At home, I've never connected my TV to my network. The few firmware updates I've needed to do were applied using a thumb drive, and I use an AppleTV as my interface.
When I travel, I bring along an AppleTV and plug the HDMI port into their set. This lets me keep the services I subscribe-to and use them with their display. This has worked great until my most-recent rental, which had a RokuTV -- presumably setup on Wifi.
When content was streaming from my AppleTV, Roku would overlay a panel along the bottom-part of the screen proposing that I can watch what I'm currently watching from a variety of other providers. This must mean that the TV set is analyzing the video or audio signal to fingerprint what the content contained, then matching it against a library of content to feed into its profile of my use.
This is the first time I've seen something like this. I'd always assumed that if you used the TV's UI and if it was connected to the internet, then you'd probably be subject to their ads and data analysis, but it never crossed my mind that they'd perform the same data-analysis over any signal passing through its silicon.
Is this commonplace or is Roku the first of what's likely to be many doing the same?
> Is this commonplace or is Roku the first of what's likely to be many doing the same?
As far as I can tell, it's not only commonplace but ubiquitous for any new TV you buy these days.
I recently moved and had to buy a number of TV sets over the years to outfit various guest rooms. All LG and Samsung TVs I've setup over the past 3 years have a "feature" like this you can manually disable if you dig down through menus enough.
Then every firmware update the flag gets reset to enabled of course :)
My LG TV plays movies from USB stick and never tried a trick like this. Not gonna lie, those were mostly relatively old movies, like LOTR or Heat, but also latest Predator installment.
Cynical, sly enthusiasm. I just can't imagine 5G bands devoted to adverts passing invisibly through my skin. It is too much like the adverts in your dreams skit from Futurama.
Again, it is increasingly hard to separate satire from prophesy.
That's why one should never use ISP-provided routers. Since ISPs can update/control devices connected to their network, buy a modem without WiFi: anything downstream of that is your network.
Not everyone lives in higher density housing, so open wifi networks are not always a given. Also a built-in cellular modem would be antithetical to having a lower cost TV set based on ad subsidies.
I would worry more about mesh networks like Amazon sidewalk
> I'd always assumed that if you used the TV's UI and if it was connected to the internet, then you'd probably be subject to their ads and data analysis, but it never crossed my mind that they'd perform the same data-analysis over any signal passing through its silicon.
This is discussed in TFA. It's "ACR" (Automatic Content Recognition), and it applies to anything you watch on that TV, via any mechanism you try. Yes, if you hook up your AppleTV and look at your own videos, the TV is watching what you watch.
Today, it's comparing a fingerprint to a database. Tomorrow a new model or a firmware update will have it shipping your pixels to the mothership and doing things like determining who else watched the same video.
And if this isn't enough, you also have to ask yourself: What is your SmartTV doing with the camera facing your hotel room and the built-in microphone?
If a manufacturer uses ACR on content you brought in through the HDMI port, do you trust them with a camera and microphone pointing into your hotel room or home?
If you do trust them not to abuse that, do you trust them to keep all their TVs up-to-date with security patches to prevent hackers from exploiting them and taking over the cameras and microphones?
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I can do this all day. Remember, it's not paranoia if there really is a trillion-dollar surveillance capitalism industry out there buying and selling data, and laundering data so that companies can buy it while having plausible deniability that they were knowingly involved in any illegal or brand-damaging shenanigans.
> What kind of firmware updates do you need to do on it, when its only purpose is to act as a screen?
On some screens, signal processing has been significantly improved in later firmware versions. New features are also not uncommon, such as VRR and HFR being added after release[1]. This is particularity nice for modern consoles.
>What kind of firmware updates do you need to do on it, when its only purpose is to act as a screen?
My display had an issue where the video modes necessary for the XBOX Series X were not working properly. The display would drop-out in some 4K modes. It's stable now, so I haven't checked/updated anything in about a year.
My Sony TV came with the newest ATSC 3.0 TV tuner hardware. The software wasn't fully QC'd at launch. They put out a firmware update about 2 months after I bought mine to fully enable the tuner software and hardware.
