, but the device the story
| is complaining about is a TV, not a Roku device.
|
| > On June 6th, my TCL TV's Roku OS was updated to version
| 13.0.0.
| azinman2 wrote:
| Disable wifi on the TV and use an AppleTV.
| hagbard_c wrote:
| Better still, use Kodi or Jellyfin on whatever you have
| lying around - Kodi works fine on a Raspberry Pi 3 - so
| you're not swapping one spy for the other.
| saulrh wrote:
| You can put any android TV into dumb mode ("Basic TV") during
| setup, which disables many-most of the smart features without
| affecting core display functionality:
| https://support.google.com/googletv/answer/10408998?hl=en.
| mikenew wrote:
| You're still greeted by a full-page ad on the main menu. But
| yes; it is better.
| Animats wrote:
| > You're still greeted by a full-page ad on the main menu.
|
| The same ad every time, or is it still phoning home for new
| ads?
| hagbard_c wrote:
| Tell me, mr. Ad-man, what good is an ad network... without
| an internet connection?
|
| I recently got my hands on a "smart TV" for free because
| the power supply was broken and the replacement the owner
| had bought did not work. That turned out to be due to the
| fact that he bought the wrong board so I used parts from
| both boards to create a working power supply and there I
| was with a working "TCL 50DP660", this turned out to be a
| 50" 4K Android TV. Whatever I do with it, it won't get an
| unfettered internet connection just like all other 'smart'
| things around here. They live on their own private network
| where they only get to see what I allow them to see, i.e.
| my own media services and whatever proxy service I provide
| to the outside world. No auto-update, no ads, no nothing.
|
| In _Cocaine_ [1] Dillinger spells "New York" as 'a knife,
| a fork, a bottle and a cork'. Here we spell the 'New Net'
| as 'a wall, a block, a proxy and a lock'
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9JLen8TTJg
| AdmiralAsshat wrote:
| This definitely looks like what I'll use when I buy my next
| TV. I'll then just run everything through a set-top box like
| an NVIDIA Shield or my PS4/PS5.
| swechsler wrote:
| Smart TVs are cheaper. As already mentioned in another
| response, just use a smart TV in dumb mode. You get the
| streaming providers to subsidize your purchase without you
| giving them any money.
| bloomingeek wrote:
| Dumb TVs are getting harder to find. It would be easier to
| login on your router and deny access to your smart TV.
| plasticeagle wrote:
| Not plugging your TV into the network also works quite well.
| treprinum wrote:
| 5G service channel says otherwise.
| adamomada wrote:
| Are there TVs with it out now, or is it still Coming
| Soon?
| hagbard_c wrote:
| If there are devices around with cellular data access
| which do not require subscriptions that sounds like
| something which would be ripe for, shall we say,
| alternative use cases. Are there? I have not seen these
| yet but that does not mean much. I do know that if I ever
| get my hands on one the supplier will rue the day they
| decided to add a surreptitious data exfiltration channel
| to their products.
| IshKebab wrote:
| Unlikely. They don't really exist any more, at least not for a
| price you will be willing to pay.
| ryandrake wrote:
| > Not long after the update rolled out, other Roku TV owners
| (mainly TCL, but Hisense, too) began posting about the issue in
| Roku's community forum and on Reddit. Since I work at The Verge,
| I told our team about my issue. We reached out to Roku for
| comment and got no response. We wrote about the problem.
| Commenters on that post agreed: it sucks. Still, there was radio
| silence from Roku.
|
| They're probably working on some slimy PR excuse for why they
| feel the need to force-feed you an unwanted feature, how it's
| actually for your own good, and subtly insult you for not liking
| it. That seems to be the standard pattern for when a tech company
| arrogantly pushes a feature that people don't want or like and
| provides no way to turn it off.
| Root_Denied wrote:
| Another excerpt from the article that is worth pointing out:
|
| > What you probably should avoid is weeks of customers flagging
| the same issue with no meaningful feedback or updates. Possibly
| even more important, your support infrastructure shouldn't be
| difficult to navigate or have their own bugs that hinder their
| use. In this case, there's both.
|
| This is probably an intentional design choice - make it as
| difficult as possible to report any kind of issue, thus cutting
| down the number of issues that actually get reported and
| reducing the number of support staff needed.
