we live in hell
I don’t even understand the pitch? you have the disc playing, in your hands, your ownership, no buffering, no subscription required. and they’re saying…hey do you want a worse experience?
Protip: Do not connect your TV to the Internet.
I ended up giving up and just putting a Linux PC attached to my TV as a media center. I host plex on it.
This is the way (Jellyfin here)
I’m new to all this. Got any recommendations how to learn about Jellyfin?
while often outdated, there are youtube tutorials.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.
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
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?
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.
Fair enough, thanks!
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?
I used CLI for setup, the GUI is just for ease of file management and checking libraries. I recommend hotio for super easy images to just fire and forget. Links I hope will help you: https://hotio.dev/containers/jellyfin/ https://wiki.servarr.com/
Step 1. Get docker up and running (Portainer helps with other containers) Step 2. Use prowlarr to set up all the search engines you’ll use on other *arr apps Step 3. Set up your libraries with Jellyfin
You’re wonderful, thank you! I’m going to leave my local OMV PI4 setup alone and when my pi5 arrives, I’ll try this!
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.
Of use jellyfin, but I have too many friends with only consoles that rely on my server. Sigh
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.
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
Until Plex gets unbearable as well. They have been getting a lot shittier lately.
Other server software are available of course. The concept stays the same though. Very much recommend doing this. I’m halfway there, running Plex on my desktop PC and watching on my TV and other devices at home. Very comfortable setup. But I wish I had a small computer like a Pi or something, and a NAS to hold my drives. That way my desktop PC could rest.
There’s always Kodi! You don’t have to update your media server software.
Nah, I’ll just switch to Jellyfin.
They hit my threshold of shittiness some years back and I’ve been enjoying Jellyfin ever since. It’s a much better alternative for most!
The shark’s in the tank and they’re putting their waterskis on
Plex is a great example of how proprietary software will inevitably become exploitative, and only purely Free Software systems can ever be trustworthy in the long term.
I still get Roku recommendations on plex content from my Apple TV. They are doing content recognition off of the hdmi input
I use a dumb tv. Old 1080I tube tv.
Uff between ads and interlaced content?? I’d still try to find a dumb 1080p…
Interlacing only sucks on progressive TVs because they have to interpolate and scale the Missing information causing artifacting, watching interlaced content on an interlaced television is actually unnoticeable from a progressive display in my opinion, perhaps less sharp, but still.
Ok
Unhook your TV from the internet, it does not need the ability to talk to anyone on the planet just to show an HDMI input to you.
or just get a cheap-ass android box (like xiaomi or google)
Protip: destroy your ‘smart’ TV.
Protip: burn your house
Protip: burn down the world
Protip: read Protips
The real protips are always in the comments
^This
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.
That sounds actually reasonable, but I’m not taking any advice from a flying squid.
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.
What? Am i supposed to watch tv? Hell nah
Just get a cheap PS4 or Xbox and watch all your stuff on there. We have an LG “Smart TV” that just doesn’t need to be connected to the internet because our PS5 (formerly PS4) is fast and snappy, and has all the apps we could want to stream off. Plus, both have a Bluray player installed right off the bat, so we can even watch those if we’re up for it.
Don’t bother with sluggish performance on your Smart TV, it’s just not worth it.
What’s the practical difference between using a console and a smart TV? Aside from this one feature I mean, which I’ve never seen on mine.
The UI is better and not as slow as on smart TVs from what I’ve heard. Plus you can play games on the console and watch DVDs and Blurays if that’s your thing. Apart from that, not much.
They also track you less. They still track you, but it isn’t even close to what a smart TV does.
Good point, thanks
This is true, because smart TVs have shitty processors, and consoles do not. Consoles are made for media, smart TVs have shitty embedded software on slow hardware, comparatively.
Sony famously pushed DVDs into the mainstream and won a generation of console wars by building a pretty good DVD player into the PS2 which also happened to cost not much more than most DVD players did at the time
PS2 is STILL my only DVD player. Why fix what ain’t broken?
Consoles tend to have higher power draw than a lot of simple devices. Depends on how much you care about environmental power savings or power bills.
