The home page of my $1700 smart TV has a full page ad about watching ads

[glitterbomb@lemmy.world]

Your grandma does.

I installed her TV and internet last week. She barely understands the concept of switching TV inputs, and her Roku smart TV doesn't let you rename inputs from HDMI1 to [ISP NAME] unless the thing is connected to the internet. It also defaults out of the box to show the smart TV bullshit every single time you turn it on, instead of just showing the last used input before the TV turned off. So she's completely baffled how to watch simple television channels unless I spend 10 minutes reconfiguring this garbage so it's usable.

Go visit your grandma, everyone. And reconfigure her smart TV. I'm joking but I'm not. I can only visit so many grandmas per day.

[bluelander@lemmy.ml]

I bought a new TV last year after my Hisense kicked the bucket and had a similar experience.

Not sure if it applies to your situation, but I just factory reset my TV, never enabled wifi, and hooked up a smart device I had lying around (Nvidia Shield). Now it all works great and if the smart functions upset me I can throw just the smart TV part in the trash and go back to my VCR.

[brrt@sh.itjust.works]

AFAIK this will only get you 720p to 1080p depending on the streaming service. No 4K, no HDR.

[buddascrayon@lemmy.world]

I haven't had a living grandmother in... I don't even know how many years at this point.

[yournamehere@lemm.ee]

cant one simple adb debloat any droid device? i mean adb list those packages, maybe even backup some and then remove the obvious ones?!

[waldschrat@lemmy.world]

Return it. If you hold on to it (even if you block the ads and all) it will signal the manufacturer, that this practice is fine.

[glitterbomb@lemmy.world]

I'll reiterate that I'm in a half dozen living rooms every day, and most of them are senior citizens. I've been doing this for years. They all have smart TVs, whether they use the features or not.

I'll also reiterate that they flat out will not even use a TV sometimes because they're defeated by the smart TV features that prevent them from getting over to their Comcast box. Did you even read my comment?

They get suckered by the cheap TV in middle of the aisle at Walmart or Costco and buy three. You can't even go out and buy a TV that isn't a smart TV without specifically looking for it. They don't even know to begin to look for these things.

Do you think they're still on an old CRT with a VCR hooked up via RCA? They had to go down some weird upgrade rabbit hole that they still don't fully understand because they ended up with a DVD of some classic movie, went and got a DVD player only to find out they didn't have HDMI ports so now they had to go buy some garbage TV thats subsidized by advertising companies. Again, I've seen this exact scenario play out a hundred times.

The fact of the matter is that your fix reeks of 'I got mine' energy, and it doesn't fix anything. Large swaths of people will still get these ads in their faces and these companies won't stop. Quite the opposite, they'll keep looking for more ways to fuck their customers.

[dr_vindaloo@lemmy.ml]

Like what?

[umbrella@lemmy.ml]

organize.

is a matter of pushing advertisement and privacy restrictions

[mindbleach@sh.itjust.works]

Why the fuck does your television have a home page?

Never give the TV the wifi password.

[wolflink@sh.itjust.works]

Buy a smart TV box like Apple TV or Nvidia Shield. You can get full quality streaming with some ads but not nearly as bad as the software that’s built into some of these TVs.

[brrt@sh.itjust.works]

I know, I was just letting people know that this guys solution comes with downsides.

[cedara64@lemm.ee]

Don't buy a TV anymore. Seriously though with the direction things have been going in the "tech world" for the last couple years (maybe even decade) it is probably better to start adjusting to some level of digital minimalism. For some of us it will become a necessity for financial reasons anyway...

[bananymous@lemmy.ml]

Is American football not merely a vehicle through which advertising can be pumped? You’d think the entire sport had been designed from the ground up for such a purpose.

Four seconds of action, six minutes of commercials….3.6 seconds of action, 47 replays, five minutes of commercials.

P.S. Smart TVs can eat shit and die.

[46_and_2@lemmy.world]

Plenty of 4k with HDR on Real Debrid. Or even better quality and bitrate ripped from BRs, in the open waters.

[dx1@lemmy.ml]

Not if they're baked into the system.

[dickarus@lemmy.world]

HDMI 2.1 can support 4k. Find a ship that doesn't sink. Voila. No ads. Zilch. Zero. Nada. No HDR? Better than a single second of an ad.

[cybranm@feddit.nu]

LG TVs, at least three one I have, have a pretty good operating system. I've never seen an ad (yet)

[godnroc@lemmy.world]

I went to a game for the first time a few years ago. I recall the moment where everyone was sitting around and not doing anything because they were waiting for the commercials to finish. It felt like watching actors drop their characters the moment they step out of the spotlight.

[yogthos@lemmy.ml]

It will be a dark day indeed when I allow my TV to connect to the internet. These things are glorified monitors.