Dear Roku, you ruined my TV

https://www.theverge.com/24188282/roku-tv-update-motion-smoothing-turn-off

by some-guy • 2 years ago

174 176 2 years ago

theverge.com

ChrisArchitect• 2 years ago

[dupe]

Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40879492

karmakaze3• 2 years ago

I don't know what this looks like but I probably hate it. It's like the frame interpolation that some TVs had to generate 120p frames from 60p. I actually prefer the original 24p (or 24p double-exposed to 48 like cinema projectors do) for films.

What really bugs me are the "Remastered" versions of songs on Spotify that sound like they were produced with today's audience in mind and doesn't sound like the original recording of the time, which has way more character and inherent texture by the artists without the soulless robo-producer repaint job. That would all be fine, except that they remove the original non-Remastered versions.

pimeys2• 2 years ago

For the second part, 100%. I started years ago already collecting my own flac files, and I'm quite careful on picking the best mastering if possible. In 2024, finally, some of the latest remasters are great (like the new Steely Dans from Bernie Grundman). But between 2000-2015 or something a remaster of an album was usually just compressed to the maximum and made very _loud_.

For some of my favorite albums I have multiple masters available, because they can be very different how they sound and sometimes I can't choose the best one.

Oh, and for most of the people none of this really matters...

m348e9122• 2 years ago

Where do you find masters? I only know of stems ripped from games like Rock Band.

mrob• 2 years ago

Earache Records released several remasters of classic metal albums with increased dynamic range:

https://bandcamp.com/search?q=full+dynamic+range&item_type=a...

(also finds some other high dynamic range albums)

neuralRiot• 2 years ago

I don't know what this looks like but I probably hate it.

A simple description would be: It makes film movies look like direct-to-video productions, so basically everything looks like a soap opera. Horrible indeed.

kstrauser8• 2 years ago

I've even commonly heard it referred to as "soap opera mode".

redwall_hp• 2 years ago

It butchers animation, which is carefully drawn at certain intervals. There's a reason you can pause anime at any frame and it will look like a defined, static image without blurring and smearing.

Motion smoothing absolutely destroys the look of the motion.

karmakaze3• 2 years ago

Yeah that's what I'd feared--I hate that soap opera effect. It makes fictional escapes into film look like every day life or a TV newscast.

I suspect that the mode was originally made for large screen TVs that mostly sold well for watching sports.

vundercind• 2 years ago

Real film does have (effectively—the aperture’s closed half the time so you don’t see a smear of moving film) a blacked out every-other-frame which makes the perceived motion smoother (some digital projectors can replicate this, though it halves the effective brightness so you need a really bright one for it to work ok) but yeah, I’d take a little judder over faked digital smoothing. It looks awful.

[edit] I just mean that an actual film projector does achieve smoother motion than most TVs displaying 24 fps the best they can “naturally”, but a TV’s natural best is still far better than the alternative of alien-looking digital motion smoothing.

xur17• 2 years ago

It's like the frame interpolation that some TVs had to generate 120p frames from 60p. I actually prefer the original 24p (or 24p double-exposed to 48 like cinema projectors do) for films.

I realize that I might just be the exception here, but I honestly really like it.

kstrauser8• 2 years ago

I'm glad other systems offer it as an option for people who enjoy it. I can't fathom the decision process that permanently enabled it for everyone.

t0mas88• 2 years ago

Same for me. I can't stand watching sports with fast motion or large panning scenes on a low refresh rate screen.

But agree with the post above that 24p double exposed is even better. Smooth and no artefacts. Luckily that's an option Sony TVs have by default if you pick cinema mode.

hedora• 2 years ago

I got an Apple TV 4K a while back to replace my Roku.

It sets my ancient sony 1080p TV to 24 fps when playing back 24 fps content.

On top of that, it let me recalibrate the colors using my iPhone camera.

Anyway, I bought it to reduce ad tracking, and was pleasantly surprised that it was roughly equivalent to buying a new TV.

longtimelistnr• 2 years ago

Yes that is my favorite part of the apple tv as well, that it adjusts output to the source frames and resolution. As long as you have a good looking panel with nice color you'll never need to get rid of it. 1080 can really look gorgeous even with everything today being 4k

CamperBob22• 2 years ago

What are you doing for audio? That's been my big stumbling block when trying to use a newer AppleTV with an older TV and 5.1-channel amp. I've tried several HDMI audio extractors and found them all to be pretty terrible.

christkv• 2 years ago

The loudness war has ruined a lot of music on streaming services for me. Remasters where you lose the ability to distinguish instruments. No way to listen to the original version.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war

So it's back to digging out and ripping my old cds.