Who said that? There are lots of streaming devices you can connect to your display, from game consoles to streaming boxes like Apple TV, Nvidia shield, Android box or if you really want to tinker a PC connected to the TV. The point is, don’t connect the TV itself to the internet as it has the most access to the whole viewing experience to drop ads on you.
Why this escapes so many people on Lemmy is beyond me
Exactly. Streaming is so much better than TV. People complain about 5s skippable ads and the pripesed solution is 5 minutes of ads?
Also, so much more convenient than DVDs.
No, the solution is not going back to cable. The solution is the high seas
Aye!
What brand? so I know NOT to buy it
I believe it’s Roku. That purple symbol in the bottom right is on the remote as well.
Very budget so this doesn’t surprise me.
Also beneath the purple asterisk is the words “Roku TV” in grey on the bezel
Fuck Roku. Don’t buy these. They shove ads down your throat constantly, and they proactively, aggressively stop methods of circumvention.
Wtf I thought roku TV were one of the good ones. I use a Roku thing that you plug in and I haven’t seen this yet.
The good ones go bad eventually :(
The poster really needs to just turn off the Smart TV experience.
The Roku box was one of the good ones… about ten years ago. Though maybe this is just a TV thing. TIL Roku makes actual screens.
In the past few years especially, I’ve seen so many unshakable “good ones” go bad. Some, in the worst possible way.
My Sharp TV runs Roku software. Suffice it to say I do not have it web connected and use an android box instead
No. No, they are not one of the good ones.
I use a Roku as well and never have this happen so I dunno
The little asterisk symbol on the screen is leading me to believe it’s a Roku.
I have two roku tvs. The day I see this is the day they get disconnected.
You can probably use a pi-hole to block those things.
The amount of Roku stuff my PiHole blocks is asinine. I just recently added a blocklist for smart TVs and it ballooned the query counts like mad.
+1 for PiHole. Worth the ~$40 for the Pi Zero W and accessories alone.
That’s because they retry failed connections until they can phone home again. They aren’t normally making tens of thousands of requests.
It can scream into the void for as long as it wants.
I fucking hate my Roku Tv. One of my roku TV became unusable after software update. Can’t be rolled back. I’m just stuck with a perfectly fine screen and shit software. And yes even connecting another device via HDMI is an issue because the TV restarts randomly for “updates” while watching external sources.
Hrm, that’s a pretty good argument for buying a tv and leaving the built in smart features without internet access. Sorry about your issues.
I’d there no way to factory reset it?
I can factory reset but not downgrade the firmware. The newer firmware is too demanding for the crappy chip in the TV.
Shoutout to the PiHole team. Love you guys and the work you do.
I really need to get around to that on my pfsense
Which smart TV blocklist are you using? Should probably add that into my pihole.
Posted under Phar’s comment, but here’s the direct link
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Perflyst/PiHoleBlocklist/master/SmartTV.txt
What block list is that?
Pretty sure it’s the smart TV blocklist from Wally3k / Firebog. I’ll confirm and update later if I find out otherwise.
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Perflyst/PiHoleBlocklist/master/SmartTV.txt
No, you can’t. I’m running pihole and have a TCL Roku tv connected via HDMI to an Apple TV, and the ROKU APP RECOGNIZES CONTENT FROM IT and makes the suggestion, overlaying it OVER THE HDMI STREAM.
It’s the worst
Ew that’s approaching dystopian levels of grossness. My tv should not be watching along with me.
You can, but don’t forget to also block other outbound DNS connections in your firewall. Lots of “smart” devices are hard coded to use 8.8.8.8 regardless of what DHCP says. Pihole won’t stop those, so you have to block it at the firewall.
Or redirect them to the PiHole.
And don’t forget to block/redirect secure DNS on port 853.
Or a private DNS service that allows filtering like nextdns
They put one too many ads on the home screen… then they made them larger…
fuck em. they get nothing now.
blocked their ad servers at the DNS level.
