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Roku has patented a way to show ads over anything you plug into your TV (arstechnica.com)

submitted 8 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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A patent application from the company spotted by Lowpass describes a system for displaying ads over any device connected over HDMI, a list that could include cable boxes, game consoles, DVD or Blu-ray players, PCs, or even other video streaming devices. Roku filed for the patent in August 2023 and it was published in November 2023, though it hasn't yet been granted.

The technology described would detect whether content was paused in multiple ways—if the video being displayed is static, if there's no audio being played, if a pause symbol is shown anywhere on screen, or if (on a TV with HDMI-CEC enabled) a pause signal has been received from some passthrough remote control. The system would analyze the paused image and use metadata "to identify one or more objects" in the video frame, transmit that identification information to a network, and receive and display a "relevant ad" over top of whatever the paused content is.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Kodi. But it's a mess compared to roku.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Hopefully this will enlarge the user base of kodi

[–] [email protected] 7 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Kodi is not suitable for the average user. Some streaming apps like Disney+ require a full chromeOS download just for extracting the DRM part. Roku instead offers for a few bucks a ready-to-go system.

I always wonder why some products just simply have all these DRM features and others don't. Is DRM just a monopol for the chosen ones?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 8 months ago

It's exactly a monopoly for the chosen ones, gate keeping at its worst. Anything that isn't blessed is going to be a bit more effort to get working, but I wouldn't say Kodi is unsuitable for the average user on the grounds of the widevine module though, the DRM module extraction is automated when installing a plugin that requires it.