Fox to buy Roku

Are there any alternatives that are independent of streaming services?

I have been reading these threads where people are patching firmware with AI. I am wondering if there is a way to fix some of the privacy issues on Roku tvs given this deal.

I was also super-early Roku customer, but frankly I have been mostly disappointed with Roku for the past year or so.

The hardware on the top tier devices doesn't seem to keep up. Interacting with it is slower and more laggy than it originally was.

They've tried to keep them unobtrusive, which I appreciate, but the mere existence of ads is disappointing. I almost give the Roku City ads a pass, because frankly that's clever, and mirrors the real world enough that it seems logical to me -- but ads in menus is grating.

CEC has been super flaky with the latest revisions as well, so for the past couple of weeks I've been relegated to using either the Roku remote or my phone instead of my TV's remote.

I'm a big fan of waiting to see before prejudging, but I can't imagine anything gets better post-acquisition, and I was already on my way out the door. I guess I'm buying an Apple TV now? Are there any other recommendations? I haven't kept up with the space at all, so if anyone has suggestions I am super happy to receive them.

Roku hasn't been 'agnostic' since RokuTV or the Roku Channel, or whatever-the-fuck it's called. I watch with a GoogleTV device, connected to my Roku television through HDMI. A few months ago I started seeing these weird popups, saying something like, "I see you're watching 'The Goonies'. Why not watch on RokuTV?" It was bizarre, and a little creepy considering I wasn't using the Roku platform at all. As it turned out, Roku added a 'feature' for doing content recommendations. I disabled that 'feature', but it was still weird, like, "These guys are watching what I'm watching, even when I'm not on their platform!"

> Bad enough in my mind that they had in-platform ads instead of just charging for hardware

I mean, of course they did. If you were running a company and had to choose between a one-time relatively small fee vs a life time of near constant ad driven income per user, which would you choose?

Yes, let the enshitification begin.

I have never seen a mergre like this not lead to anything but a money grab. They will no doubt remove things like PlutoTV, which is free, and substitutte it with more subscription apps and more data collection

There is the long standing problem that if you build a road for others, and others get unfathomably rich using that road, you end up looking pretty dumb.

that law does not exist, probably because not enough people feel that way

Disney has been slowly but delicately clipping the name Fox out of the company names and public facing brands it bought, presumably to further distance from the remaining parts at News Corp (Fox News): 20th Century Fox to 20th Century Studios (which is a sort of funny unwinding of the 1935 merger, I think especially because 20th Century is now such a dated term), Fox Searchlight to Searchlight Pictures, things like that. Most of those brands also generally now report on the org charts directly to their pre-existing Disney counterparts or as direct peers to them and the "Fox Filmed Entertainment" middle layer seems to be almost entirely gone now (as there's no replacement for that name).

At this point it does seem easier to not have to look up if something is NewsCorp Fox or the parts of Fox that Disney bought because Disney no longer calls them Fox.

It's the Murdoch one.

Whats the relevancy here of which Fox subsidiary you did contract work for as it relates to the Roku offer?

What do you think? Does it make sense that Fox would invest the entire value of their own company for that end goal?

I have never paid for any cable TV or video streaming service in my life. Reason is simple, I don't want to financially support people / shows / stations that go against my personal standards of human decency.

Had cable TV constantly contacting me, since I had them for internet, until one day. Asked them, "Does this include Fox News" ... "Yes" ... "I'll will end my life before ever supporting Fox News. Contact me again when I can get À la carte and I don't have to fund the trash at Fox News." They never contacted me again.

Only streaming service I ever paid for was SiriusXM. Canceled it when I found that Fox News was part of the package.

There is already so much content to consume in a day that I don't have to sit in front of a TV for an hour or two. HTPC from my ripped DVDs and Blu-rays goes a long way if I too.

