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Date: Tue, 18 Mar 2025 02:09:06 +0000
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Subject: Re: Roku tests ads before home
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On 18 Mar 2025 00:56:06 GMT, Retrograde <fungus@amongus.com.invalid> wrote:
>From the «how bout no» department:
>Title: Roku Tests Autoplaying Ads Loading Before the Home Screen
>Author: feedback@slashdot.org
>Date: Tue, 18 Mar 2025 00:02:00 +0000
>Link: https://slashdot.org/story/25/03/17/2122232/roku-tests-autoplaying-ads-loading-before-the-home-screen?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed
>Roku is testing autoplaying video ads that play before users can access the
>home screen. While Roku claims this is just an experiment, users are
>threatening to abandon the platform if the change becomes permanent. Ars
>Technica reports: Reports of Roku customers seeing video ads automatically play
>before they could view the OS' home screen started appearing online this week.
>A Reddit user, for example, posted yesterday: "I just turned on my Roku and got
>an unskippable ad for a movie, before I got to the regular Roku home screen."
>Multiple apparent users reported seeing an ad for the movie Moana 2. When
>reached for comment, a Roku spokesperson shared a company statement that
>confirms that the autoplaying ads are expected behavior but not a permanent
>part of Roku OS currently. Instead, Roku claimed, it was just trying the ad
>capability out. Roku's representative said that Roku's business "has and will
>always require continuous testing and innovation across design, navigation,
>content, and our first-rate advertising products," adding: "Our recent test is
>just the latest example, as we explore new ways to showcase brands and
>programming while still providing a delightful and simple user experience."

i've got a roku tv that i've always been using with wifi "not connected",
instead using flash drives to play .mp4 content recorded while displayed
full-screen (currently windows 11 24h2, 1920x1080), by using this method:

obs studio (https://obsproject.com/) works great for recording streaming
videos; e.g., movies, tv series, etc. saved to mp4 format for viewing on
other devices by using obs "display capture" to record streaming content
while displayed full screen in the web browser; e.g., in mozilla firefox
uncheck "use recommended performance settings" and uncheck "use hardware
acceleration when available"; obs "hide obs windows from screen capture"
and software video encoding (same as stream, x264), save streaming video
(this method may not work with some "digital rights management" sources;
also, pale moon https://palemoon.org/ works better with streaming videos
since the popular firefox browser has become problematic for some users)

it's easy to mute and skip through commercials (which usually won't play
through normally anyway) and flash drives are compatible with just about
any device, making it easy to play, store and share content conveniently