MarkLowenstein2• 2 years ago

It makes things in the foreground have very sharp edges and seem brighter than the things in the background. They call it "soap opera effect" because it reminds you of the way those sets and people are lit.

But also--never seemingly noticed--the technology leads to very crisp changes in direction of the camera panning. So you see a very smooth pan, stopping with no deceleration period, and then a quick new pan in a different direction, with no acceleration. It's disorienting and makes everything look fake. IMO this is the most annoying part, but it's hard to identify and articulate.

K7PJP• 2 years ago

What really bugs me are the "Remastered" versions of songs on Spotify that sound like … [a] soulless robo-producer repaint job.

Spotify serves up a stereo version of The Flamingos' "I Only Have Eyes for You" that completely destroys the atmosphere of the song. It's nearly criminal.

RichardCA• 2 years ago

For the music listening use case, if you can get your hands on a CD and rip it to FLAC that's the way to go.

When the CD format first took hold in the early/mid 80's, it was common for the record labels to push out CD's that were just straight digital transfers of the original analog mastering that was used to create the vinyl LP.

Now we're here 40 years later, and you can still find those CD's on Ebay and rip them using a program like foobar2000, and the result is basically flawless for all the common playback use cases (I'm not here to make the audiophile argument).

I'm also impressed that the 80's and 90's era CD's are not going bad on me. Boomers and Gen-X-ers will always have that box full of treasured CD's, and not a single one of them has failed on me so far.

blessedwhiskers• 2 years ago

Another thing that annoys me endlessly: a few months ago, Apple Music introduced animated cover art and then proceeded to animate album covers that shipped decades before Apple Music existed. If modern artists want to use this for their new albums, or if an artist wants to rethink the album artwork for a remaster, fine. But, Apple deciding to do a shoddy job of moving the Beatles to another layer and having it pulse in and out on the cover of Abbey Road? Fuck that.

bigjimmyk3• 2 years ago

Earlier this year my roku-enabled TV started showing some new Terms Of Service, and it wouldn't let me watch anything unless I agreed to them.

...or unplugged it from the network.

Now, it sounds like they may have done me a favor.

ncallaway• 2 years ago

The fine print of that TOS allowed you to opt out if you mailed a letter to a specific legal department at Roku within a certain time frame.

Also, that should be a crime.

bloomingeek3• 2 years ago

Yes! Because they are treating you as if you don't own your TV.

HenryBemis• 2 years ago

"If it ain't broke, don't fix/update it."

That's my moto. Apart from Firefox, my banking apps and Signal, I don't update anything, ever. Not the TV, not the media-box, nothing. Eventually it leads to tragedy and discomfort.

Sometimes I custom update my Win machines for Security patches, but anything that has to do with usability, UI, function, etc. I leave it as is. (I firewall all my apps in my machine anyway).

criddell2• 2 years ago

Not a problem if you buy a Sony Bravia TV. I bought one and it only took a little over a year before they stopped shipping updates to it.

recursive4• 2 years ago

I don't even give my TV the wifi password. I'm paranoid that it's going to update something without my consent. I fear the day they come with cellular modems and bypass the wifi entirely.

criddell2• 2 years ago

I used to worry about cellular modems, but now I think it will be just plain old wifi they use. There's Comcast Xfinity, Amazon Sidewalk, and probably other companies that turn their device into a communal wifi hotspot.

rolph• 2 years ago

HDMI can be used to move tcp/ip packets [HEC], all it takes is one media device with connectivity, and a firmware that provides tunneling capability, and your TV will leak over the HDMI connector.

one pin [pin14] on the HDMI connector allows this to happen; disable it and that problem wont exist until specs & standards revision happens.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HDMI

thebruce87m• 2 years ago

Cellular modems and passwords? No need, it will just connect automatically to some mesh network outwith your control: https://www.wired.com/story/how-amazon-sidewalk-works/

voiceblue• 2 years ago

I wish that had been my motto earlier. I bought a resin 3d printer off craigslist in perfect working condition, tried to update the firmware (for no good reason), and ended up promptly bricking the thing. I got it fixed in the end, but it was a huge unnecessary waste of time and energy.