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I guarantee you someone paid Roku to do this
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Those channels precisely. They get ad revenue when you watch it on their channels. If they can get Roku to bring them traffic, Roku would charge for that. No engineering effort goes unpaid.
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I have an old Roku Express or something similar and love it. It has an RF remote and a very responsive UI. But it is slowly becoming crappier with the infrequent updates.
Name and shame!
It’s literally on the screen….
It says Roku TV
But not exactly obvious. Don’t be a jerk.
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See the problem is that you let a display device connect to the internet
Connected a Samsung smart TV to my network when we first got it. The thing damn-near crashed my pi-hole asking for so many ad/tracking domains. Factory reset it later that same day. I think my % of requests blocked went from 15% to 68% in just the 3 hours or so the Smart TV was connected.
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.
My Roku TV will be in a landfill before I allow it to send 1s and 0s through anything but the HDMI cord
More like everything will be in a landfill before you allow it to send 1s and 0s through anything but the HDMI cord.
I let my Xbox send 1s and 0s through the ethernet cable
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
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.
Infuse fills in the gaps. Don’t even need a plex server anymore (it works better imho)
No, the fault is with the people who make the TV. It’s not the customers fault that other people are evil.
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
My TV is connected to the Internet and doesn’t do this. There’s a setting to turn it off.
Mine doesn’t have anything like this and is connected to the internet, no settings to change either. LG Oled
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.
Anytime you see the word “smart” in the name of the product, remember to mentally replace the word “smart” with “tracking”.
“Ad enabled”
Same with IoT
This is called Automatic Content Recognition and it can be disabled in the settings, highly recommend doing that. It should have asked you whether you wanted it enabled when you set up the TV, as it’s legally required to be opt-in in the US opposed to opt-out. Since you’re using a Roku Smart TV, it specifically is taking two full resolution “video snapshots” every second.
"To disable ACR on a Roku TV, the privacy policy says to “visit your Roku TV’s Settings menu (Settings > Privacy > Smart TV Experience) and de-select 'Use Info from TV Inputs.”
Since you’re using a Roku Smart TV, it specifically is taking two full resolution “video snapshots” every second.
“Got a data cap? Ha ha, fuck you.” – Roku
Since you’re using a Roku Smart TV
That link also works for other TV brands. Just scroll to the top of the article to find your TV section.
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.
Or just reading the file name on the DVD lol
Sure but this is actually Automatic Content Recognition, specifically Roku’s video ACR that takes snapshots twice a second.
Would it be possible to argue that this is copyright infringement? They’re basically screencapping copyrighted content at a shitty framerate and distributing it over the internet.
Whooops! You accidentally thought that companies have to follow the same rules as civies, silly you!
They’re not distributing it. They’re taking a screenshot, identifying the content, and transmitting hashed and aggregated data. Even if they were transmitting screenshots, they’d be transmitting it to their own systems to be hashed and analyzed, not watched.
No, see my comment to FlyingSquid about how I assume things work under the hood. The only logical design choice I can imagine is that a hash of the content snapshot is being computed locally, and only the hash is transmitted.
You agreed to it when you set up the device. It should be illegal to have incredibly obtuse and impossible to read T&C, they should make it abundantly clear exactly how much of your personal information is being given away, but unfortunately it’s legal to just have a little checkbox that lets you lie about reading them.
to be technically correct, they are not “distributing” it. They are doing the same thing shazam does for music.
Sure, but they do take snaps of the screen and send it to advertisers. Almost all “smart” TVs do this.
Only if the DVD player is built into the tv
And then someone gets the idea to find a way to play a VHS instead and be like “Let’s see you read that, you fucking spying idiots!”
This is why my TV does not have internet access.
Even if you must own a smart TV (because it’s impossible to buy a large-ish TV anymore that isn’t), I see no reason to actually connect it to any network. But! I notice recent models will bitch at you on every single power on if you leave them disconnected. So you’re not even safe from being annoyed then.
Some people get big computer monitors instead of a TV, because of shit like this.