|
| The point where I would have given a giant corporation the
| benefit of the doubt that this was not intention is long past.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| Lol, _my_ TV. That thing on your wall, that thing you paid
| thousands for, is controlled by the software. You don 't own that
| software. It is owned and controlled by other people. You have
| paid for a service, that service being the privilege of calling
| yourself _owner_ of a thing. Your privileges are temporary and
| may be revoked at any time. In the meantime, any perceived
| changes are for the benefit of those who actually own the
| software. Any impact of said changes on renters like yourself is
| very much secondary.
| bearjaws wrote:
| This is why I buy my TV and never connect it to the internet.
|
| Between the invasive conversation monitoring and ad spots on the
| menu, it's much better to buy an Apple TV / Nvidia Shield.
| StanislavPetrov wrote:
| Nvidia Shield was one of the best purchases I ever made. I also
| never made the mistake of updating it like the author of the
| above article. If something works, and does everything you want
| it to do, you should never "update" it unless it is absolutely
| necessary. More often than not these "updates" only serve to
| restrict the device you own or inject more ads and spyware.
| skiexperte wrote:
| My lg works great. No additional remote, no extra cable.
| bearjaws wrote:
| LG has opt out monitoring, check your menus for it, it
| defaults to "on" for several models including $1200 OLEDs
|
| Just wait until earnings line goes down, then they will make
| pay to play probably.
| diego_sandoval wrote:
| What would be the downsides of simply buying a big computer
| monitor instead of a TV? It seems to me like an easy way to avoid
| all the crapware that comes with Smart TVs.
| 01HNNWZ0MV43FF wrote:
| It's hard to use a computer comfortably from the couch
| diego_sandoval wrote:
| That's what Chromecasts and its competitors are for.
|
| You may say that that's the same as a Smart TV, and
| chromecasts come with their own crapware, but the big
| advantage is that they're separate devices. The Chromecast
| has no way to infect your monitor through HDMI.
|
| If the Chromecast or whatever starts misbehaving, you throw
| it away and replace it with something else. You lost $50
| instead of the $300+ that your Smart TV costs.
| ianburrell wrote:
| Large monitors are rare. I found Dell 55" for conference
| rooms. They don't have the features like HDR. They are
| expensive, the Dell is $1000, and cheap 55" are $300,
| decent $500, and good $1000.
|
| For lots of people, the builtin speakers and apps are fine.
| I also got the impression that TVs have gotten faster and
| UI are less sluggish. Why spend $50 for Chromecast when TV
| already has Android TV, and cost $200 cause going in spare
| room?
|
| Don't have to use the smarts of smart TV. I never use the
| apps on my TV, it displays HDMI. I could stop applying
| updates or unplug the Ethernet and it wouldn't change.
| Hamuko wrote:
| The fact that a big computer monitor is like 32". Any bigger
| than that and it's going to be much wider than 16:9.
| jwcooper wrote:
| Mostly cost - a 55" Samsung Odyssey Ark computer monitor is
| like $1800. You can get a similar TV for 1/2 that price.
| xoxxala wrote:
| YMMV, but $900 for no crapware is a price I would happily
| pay. We don't watch TV in our house, so haven't updated it in
| over a decade, but our next "TV" will be a monitor.
|
| We did purchase a Roku stick a couple years ago, but they
| wanted credit card info during the set up, which I thought
| was BS for something that I just wanted to use for our
| existing streaming apps -- so we never used it.
| StanislavPetrov wrote:
| Ironically I bought a big TV to use as my computer monitor
| because it was so much less expensive. Never connected it to
| the internet or did any sort of "setup" other than setting it
| to HDMI mode.
| izacus wrote:
| Most the lack of useful things that come with those TVs like
| support for eARC and similar technologies.
| adamomada wrote:
| Depends on your setup, but you won't have any audio without a
| speaker system
|
| The best way is to get a good smart tv (rtings.com) and do not
| connect it to your network. Use an Apple TV/Android TV/Fire TV
| device, it's easier to avoid/disable crap.
| 60secs wrote:
| Per the law of enshittification, soon only monthly subscribers
| will gain the ability to disable motion smoothing.
| einarfd wrote:
| If you live in the right jurisdiction consumer protection laws
| might be able to force the seller to get this defect fixed or
| have them take back and refund the tv.