More recently, I updated my Vision Pro to the OS beta, which broke my ability to open files off my NAS. That, too, is fixed now…but again, I should’ve just left well enough alone.

knowaveragejoe• 2 years ago

I have a TCL with what I assume is Roku TV, and I'll never connect it to the internet for this exact purpose.

Zaskoda• 2 years ago

My next TV purchase will be a dumb TV.

x3n0ph3n3• 2 years ago

Good luck finding one, but this has nothing to do with Smart TVs, and everything to do with what you hook up to a TV.

partdavid• 2 years ago

I'm not sure what you mean by this, but the device the story is complaining about is a TV, not a Roku device.

On June 6th, my TCL TV’s Roku OS was updated to version 13.0.0.

azinman23• 2 years ago

Disable wifi on the TV and use an AppleTV.

saulrh• 2 years ago

You can put any android TV into dumb mode ("Basic TV") during setup, which disables many-most of the smart features without affecting core display functionality: https://support.google.com/googletv/answer/10408998?hl=en.

mikenew• 2 years ago

You're still greeted by a full-page ad on the main menu. But yes; it is better.

AdmiralAsshat• 2 years ago

This definitely looks like what I'll use when I buy my next TV. I'll then just run everything through a set-top box like an NVIDIA Shield or my PS4/PS5.

swechsler• 2 years ago

Smart TVs are cheaper. As already mentioned in another response, just use a smart TV in dumb mode. You get the streaming providers to subsidize your purchase without you giving them any money.

shiroiushi• 2 years ago

You get the streaming providers to subsidize your purchase without you giving them any money.

Exactly. My Android-based TV shows me an ad (a still one) on the home screen for some new TV show available on some streaming service, and that's it. Then I just press down-arrow a few times and another button to start Jellyfin or SmartTube.

bloomingeek3• 2 years ago

Dumb TVs are getting harder to find. It would be easier to login on your router and deny access to your smart TV.

plasticeagle3• 2 years ago

Not plugging your TV into the network also works quite well.

IshKebab• 2 years ago

Unlikely. They don't really exist any more, at least not for a price you will be willing to pay.

ryandrake• 2 years ago

Not long after the update rolled out, other Roku TV owners (mainly TCL, but Hisense, too) began posting about the issue in Roku’s community forum and on Reddit. Since I work at The Verge, I told our team about my issue. We reached out to Roku for comment and got no response. We wrote about the problem. Commenters on that post agreed: it sucks. Still, there was radio silence from Roku.

They're probably working on some slimy PR excuse for why they feel the need to force-feed you an unwanted feature, how it's actually for your own good, and subtly insult you for not liking it. That seems to be the standard pattern for when a tech company arrogantly pushes a feature that people don't want or like and provides no way to turn it off.

Root_Denied• 2 years ago

Another excerpt from the article that is worth pointing out:

What you probably should avoid is weeks of customers flagging the same issue with no meaningful feedback or updates. Possibly even more important, your support infrastructure shouldn’t be difficult to navigate or have their own bugs that hinder their use. In this case, there’s both.

This is probably an intentional design choice - make it as difficult as possible to report any kind of issue, thus cutting down the number of issues that actually get reported and reducing the number of support staff needed.

The point where I would have given a giant corporation the benefit of the doubt that this was not intention is long past.

sandworm101• 2 years ago

Lol, my TV. That thing on your wall, that thing you paid thousands for, is controlled by the software. You don't own that software. It is owned and controlled by other people. You have paid for a service, that service being the privilege of calling yourself owner of a thing. Your privileges are temporary and may be revoked at any time. In the meantime, any perceived changes are for the benefit of those who actually own the software. Any impact of said changes on renters like yourself is very much secondary.

bearjaws2• 2 years ago

This is why I buy my TV and never connect it to the internet.

Between the invasive conversation monitoring and ad spots on the menu, it's much better to buy an Apple TV / Nvidia Shield.

StanislavPetrov2• 2 years ago

Nvidia Shield was one of the best purchases I ever made. I also never made the mistake of updating it like the author of the above article. If something works, and does everything you want it to do, you should never "update" it unless it is absolutely necessary. More often than not these "updates" only serve to restrict the device you own or inject more ads and spyware.

anal_reactor2• 2 years ago

If something works, and does everything you want it to do, you should never "update" it unless it is absolutely necessary. More often than not these "updates" only serve to restrict the device you own or inject more ads and spyware.