Actually, a more likely button might be "Sports" which would either open your preferred sports app (smarter way to do it) and default to Fox Sports, or a "Stream TV" type button that opens up Tubi which is already run by Fox, and surprisingly had decent content on it.

I'm not surprised they're going this route, and would not be surprised if News becomes a drastically smaller piece of Fox over the coming years.

Back when we had things like Dish and cable, I was able to put a "Parental Block" on channels. I used this to hide or remove channels I never watched, but I found it had a secondary benefit when my Texan in-laws visited -- "Sorry, our TV package doesn't include Fox News".

That works until the ads are hosted from the same domain name

- An important update about Roku https://www.roku.com/blog/roku-fox

No the Home Screen ads were added in an update 2.5ish years ago. I know this because that is when I decided to disconnect my Roku tv from the internet rather than see ads when I turn my tv on.

I had been a pretty big Roku fan before that point as I had worked with them back in ~2017 and knew how locked down and sewn up they kept customer data, and only shared it in a very anonymized way. Obviously the situation has degraded in the recent years, and caused me to brick the functionality of a very expensive device.

Seems like it’s impossible to have a smart tv now that actually respects privacy, so back to dumb tvs and connections to pcs?

> rebranded Wyze cameras

Is that even possible? IIRC Wyze cameras are whatever cheap Chinese OEM model thy find and can brand the firmware for. Seems as likely that Roku went to same OEM source.

"I never liked the idea of Roku since I always felt like they could "go away at any moment" since that is all they sold basically."

That's odd since they've been around for 23 years. I would understand that stance 20 years ago.

I could not handle the Spanish commentary, though. I know that that's a real cultural gap on my side, but Spanish soccer commentary is something I could never get accustomed to - way too much talking for my taste, and I especially cannot relate at all to the goal "celebrations".

I feel the same about disney when they started adding hulu content to the main app.

I was dreading my most recent tv purchase (last fall) for exactly this reason, and ended up with TCL google tv. One can apparently setup a google tv as a dumb tv and never sign it into the internet. It acts exactly how I'd want a dumb tv to work now, simply auto uses the most recent hdmi device, or the active one if the most recent one isn't active.

It has never connected to the internet, and it never will. My long term concern is that google will eventually put cell modems in their tvs, and then using my next tv as a dumb tv will no longer be an option. For now though, this is your best bet.

You can get an off-brand Android TV and install a custom launcher like https://at4klauncher.com/

I picked up an android TV box for $25 that works with LineageOS.

It sucks because its android, but at least its degoogled.

Edit: for a TV, I love my 30 year old Panasonic. Paid $20 for it at the Mormon goodwill. Only 720p, but has the best speakers of any TV I've owned.

Google/Android TV seems totally fine and capable as long as you use a custom launcher to eliminate all the advertising on the home screen.

Google doesn't do scummy screen spying ("ACR", Automatic Content Recognition).

LG + never log it in to the internet + an Apple TV box. The webOS UI sucks, but so do all the others apparently, and you never have to interact with it in practice if you use the Apple TV for streaming.

LG seems to still be somewhat agnostic.

I was leery of of Tizen on my Samsung TV but it's fine

You should solicit CNN or NPR to get into the set top device market. Then you'd have your perfect distopion world view right at your finger tips.

The closest thing you will fine to a dumb tv is a commercial display, which will not be available with the latest OLED, 120hz, etc.

You have to buy a smart TV and disable the internet + external device like Apple TV or Nvidia Shield.

> Anyone wanna take the opportunity to share their favorite brands and models of dumb TVs?

You can find them in your local Facebook Marketplace or Craigslist region.

I think I’m going with a Google TV. I already trust them on my phones anyway.

If you want more control buy a pc monitor and some speakers or commercial display.

Any but never connect it to the internet and use an appletv

Well, I certainly will never buy another one. I doubt I am alone.

Sadly there are enough loyal fanatics that I can imagine they will continue to be sold indefinitely.