|
| Where I live (Norway), there is a five year warranty on long
| lived products, which a tv is, and if it breaks during that
| period, the seller needs to fix or replace the product. Motion
| smoothing that can't be turned off seems a serious breakage, and
| if they seller pushes back, you can point out that Tom Cruise and
| a bunch of other movie luminaries think motion smoothing ruins
| movies.
|
| Not sure what the rules are with software updates after the tv is
| out of warranty. But I do suspect the seller would still be in
| hot water, if the update breaks important functionality.
| paulcole wrote:
| > Motion smoothing that can't be turned off seems a serious
| breakage, and if they seller pushes back, you can point out
| that Tom Cruise and a bunch of other movie luminaries think
| motion smoothing ruins movies.
|
| Is this the standard in Norway, where the consumer can just
| call something they personally dislike "serious breakage" and
| demand their money back? Does this work? Would you actually
| invoke your Tom Cruise argument and expect that to change
| anyone's mind?
|
| Or is the culture there just so passive and avoidant that
| they'll give you your money back just so you go away and stop
| bothering them?
|
| Whole thing seems wild to me.
| ribosometronome wrote:
| Fundamentally altering the way the picture is shown without
| anyway to revert to the original functionality is obviously a
| severe deviation from how the product was originally sold.
| It's akin to not having blue anymore.
| paulcole wrote:
| But it's not akin to not having blue anymore. Not having
| red anymore is akin to not having blue anymore.
|
| Having the video play in a way you personally dislike is
| perhaps upsetting to you, but it's a TV and the video still
| plays.
| madeofpalk wrote:
| Kind of, yes. Terminology used in Australian consumer law is
| that devices must be "fit for purpose" and of "acceptable
| quality", especially in regards to other similar products. A
| software update changing the product in a significant and
| negative way after purchase definitely would be grounds for a
| "remedy".
| paulcole wrote:
| It's a TV! It plays video. How is that not "fit for
| purpose" and of "acceptable quality."
|
| Honestly just seems nuts to me for the law to be so vague.
|
| Why don't they just say, "Refund under any circumstance the
| customer feels inconvenienced and upset" and be done with
| it?
|
| I find that much more honest and easier to follow than what
| you're describing.
|
| Caveat emptor and all.
| throwway120385 wrote:
| I think you're being unreasonable. "Acceptable quality"
| is whatever a reasonable person accepts an argument for.
| If Roku doesn't want to run afoul of these laws perhaps
| they should make these kinds of features optional instead
| of forcing them on people? I remember back in the day
| when a software update removed my ability to play FM
| radio on my phone and that was certainly frustrating for
| me. I personally continued using the phone but I could
| see how someone who purchased the phone for that feature
| would be dismayed at its sudden removal.
|
| The whole point of these laws is to prevent manufacturers
| from squeezing people by making products that fail early,
| or that are difficult to use. If you don't understand why
| this is important then I'd question how much life
| experience you really have.
| globular-toast wrote:
| I gave up on TVs. Luckily I watch very little TV anyway so it's
| no big deal. I remember my friend buying a TV for thousands a few
| years ago and seeing just how laughably bad the interface was
| compared to Kodi on a Raspberry Pi 2 that I've been running close
| to 10 years now. Literally it's been on almost that whole time
| (just had to replace the power supply once). Not only does it
| play everything on my NAS, I can stream to it and control it from
| my phone etc. I never update it because it just continues to
| work. I use a projector instead of a screen because it's better
| and thankfully they are still dumb. Oh and a huge sound system.
| And all of that costs less than that one shitty "smart" TV...
| Waterluvian wrote:
| I hated my stupid TCL Roku TV so I got a TCL Android TV and it's
| worse. The terrible incompetence of the team who manages to make
| a UI that lags out by multiple seconds when trying to cursor to
| the OFF option is frustrating. But I'm sure it makes their
| Project Manager overlords happy because it's easy to supply ads
| to.
|
| If anyone here wants to solve a real problem and get rich doing
| so: start a company that makes dumb electronics. I'll pay a
| premium.
| hagbard_c wrote:
| > start a company that makes dumb electronics. I'll pay a
| premium.