The fact that I agree makes me feel sad.

skiexperte2• 2 years ago

My lg works great. No additional remote, no extra cable.

bearjaws2• 2 years ago

LG has opt out monitoring, check your menus for it, it defaults to "on" for several models including $1200 OLEDs

Just wait until earnings line goes down, then they will make pay to play probably.

diego_sandoval2• 2 years ago

What would be the downsides of simply buying a big computer monitor instead of a TV? It seems to me like an easy way to avoid all the crapware that comes with Smart TVs.

01HNNWZ0MV43FF• 2 years ago

It's hard to use a computer comfortably from the couch

diego_sandoval2• 2 years ago

That's what Chromecasts and its competitors are for.

You may say that that's the same as a Smart TV, and chromecasts come with their own crapware, but the big advantage is that they're separate devices. The Chromecast has no way to infect your monitor through HDMI.

If the Chromecast or whatever starts misbehaving, you throw it away and replace it with something else. You lost $50 instead of the $300+ that your Smart TV costs.

ssl-35• 2 years ago

I use a computer pretty comfortably from the couch.

The computer is a Raspberry Pi 4 running Kodi/LibreELEC. It works just dandy. I usually use CEC to control it, though sometimes I instead use a cheap Logitech K400 compact keyboard/trackpad combo. Both input methods are convenient (CEC even uses the regular TV remote), and both were plug-and-play.

It doesn't seem hard to use this computer from the couch at all, and it lets my dumb TV remain dumb while still accomplishing much of the functionality that I want from a video system that lives across the room from the sofa.

(And for everything else, there's Chromecast and friends.)

Hamuko• 2 years ago

The fact that a big computer monitor is like 32". Any bigger than that and it's going to be much wider than 16:9.

jwcooper• 2 years ago

Mostly cost - a 55" Samsung Odyssey Ark computer monitor is like $1800. You can get a similar TV for 1/2 that price.

xoxxala• 2 years ago

YMMV, but $900 for no crapware is a price I would happily pay. We don't watch TV in our house, so haven't updated it in over a decade, but our next "TV" will be a monitor.

We did purchase a Roku stick a couple years ago, but they wanted credit card info during the set up, which I thought was BS for something that I just wanted to use for our existing streaming apps -- so we never used it.

StanislavPetrov2• 2 years ago

Ironically I bought a big TV to use as my computer monitor because it was so much less expensive. Never connected it to the internet or did any sort of "setup" other than setting it to HDMI mode.

izacus• 2 years ago

Most the lack of useful things that come with those TVs like support for eARC and similar technologies.

adamomada8• 2 years ago

Depends on your setup, but you won’t have any audio without a speaker system

The best way is to get a good smart tv (rtings.com) and do not connect it to your network. Use an Apple TV/Android TV/Fire TV device, it’s easier to avoid/disable crap.

60secs• 2 years ago

Per the law of enshittification, soon only monthly subscribers will gain the ability to disable motion smoothing.

einarfd• 2 years ago

If you live in the right jurisdiction consumer protection laws might be able to force the seller to get this defect fixed or have them take back and refund the tv.

Where I live (Norway), there is a five year warranty on long lived products, which a tv is, and if it breaks during that period, the seller needs to fix or replace the product. Motion smoothing that can't be turned off seems a serious breakage, and if they seller pushes back, you can point out that Tom Cruise and a bunch of other movie luminaries think motion smoothing ruins movies.

Not sure what the rules are with software updates after the tv is out of warranty. But I do suspect the seller would still be in hot water, if the update breaks important functionality.

paulcole8• 2 years ago

Motion smoothing that can't be turned off seems a serious breakage, and if they seller pushes back, you can point out that Tom Cruise and a bunch of other movie luminaries think motion smoothing ruins movies.

Is this the standard in Norway, where the consumer can just call something they personally dislike "serious breakage" and demand their money back? Does this work? Would you actually invoke your Tom Cruise argument and expect that to change anyone's mind?

Or is the culture there just so passive and avoidant that they'll give you your money back just so you go away and stop bothering them?

