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And Google enters the fray...


ebr

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Latest update to my Sony Android TV now has "Featured Content" a la Fire TV at the top of the device home page.  I guess Google couldn't miss out on the push content from partners revenue opportunity any longer.

devicehomeads.png

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Gilgamesh_48

I actually like my Fire TVs BUT I have finely honed my ability to ignore the garbage content in the rows on the Fire that I am not interested in and I have trained my thumb tow almost automatically press the down arrow a couple of times to get to my Recent row as soon as I switch to my Fire on my TV.

My Shield is potentially much more intrusive as it has pretty much the Android interface but I have it setup with all the content rows and all the app rows turned off. I do not care what Google, Yahoo, Emby or any other app thinks I might wish to "thinks" I might want to view. On my Shield when I switch to it I see exactly one row of apps that I use. There is nothing else on my "home" screen except that row of apps.

I dislike that if I add an app I automatically get a row or two or three of content "suggestions" from that app. But it is easy enough to go into settings and turn all that crap off.

I would never allow my home screen to get as cluttered with junk as the one you showed.

That whole idea of apps throwing junk on my home screen is just offensive to me. That is one reason I like my Roku. Its home screen contains nothing but apps except for one ad on the right side of the screen and that ad is very easy to ignore and nothing ever is "suggested."

My favorite device to use will, most probably, remain the Roku as the others just seem to want to make choices for me instead of allowing me to make the choices.

 

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4 minutes ago, Gilgamesh_48 said:

That is one reason I like my Roku. Its home screen contains nothing but apps except for one ad on the right side of the screen and that ad is very easy to ignore and nothing ever is "suggested."

That is actually the exact same thing just in a different location and, just so you know, Roku does have a future update where their home screen is gonna look a lot like the above...

This is the reality of economics for these guys.  They are providing a lot of hardware and infrastructure basically for free and must generate revenue somehow...

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Gilgamesh_48
2 minutes ago, ebr said:

That is actually the exact same thing just in a different location and, just so you know, Roku does have a future update where their home screen is gonna look a lot like the above...

This is the reality of economics for these guys.  They are providing a lot of hardware and infrastructure basically for free and must generate revenue somehow...

I was afraid of that. Roku has been moving in the direction of becoming less and less user friendly over the last few years. I do not really fell that having the ad on the left is the same as it is much easier for me to ignore that placement.

If they go too far, in my opinion, I may well move to using my Shield a lot more because I can turn off almost everything that intrudes onto my home screen.

I am sure that eventually all devices may add too much paid in your face content to my home screen and, when that happens, it will become a lot like Hobson's Choice and I will be forced, as I pretty much am now, to simply choose to use the device that irritates me the least.

I miss the "old days" when you could just buy a device and then use it without the manufacture trying to tell you what content to use it for.

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Quote

Roku has been moving in the direction of becoming less and less user friendly over the last few years. I do not really fell that having the ad on the left is the same as it is much easier for me to ignore that placement.

They are still pretty widely praised as having the easiest to use operating system of any of these platforms. They're all going to have advertisements, no matter which one you pick.

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Gilgamesh_48
1 minute ago, Luke said:

They are still pretty widely praised as having the easiest to use operating system of any of these platforms. They're all going to have advertisements, no matter which one you pick.

Yes, I understand. So far Roku has placed their ads outside my "normal" navigation activities and the "ads" are almost never animated. While my Shield can also be set up to ignore ads it just seem more trouble on the Shield than it is on the Roku.

My Fire TV is even worse as there is a "row" that cannot be turned off that you must navigate past to get to an actual row of useful apps.

I know this is the direction that everyone is moving in but I do not have to like it

You are correct that the Roku is the easiest to use. In fact i is the easiest by far.

If they switch to a more "in your face" interface with the ads more up front than now it may or may not be enough to make me switch my preference but I will reexamine my preference.

In fact, if the Shield' was easier to use for me I might switch now as the Shield can be configured so that there is absolutely no advertising on the home screen. I like the Shield's customizability and I believe that most clean Android devices are equally customizable I am just not really as comfortable with Android's navigation as I am with Roku's.

I wish companies would design with me in mind but my preferences are not the preferences of most people so I will just have to do some work to continue to find the best corrent device for me.

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Sammy

I heard this was coming. It'll probably be rolled into whatever MiBox s update I get to fix LiveTV pixelating on some channels. 

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2 hours ago, Sammy said:

I heard this was coming. It'll probably be rolled into whatever MiBox s update I get to fix LiveTV pixelating on some channels. 

It hit my Mi this morning as well...

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Q-Droid
18 minutes ago, ebr said:

It hit my Mi this morning as well...

What do you have? MiBox 3 (v8) or MiBox S (v8.1/9)? Nothing showing on my 3 yet but since it's sponsored content I'm wondering if DNS based ad blocking is preventing it.

 

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8 minutes ago, Q-Droid said:

What do you have? MiBox 3 (v8) or MiBox S (v8.1/9)? Nothing showing on my 3 yet but since it's sponsored content I'm wondering if DNS based ad blocking is preventing it.

 

The one I saw it on was an original one so the 3 I guess.

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jachin99

If it's only a backdrop then I wouldn't mind the suggestions now and then.  This is one area where the htpc is still king, especially on linux

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Sammy

My MiBox s didn't get it. Has anyone tested LiveTV on the MiBox3? Do you need a .ts file with known issues to test?

Edited by Sammy
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Sammy

Complete with .ts files to download that don't play well on the MiBox s but play just fine on a ShieldTV or PC. Take a look and let me know what your results are. Also see here.

Edited by Sammy
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Q-Droid
1 hour ago, Sammy said:

Complete with .ts files to download that don't play well on the MiBox s but play just fine on a ShieldTV or PC. Take a look and let me know what your results are. Also see here.

You sample plays normally on MiBox 3.

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Sammy
14 minutes ago, Q-Droid said:

You sample plays normally on MiBox 3.

Not on the MiBox s. Xiaomi borked it in the last f/w upgrade but we got Amazon Prime Video. Always a trade off.

Fortunately these channels are usually recorded, not played live and MCEBuddy cleans them up when I convert them to HEVC.

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Sammy
34 minutes ago, Q-Droid said:

The "Featured" banner just showed up on mine. Not on the Shield yet.

 

So this row cannot be removed or moved to the bottom?

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Sammy

BTW, no update to the MiBox s. Maybe they are waiting to fix this pixelation issue in the same f/w update?

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Nvidia is probably working out how to get their games into the ad rotation 😜.

This wouldn't be so bad if I didn't get the exact same three suggestions all the time...

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Sammy

I was away for a while and with no acceptance of this it is now polluting the first row of my MiBox s' Home Screen. 

 

No fix to known pixelating LiveTV or even an update from the June 24 Security Patch.

BASTALDOS!

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