Otherwise, it's been app updates and some improved HDR processing.
I love my ATV 4K. But it’s useless for traveling since hotels require you to login and the AppleTV doesn’t have a browser. The Roku sticks get around this by temporarily exposing a pass through wifi connection that you can connect to from your phone/computer and log in to your hotel’s wifi.
The only work around with the AppleTV is to buy a second travel router.
With tvOS 15.4, "Captive Wi-Fi network support on tvOS allows you to use your iPhone or iPad to connect your Apple TV to networks that need additional sign-in steps, like at hotels or dorms."
For travel, I have a Raspberry Pi with a second wifi stick to transmute hotel wifi into my own local network. This avoids having to modify every phone/tablet/Chromebook/Switch the family has in tow or fight with buggy hotspots. I keep meaning to add a VPN back to home (mostly for performance) but I haven't got around to it yet.
An upgrade I keep looking for is an external directional antenna so I can get a stronger signal when RVing.
For some people, myself included, configuring a Raspberry Pi to do this would be simpler and take less time than figuring out TP-Link's bullshit web interface.
Not even to mention, you can be 100% sure you can get whatever extra features you need working, such as the aforementioned VPN.
I have a spare AppleTV for travelling and have never had a problem connecting it, even before tvOS 15.4. The router suggestions are also overcomplicating it. Just connect your phone to the WiFi, then choose the same network on the AppleTV and stand near it - a sheet pops up on your phone asking if you want to share the password with the AppleTV.
I’m in a Hilton hotel right now. You don’t get a standard Wifi password. You go to a web page where you enter your room number and last name and then your MAC address is allowed for a certain amount of time.
Ahh damn. Does signing in on the phone first not work? I'm struggling to remember what the captive screen wanted last time I did it, it's been a while.
No. It doesn’t. That’s where the travel router came in. It presents itself as one MAC address using one of its radios and exposes another interface for your devices. I was staying in an extended stay and we had computers and a WiFi printer set up. We were waiting for our house to be built.
I was just informed that Apple added support for captive networks in March.
Then you have to use your data plan. At least with the previous AppleTV, you could AirPlay directly from your iPhone to your AppleTV without the AppleTV being connected to an external Wifi network.
It didn’t work with all iPhone apps though. For instance it didn’t work with Netflix.
>When content was streaming from my AppleTV, Roku would overlay a panel along the bottom-part of the screen proposing that I can watch what I'm currently watching from a variety of other providers. This must mean that the TV set is analyzing the video or audio signal to fingerprint what the content contained, then matching it against a library of content to feed into its profile of my use.
My Roku TV specifically said it didn't analyze HDMI inputs, only Roku channel watching
I'm really glad that our "smart TV" just pre-dates all of this stuff. It can't connect to a network - it doesn't have that functionality. Firmware updates? No idea if there are any.
same, except I go even further and instead other online thingy I just use USB driver loaded with movies/TV shows for me and kids, I don't understand nowadays people addiction to streaming, offline experience is much better/smoother, i decide what I wanna watch on computer and just load it to drive
but I guess some people can have moral reasons to pay for some service and/or it's not legal in their country to download and watch video content for free (though many EU countries allow this)
When I travel, I bring along an AppleTV and plug the HDMI port into their set. This lets me keep the services I subscribe-to and use them with their display. This has worked great until my most-recent rental, which had a RokuTV -- presumably setup on Wifi.
When content was streaming from my AppleTV, Roku would overlay a panel along the bottom-part of the screen proposing that I can watch what I'm currently watching from a variety of other providers. This must mean that the TV set is analyzing the video or audio signal to fingerprint what the content contained, then matching it against a library of content to feed into its profile of my use.
This is the first time I've seen something like this. I'd always assumed that if you used the TV's UI and if it was connected to the internet, then you'd probably be subject to their ads and data analysis, but it never crossed my mind that they'd perform the same data-analysis over any signal passing through its silicon.
Is this commonplace or is Roku the first of what's likely to be many doing the same?