Whole thing seems wild to me.

ribosometronome• 2 years ago

Fundamentally altering the way the picture is shown without anyway to revert to the original functionality is obviously a severe deviation from how the product was originally sold. It's akin to not having blue anymore.

madeofpalk2• 2 years ago

Kind of, yes. Terminology used in Australian consumer law is that devices must be "fit for purpose" and of "acceptable quality", especially in regards to other similar products. A software update changing the product in a significant and negative way after purchase definitely would be grounds for a "remedy".

globular-toast• 2 years ago

I gave up on TVs. Luckily I watch very little TV anyway so it's no big deal. I remember my friend buying a TV for thousands a few years ago and seeing just how laughably bad the interface was compared to Kodi on a Raspberry Pi 2 that I've been running close to 10 years now. Literally it's been on almost that whole time (just had to replace the power supply once). Not only does it play everything on my NAS, I can stream to it and control it from my phone etc. I never update it because it just continues to work. I use a projector instead of a screen because it's better and thankfully they are still dumb. Oh and a huge sound system. And all of that costs less than that one shitty "smart" TV...

Waterluvian2• 2 years ago

I hated my stupid TCL Roku TV so I got a TCL Android TV and it’s worse. The terrible incompetence of the team who manages to make a UI that lags out by multiple seconds when trying to cursor to the OFF option is frustrating. But I’m sure it makes their Project Manager overlords happy because it’s easy to supply ads to.

If anyone here wants to solve a real problem and get rich doing so: start a company that makes dumb electronics. I’ll pay a premium.

hagbard_c8• 2 years ago

start a company that makes dumb electronics. I’ll pay a premium.

That'd just make you a useful idiot for those sellers. Better use the thing in whatever 'dumb' mode it offers, never connect it to the internet but only expose it to a restricted local network. That way you don't have problems with auto-updates, you don´t get ads, you're not being spied upon, etc. Of course all bets are off if there is an open wifi network around for the thing to connect to but those tend to be rare. There are bakers tales about devices having their own cellular access built-in but I have yet to see proof of something like that - and will abuse the hell out of it when I find it.

Waterluvian2• 2 years ago

I’ve never connected them. They’re still terrible. Because they’re designed as Android devices and not just fricking TVs.

qubitcoder• 2 years ago

I will never buy an Android TV again after a horrible experience with a high-end Sony TV. It was extraordinarily laggy. Even changing the volume was a nightmare. Quite possibly the worst UI experience ever.

Pro-tip: Go with higher-end LG OLEDs. They are fantastic, super fast, and designed for cinephiles. You can often get "certified excellent" open-box deals at Best Buy for a very reasonable price. They're equivalent to brand new.

People on Hacker News love to complain about ads. I hate them too, and go to great lengths to block them. To be clear, they're referring to the "suggested content" on the Home screen, which I'm not sure many people use. Either way, all of that is easily disabled in the settings.

If used with an Apple TV, set top box, or, best of all, 4K Blu-ray, it's a premium experience where you're in control of all the picture settings.

Check out @hdtvtest on YouTube for in-depth dives.

cjk• 2 years ago

I used to work at Roku (audio team). I left in late 2020, but I know that many of Roku's best and brightest were shitcanned as part of the several rounds of layoffs that happened recently, in an effort to cut costs.

It would not _at all_ surprise me to learn that this was a mistake, and that there's no one left that knows how to fix it.

tomrod• 2 years ago

Geez, add this to the crummy way they've been rolling out no-opt-out "features" and regressions like automatically showing your recently watched series.

Yes, I really _didn't_ want my 7 year old to stream the Walking Dead, thanks for the nightmares Roku!

olyjohn2• 2 years ago

Yeah they keep adding garbage to the home screen, and putting it between the things that I actually use. Smells like desperation.

jes51993• 2 years ago

I'm in a subculture where people mostly don't own televisions (I do watch shows on my laptop, occasionally) but so I have never seen motion smoothing - is there a demo, online, like on youtube or something, that can give me a sense of what you are talking about?

cm2012• 2 years ago

It looks like a 90s/2000s soap opera, like Days of our Lives. I always turn it off on TVs I use.

ghewgill• 2 years ago

I still don't understand what that means. I've never sat down to watch a soap opera, so I have no idea what they look like.

jes51993• 2 years ago

I've heard that before and it just sounds so strange - why would interpolated frames on a HDTV remind people of the production values from standard definition televisions?