That’s the route I took. I recently bought a 48" 4K monitor, hooked a mini PC up to it, and now I stream my movie and TV show collection through Plex. I still have Internet access on my “TV,” but I’m in control of what pops up (I block all ads on my home network). I just use a small wireless keyboard and mouse instead of a remote.
I haven’t actually owned a TV since about 2008. I have better media options through computers, and the technology just keeps getting better. Cable and public access television are a pain because you’re constantly bombarded with ads. With my own computer, I can circumvent ads and get a solid viewing experience.
I went the other way. My 75" TV is my PC monitor.
I fucking love it.
Where am I gonna get an 85" monitor for under $1k?
Under the heading: “Digital Signage Display”
For under $1,000?
I did a projector. Pretty close in price and I have a very modest, but serviceable 135" screen and no ads.
If I found out a TV required internet access to function, I’d return it to wherever I bought it next day.
Luckily I have a old-ish flatscreen that doesn’t require internet but does have a netflix and other channels I can setup if I want. The Netflix client is so old it won’t connect to their servers any more. That’s OK. My Roku still works.
I have yet to see one that won’t eventually let you use it as a dumb display after you dismiss one (or more) nags first. But I’m sure that’s coming eventually. The worst offender I found yet is the “cheap” Black Friday sale Amazon Fire TV my boss got to use as a security monitor in one of our satellite locations. That fucking thing won’t even show a picture until you dismiss its network nag, and then its sign-in-with-Amazon nag. At least I found you can disable the Amazon account nag in the options. The network connection one you can’t.
We’ve just resolved never to turn it off. You can’t dismiss the nag screen with the bezel buttons, either. You have to use the remote, so that’s now permanently double-stick taped to the desk the TV is on.
Next time he’ll just buy a fucking computer monitor like I told him to.
The TVs I’ve seen that do this have been smart enough to not get naggy about a lack of Internet until 30+ days after first power on. Then you get popups or autoplay videos begging you to connect it.
My Hisense has been pretty decent, surprisingly. But for my next TV I’m honestly thinking of going with a commercial display.
I bought a 65" HiSense last month. I was psyched the first time I set it up, and it gave me the option to configure it as a dumb TV without the Android TV experience or a network connection.
I’m tempted to do a master reset on mine to see if I got that option. I have the Roku edition and I know that I can specify what source it defaults to on power on. I can also turn off content recognition, which is what’s going on in OP’s case. But using it as just a dumb TV would be awesome.
Theres definitely a setting for turning off content recognition… but… even if I say “no”, I don’t trust my dogs not to eat food I leave within reach.
These companies want the data, they profit from the data, they probably won’t get caught if they take the data, and even if they do they won’t get punished, and even if they do it’ll still be worth it. You have to turn off the network or block the traffic to be sure.
Right after you can’t return it anymore?? Evil
Yeah, that’s why I’ve come to just pay the premium for professional displays instead of consumer TVs.
How much more is it?
That’s a great way to go. There are also still some budget options (Sceptre comes to mind) that don’t have any smart features in some models. My buddy just picked one up.
It’s an absolutely terrible TV, but for his use case it’s perfect. He’s using it as a karaoke monitor for parties at his house. It’s mounted in a covered patio and is dumb as hell.
Wonder how much an 83" OLED would cost me for a premium professional display.
Are you serious?
My LG you had to scroll down (with no scroll indicator) below the screen to find the hidden option to not connect it to the internet on set up.
If I the TV nagged me every start up I’d get rid of it.
At least the LG TVs don’t try to pull any shit like OP posted about. At least mine hasn’t.
Mine hadn’t, built it’s a few years old and the enshittification has only increased each year.
Thankfully mine (about two yrs old now) only whined for the first couple weeks then gave up on me.
Now the only issue I have is the time it takes for android to boot. It’s like having to wait for your tv to warm up all over again except without the high pitched noise old tv sets had.
This article is a year old, but it’s still possible to buy dumb tvs.
I agree with you for the most part that there’s no reason to connect them to the internet, however:
Most modern TVs have Bluetooth and WiFi radios, therefore they’re never truly isolated, and consequently that means if there’s a security flaw, it can potentially be exploited without physical access.