|
| That'd just make you a useful idiot for those sellers. Better
| use the thing in whatever 'dumb' mode it offers, never connect
| it to the internet but only expose it to a restricted local
| network. That way you don't have problems with auto-updates,
| you don't get ads, you're not being spied upon, etc. Of course
| all bets are off if there is an open wifi network around for
| the thing to connect to but those tend to be rare. There are
| bakers tales about devices having their own cellular access
| built-in but I have yet to see proof of something like that -
| and will abuse the hell out of it when I find it.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| I've never connected them. They're still terrible. Because
| they're designed as Android devices and not just fricking
| TVs.
| cjk wrote:
| I used to work at Roku (audio team). I left in late 2020, but I
| know that many of Roku's best and brightest were shitcanned as
| part of the several rounds of layoffs that happened recently, in
| an effort to cut costs.
|
| It would not _at all_ surprise me to learn that this was a
| mistake, and that there's no one left that knows how to fix it.
| tomrod wrote:
| Geez, add this to the crummy way they've been rolling out no-
| opt-out "features" and regressions like automatically showing
| your recently watched series.
|
| Yes, I really _didn't_ want my 7 year old to stream the Walking
| Dead, thanks for the nightmares Roku!
| olyjohn wrote:
| Yeah they keep adding garbage to the home screen, and putting
| it between the things that I actually use. Smells like
| desperation.
| jes5199 wrote:
| I'm in a subculture where people mostly don't own televisions (I
| do watch shows on my laptop, occasionally) but so I have never
| seen motion smoothing - is there a demo, online, like on youtube
| or something, that can give me a sense of what you are talking
| about?
| cm2012 wrote:
| It looks like a 90s/2000s soap opera, like Days of our Lives. I
| always turn it off on TVs I use.
| ghewgill wrote:
| I still don't understand what that means. I've never sat down
| to watch a soap opera, so I have no idea what they look like.
| jes5199 wrote:
| I've heard that before and it just sounds so strange - why
| would interpolated frames on a HDTV remind people of the
| production values from standard definition televisions?
| recursive wrote:
| It's the frame rate. People are accustomed to seeing video
| at ~30fps. But old soap operas were somehow at ~60fps,
| among other things. I think this motion interpolation thing
| looks significantly _worse_ than the old soap operas,
| because the interpolated frames break down when there 's
| _too much_ movement, which is exactly when they could have
| the most value, if you believed they had any value
| proposition at all.
| callerun wrote:
| Which subculture is this? I also do not own a tv. But I'm not
| part of any subculture that I know of.
| jes5199 wrote:
| for lack of a better way to describe it, people who were
| active on everything.blockstackers.com in the late 1990s
| katerberg wrote:
| Hard to see in this clip, but it's super annoying:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xkSjTgrVa3w
| iamleppert wrote:
| I hate to break it to you, but you are only a tiny fraction of
| the users of something like Roku. The software isn't developed
| for individual users, it's developed according to a product
| roadmap, which is itself driven by the behavior of the largest
| and most profitable cohort of users.
|
| If you don't fall into that category, you don't have a choice.
| Things that may be irritating or upsetting to you, if they make
| money or drive some number that helps a manager get a promotion
| internally, you're simply out of luck when it comes to software.
|
| Products aren't built for individual users, they are built for
| massive collections of users that generate revenue.
| pseudosavant wrote:
| A ton of people ask me for TV recommendations. Rokus were my
| goto, but not anymore. I won't buy one.
|
| Their response so far suggests this isn't on accident (it's a
| feature!) and they won't change it back. I'll probably have to
| not hook up the internet on my next TV. Use a steaming box
| instead.
| adamomada wrote:
| I agree with you and this is why I choose android or android-
| based streaming devices, in my case Fire TV. There's enough
| hackability built into android that you can use e.g. tasker or
| other dedicated macro apps to do just enough customization that
| it ends up working the way you want. I know I'm the minority
| and most people don't care or take it for granted how the thing
| works, but I don't.
|
| In my case I basically would love if Fire TV never did another
| update, stayed on old Android 9, and just let me use the three
| or four streaming apps with my custom launcher - I don't want
| anything else, thanks
| kstrauser wrote:
| That's a solid point! Much as I gripe about my iPad Pro not
| doing things I wish it did, Apple still sells a gazillion of
| them to people who think their vision is better than mine.
| They're a $3T company by knowing what their customers want.