callerun• 2 years ago

Which subculture is this? I also do not own a tv. But I’m not part of any subculture that I know of.

jes51993• 2 years ago

for lack of a better way to describe it, people who were active on everything.blockstackers.com in the late 1990s

katerberg• 2 years ago

Hard to see in this clip, but it's super annoying: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xkSjTgrVa3w

isleyaardvark• 2 years ago

This video isn’t really worth watching in entirety, but it’s one clip with motion smoothing on and off, so you can skip around to get the idea: https://youtu.be/INQrxHREmJ0?si=E5v3L-gZ__BrUHyC

This video has a longer explanation: https://youtu.be/62noXbp-l9o?si=aZqIre3sJy2SpOo7

monort2• 2 years ago

So I see a lot of stuttering during panning in that video. With motion smoothing on, almost no stuttering. How can anyone prefer the stuttering version?

https://youtu.be/INQrxHREmJ0?t=211

snvzz• 2 years ago

mpv can do it, look into manpage, I do not immediately remember the param.

I have tried it, and it is horrible.

iamleppert• 2 years ago

I hate to break it to you, but you are only a tiny fraction of the users of something like Roku. The software isn't developed for individual users, it's developed according to a product roadmap, which is itself driven by the behavior of the largest and most profitable cohort of users.

If you don't fall into that category, you don't have a choice. Things that may be irritating or upsetting to you, if they make money or drive some number that helps a manager get a promotion internally, you're simply out of luck when it comes to software.

Products aren't built for individual users, they are built for massive collections of users that generate revenue.

pseudosavant2• 2 years ago

A ton of people ask me for TV recommendations. Rokus were my goto, but not anymore. I won’t buy one.

Their response so far suggests this isn’t on accident (it’s a feature!) and they won’t change it back. I’ll probably have to not hook up the internet on my next TV. Use a steaming box instead.

devilbunny5• 2 years ago

I have a TCL Roku TV. It is not, has never been, and will never be connected to the Internet. I have to restart it periodically because there’s a strange sound system bug that makes the audio insanely quiet, but it sure was cheap.

It gets its video from a TiVO or an AppleTV box. I’m not using the internal software for anything - I don’t trust it at all. You might think the same of Apple, and that’s fine, but I’m posting this from my iPad, I have an iPhone and an Apple Watch and a Mac; they could screw me any time they wanted to, but other than pushing out strange UI they haven’t.

adamomada8• 2 years ago

I agree with you and this is why I choose android or android-based streaming devices, in my case Fire TV. There’s enough hackability built into android that you can use e.g. tasker or other dedicated macro apps to do just enough customization that it ends up working the way you want. I know I’m the minority and most people don’t care or take it for granted how the thing works, but I don’t.

In my case I basically would love if Fire TV never did another update, stayed on old Android 9, and just let me use the three or four streaming apps with my custom launcher – I don’t want anything else, thanks

lsaferite3• 2 years ago

As a related aside, I have a Fire Cube device on one of my TVs along with Jellyfin. I've been ripping all of my Blurays and DVDs to a local NAS with the objective of having my content available even if my internet connection is down. I discovered, the hard way, that the Fire TV won't function AT ALL without an active internet connection. It just says it cannot load the home page with no option to open any installed applications. Other STBs in my home worked just fine during the outage. If I can't find a way to make it run Jellyfin during an outage, it's going in the bin.

kstrauser8• 2 years ago

That's a solid point! Much as I gripe about my iPad Pro not doing things I wish it did, Apple still sells a gazillion of them to people who think their vision is better than mine. They're a $3T company by knowing what their customers want.

I'd be tempted to give Roku the same benefit of the doubt except that the person here on HN who says they like motion smoothing is literally the only person I've ever heard of who did. My in-laws are far, far from tech-savvy videophiles. Last time we visited them I had to set their TV to the right aspect ratio. They'd been watching it that way for ages. And when a software update turned on motion smoothing, they called to ask me how to turn it off because they absolutely hated it. These are regular, non-techie people who just want to watch TV and have zero interest in tweaking or tuning a thing. They are not nit-picky. If it bothered them so much that they had me fix it, I've gotta think there are a lot of people who dislike it.

And because of all that, I think this decision is bonkers. It's a hugely polarizing setting. People who like it like it. People who don't tend to absolutely detest it. I can't imagine what advice Roku got that made it seem like a good idea.