Now your priorities (and frankly, hardware) will obviously differ from mine, but that risk alone is enough of a reason for me to connect things up in order to receive software updates. Of course, the privilege of getting software updates for your telly is not ubiquitous, but most manufacturers can issue updates if there is a good enough reason to do so
If its never been connected to the internet…wtf are they gonna do if they hack it? what are they going to get? it will have no credit card information, no personal information of any kind.
They could connect it to the Internet, I guess.
The problem is that because the hardware is there, a determined person with physical access can change the settings to join a network you don’t control.
Ideally, you can open the TV and remove the wifi modules but I suspect that might be beyond the skills of most TV owners.
Tbh, I stopped owning a TV since college. I watch everything on my computer or phone now.
Wait…so the fear here is that they will take my tv, that i don’t have connected to the internet and…connect it to a network i don’t have? Whats the point of going through that trouble? Whats the gain?
Connectivity!
There’s microphones and even cameras in many of these TVs.
Those radios may have a flaw that allows someone to connect to them without direct physical access, wardriving is a similar idea. Particularly the Bluetooth stack, since modern TVs often use Bluetooth for their remotes, so it’s always going to be powered and active.
Then you’ve got to remember a lot of TVs have shit like cameras and mics now days. Even without that, if an attacker can take control of something with a WiFi radio, it can become a jumping point to exploit other devices near your TV. I mean it doesn’t even need to be an exploit, e.g. if your phone disappears from WiFi range, maybe you’ve gone out—that’s a good time to rob you.
Sure it’s all pretty unlikely, but it’s a non zero threat. Particularly when you consider that TV OS software is often like swiss cheese when it comes to security.
Another option for the even more security-minded is to physically disable the radios.
I think newish tvs offer advanced image quality features like HDR and Dolby Vision through their own apps rather than through web browser; if you don’t have a new generation console in your house and wanna enjoy your new TV full capabilities you will need to connect the damn thing to the internet
Wait, what? I’m thinking about getting the LG C2/3, and wasn’t going to connect it to the internet.
Guess I’ll have to get myself a PiHole and figure out how to block tracking.
I have an LG C3 and that thing is amazing; the issue with HDR/Dolby Vision/etc is not because LG, but rather that you need a system that has an app that supports those capabilities, like if you have a subscription to Apple TV and don’t wanna connect your TV to the internet you need an Nvidia Shield/Apple TV/PS5/Xbox series X because just a HTPC won’t do it because the web browsing app doesn’t offers HDR and the Apple TV Windows app is trash
Ok, so I won’t lose any HDR/other image settings with a PS5 and Google TV?
I have mine connected so I can control it from Home Assistant. It’s blocked from WAN though.
And this is why we buy dumb TVs
Dumb tv with the latest panel tech is too much to ask for these days too.
Now that is some serious privacy invading.
You like this episode of Futurama. Would you also like to watch this episode of Futurama?
The SMART thing to do is to buy a DUMB TV. Pay a little more and get a real TV- you know. A display, with speakers and HDMI inputs. Nothing else.
Disable ACR on your TV. There was a news report that came out last week about this very thing.
“Automatic content recognition” https://advertising.roku.com/resources/blog/insights-analysis/acr-the-future-of-tv-and-audience-data#! Roku is not the only ones doing it :(
So the only way to opt out of this hell is to kill your internet connection? That sucks!
I blocked the servers with my pihole. Coincidentally, my two smart TVs are the two most blocked devices on my network. It’s not even close.
This was with only ~1 hour of TV watching, while the device in the third spot is my phone (which I had been using all day). And yet the second TV still had almost 3x as many blocked requests.
Smart TVs are fucking invasive.
I really need to learn how to set that up.
It’s easier than ever these days. The hardest part is figuring out how to configure your router to point devices to it. Because router manufacturers love to bury that setting somewhere deep. For actually setting up the pihole, it’s usually just a matter of flashing the memory card with the right image, then finding some decent block lists. But even the block lists are easy to find nowadays.
It’s complicated.
Username does not check out :(
yeah lol, no real need to obfuscate those ip fyi