|
| I'd be tempted to give Roku the same benefit of the doubt
| except that the person here on HN who says they like motion
| smoothing is literally the only person I've ever heard of who
| did. My in-laws are far, far from tech-savvy videophiles. Last
| time we visited them I had to set their TV to the right aspect
| ratio. They'd been watching it that way for ages. And when a
| software update turned on motion smoothing, they called to ask
| me how to turn it off because they absolutely hated it. These
| are regular, non-techie people who just want to watch TV and
| have zero interest in tweaking or tuning a thing. _They are not
| nit-picky_. If it bothered them so much that they had me fix
| it, I 've gotta think there are _a lot_ of people who dislike
| it.
|
| And because of all that, I think this decision is bonkers. It's
| a hugely polarizing setting. People who like it like it. People
| who don't tend to absolutely detest it. I can't imagine what
| advice Roku got that made it seem like a good idea.
| MarkLowenstein wrote:
| This presumes that a very large fraction of Roku users _asked
| for_ motion smoothing /soap opera effect. I would be surprised.
| (1) Most people I've pointed it out to say "I can't tell the
| difference". (2) None of those people had ever known that this
| method even existed--even a lot of people on this thread didn't
| know about it before today. (3) As for profitability, is there
| a single person in the world who would buy a Roku because it
| had motion smoothing?
| poikroequ wrote:
| I used to like my Roku TV. It has a pretty straightforward
| interface, just tiles of all your apps, and the ads are to the
| side, out of the way. I love the simple ergonomic remote control.
| But their actions recently have gotten me looking for a new TV.
| First the thing with forcing new terms of service on everyone.
| Now this. My Roku TV has gotten way slower in the past year or
| so, to the point where many apps are nearly unusable. And I guess
| they'll be pushing video ads soon.
| rewgs wrote:
| Does anyone _want_ or _like_ motion smoothing? It's seemingly
| universally hated by a majority of those who care (myself
| included), and a minority of those who don't. Why are TV
| manufacturers so dead-set on shoving it down our throats?
| rightbyte wrote:
| Maybe it is good for tracking the ball in sports? (Note: A
| hypothesis. I don't watch sports ...)
| ipsento606 wrote:
| it's good - or at least, fine - for stuff that you want to
| look as true-to-life as possible. Sports, nature
| documentaries, news coverage (if you're into that)
|
| it's absolutely awful for everything else
| bigmattystyles wrote:
| Can you be a film purist and buy a Roku TV? I mean come on -
| Snark aside, the mistake was thinking the TV was yours as opposed
| to an advertising vehicle for its makers to use to extract
| further value from you. Don't feel bad, I was the victim of the
| same with the Nvidia Shield. Looking at you Android TV.
| themadturk wrote:
| We have a Samsung "smart" TV, with smarts not connected to the
| Internet. We hook it up to a Roku box. When we turn the TV on it
| splashes a banner encouraging us to connect. It disappears after
| 15 seconds or so.
|
| I have no problem with the Roku box, but this makes me happy I
| didn't buy a Roku TV, and that I've never attached the TV itself
| to the Internet. My next streaming box will be an Apple TV, but
| as of now I'm in no hurry.
| mikeocool wrote:
| FWIW I have a TCL Roku TV running 13.0.0 and don't seem to be
| impacted by this. Motion smoothing is definitely not enabled when
| watching Hulu/Netflix/HBO.
|
| If I go to picture settings, I see the option for Roku Smart
| Picture, but it's not enabled.
| pugworthy wrote:
| The article says...
|
| > If you're someone who doesn't notice motion smoothing or
| doesn't particularly care about it...
|
| This basically is me.
|
| It then proceeds to describe a number of things that would be
| blatantly obvious and asks you to imagine if you couldn't turn
| them off. Yes, if my Kindle's fonts all went 3x size, I'd both
| notice and probably care.
|
| But this "logic" fails to work with that previously quoted
| sentence. Yes, I would care about something I noticed or cared
| about. But why should I care about something I don't notice or
| don't care about?
| recursive wrote:
| No one's asking you to care. Some people wouldn't notice
| tripled text size, even though it's similarly hard for me to
| imagine.
|
| I usually notice motion interpolation within a second of
| watching. I also find it to be intolerable.
|
| Maybe people like you can come out ahead on the newly reduced
| prices on these RokuTV's with recently reduced market value.
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