MarkLowenstein2• 2 years ago

This presumes that a very large fraction of Roku users asked for motion smoothing/soap opera effect. I would be surprised. (1) Most people I've pointed it out to say "I can't tell the difference". (2) None of those people had ever known that this method even existed--even a lot of people on this thread didn't know about it before today. (3) As for profitability, is there a single person in the world who would buy a Roku because it had motion smoothing?

anal_reactor2• 2 years ago

We tech people throw a tantrum whenever something isn't perfect, while most people don't give a fuck - if it works it works.

poikroequ• 2 years ago

I used to like my Roku TV. It has a pretty straightforward interface, just tiles of all your apps, and the ads are to the side, out of the way. I love the simple ergonomic remote control. But their actions recently have gotten me looking for a new TV. First the thing with forcing new terms of service on everyone. Now this. My Roku TV has gotten way slower in the past year or so, to the point where many apps are nearly unusable. And I guess they'll be pushing video ads soon.

rewgs• 2 years ago

Does anyone want or like motion smoothing? It’s seemingly universally hated by a majority of those who care (myself included), and a minority of those who don’t. Why are TV manufacturers so dead-set on shoving it down our throats?

rightbyte• 2 years ago

Maybe it is good for tracking the ball in sports? (Note: A hypothesis. I don't watch sports ...)

ipsento606• 2 years ago

it's good - or at least, fine - for stuff that you want to look as true-to-life as possible. Sports, nature documentaries, news coverage (if you're into that)

it's absolutely awful for everything else

nh23423fefe• 2 years ago

I prefer it. When I go to other people's houses their tv looks worse to me. The motion looks jittery and stulted to me.

bigmattystyles• 2 years ago

Can you be a film purist and buy a Roku TV? I mean come on - Snark aside, the mistake was thinking the TV was yours as opposed to an advertising vehicle for its makers to use to extract further value from you. Don't feel bad, I was the victim of the same with the Nvidia Shield. Looking at you Android TV.

strunz• 2 years ago

I felt the same way reading this, though I felt like a patronizing douche. If you buy a TCL or bottom rung TV and expect it to cater to cinephiles, you're just begging to be let down. (Not that there's any excuse for this shitty anti-consumer behavior from Roku)

themadturk• 2 years ago

We have a Samsung "smart" TV, with smarts not connected to the Internet. We hook it up to a Roku box. When we turn the TV on it splashes a banner encouraging us to connect. It disappears after 15 seconds or so.

I have no problem with the Roku box, but this makes me happy I didn't buy a Roku TV, and that I've never attached the TV itself to the Internet. My next streaming box will be an Apple TV, but as of now I'm in no hurry.

mikeocool• 2 years ago

FWIW I have a TCL Roku TV running 13.0.0 and don’t seem to be impacted by this. Motion smoothing is definitely not enabled when watching Hulu/Netflix/HBO.

If I go to picture settings, I see the option for Roku Smart Picture, but it’s not enabled.

pugworthy2• 2 years ago

The article says...

If you’re someone who doesn’t notice motion smoothing or doesn’t particularly care about it...

This basically is me.

It then proceeds to describe a number of things that would be blatantly obvious and asks you to imagine if you couldn't turn them off. Yes, if my Kindle's fonts all went 3x size, I'd both notice and probably care.

But this "logic" fails to work with that previously quoted sentence. Yes, I would care about something I noticed or cared about. But why should I care about something I don't notice or don't care about?

recursive4• 2 years ago

No one's asking you to care. Some people wouldn't notice tripled text size, even though it's similarly hard for me to imagine.

I usually notice motion interpolation within a second of watching. I also find it to be intolerable.

Maybe people like you can come out ahead on the newly reduced prices on these RokuTV's with recently reduced market value.

pugworthy2• 2 years ago

I think I got my first Roku device in 2008? So far quite happy.

ranger207• 2 years ago

It's asking you to empathize with users who can notice motion smoothing by imagining that you suffer a major noticable annoyance. The logic flows perfectly well in that sentence.

chuckadams• 2 years ago

I have a Roku stick, and volume on the remote only works with Roku sound bars. My Amazon stick and Apple TV remotes handled it no sweat.

Then there’s the constant screwing around with the home screen. I think I’ll be going back to AppleTV next time around.

Dear Roku, you ruined my TV

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