I did the opposite switch:

In ~2015 got an Xbox one, as a media center it was an awesome experience:

Kinect voice control to play/pause and other things way before Google home/Amazon echo ecosystem were mature.

Free OTA channels via TV tuner and well designed OneGuide (with ability to pause and rewind).

And of course all the Netflix and other apps, Plex server etc.

But strategically it seems Microsoft decided they wanted to look more like Playstation, focused on gaming (at that time paid Xbox live subscription vs free Playstation)

And as gaws points out, they seem to recently announce to double down on the gaming stuff.

So when they discontinued OneGuide. I picked Roku since they seem to be focused on the media experience primarily... but unsure how I feel about this acquisition news.

With Xbox's planned "reinvention" under the new CEO, consider the Plex app's days on the console numbered.

Only a matter of time before enshittification comes for Apple TV.

Can you get PlutoTV on Apple TV?

> So what are the alternatives?

A dumb TV you can buy for cheap on Facebook Marketplace or Craigslist with an Nvidia Shield or a similar streaming device running Android.

> I don't want to go back to the Frame's software

It’s not really a viable option if you wanted to. I have two Frames and they both just keep deteriorating to the point they are pretty useless. I have added an appletv to one of them and it’s vastly improved the UX. Now the only thing I need to do with the Samsung software is the unreasonably slow task of switching inputs.

Because it will cost 2-4x compared to a Roku, Amazon Fire, or other device sold below cost and subsidized with ad/VC money. And in order to work on the DRMed streaming platforms, you have to play along with the industry. Can't just relabel a random box from Shenzhen, "upstream of the requisite DRM bits" makes no sense.

The original NVIDIA Shield is more than 10 years old at this point and still sells used for around $100 and people are still paying $200 retail for a new 2019 Pro. Interestingly, that price has basically stayed flat at $200 from 2020 to 2026. You can install Lineage or whatever if you don't care about the DRM. It's exactly what HN people want, and that's how much it costs.

This sounds great to me, but the mainstream market has shown they probably wouldn't pay even $5 more for such a device when something they think is good enough is built into the TV.

Media consolidation is actively encouraged by the current regime in the US because it lets them have more control.

You have the Trump administration and the Congressional Republicans to thank.

A dumb TV you can buy for cheap on Facebook Marketplace or Craigslist with an Nvidia Shield or a similar streaming device running Android.

They already own Tubi (think Hulu alternative) which I've used when literally no other streaming service had what I was looking for, and is surprisingly decent. I assume this is the beginning of their leap into streaming, wont be surprised if there's other acquisitions that will take place in similar spaces.

Personally I never bought into Roku because I didn't think they'd last very long.

> Or roll my own, but I've tried that and found it pretty difficult.

I agree, there seem to be no good options for this. You can use Kodi or whatever, but I want something that supports playing my ... totally legally acquired content... and Netflix/Disney/iPlayer/etc. In a package that's silent and low power.

Doesn't seem to exist unfortunately. I guess the closest is Nvidia Shield. You can apparently still sideload APKs onto that... for now. I'll buy one when they release an update. I'm patient!

I would not recommend Apple TV. I like the computers and the phone, but the TV is disappoint. Would recommend Nvidia Shield or something.

What I am going to do down the line personally is just buy a gaming laptop and use that. Can play games via Steam and watch stuff via Windows apps (e.g. Netflix, Amazon Prime, Crunchyroll).

Only problem of course is the laptop will be pricier, but if someone was going to buy a tv streaming thing AND a gaming system of some kind, probably cheaper.

It's a complete betrayal of the user base but I'm sure the CEO will get paid a big buyout so they'll go forward anyway.

A dumb TV you can buy for cheap on Facebook Marketplace or Craigslist with an Nvidia Shield or a similar streaming device running Android.

Also quite interested in this. I guess the best contenders are Apple TV, Nvidia Shield, or roll your own HTPC.

Does this violate US antitrust laws?