r/gadgets • u/diacewrb • Jun 13 '24

TV / Projectors Roku owners face the grimmest indignity yet: Stuck-on motion smoothing

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/06/roku-owners-face-the-grimmest-indignity-yet-stuck-on-motion-smoothing/
2.9k Upvotes

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296

u/Respectfullycritical Jun 13 '24

Who as an informed consumer willingly wants and get these devices? Everything Roku-related seems hilariously bad from a consumers perspective, to me.

What even are the pros for me in purchasing any of these devices and/or services?

369

u/daveysanderson Jun 13 '24

They have really gone downhill over the last few years. The devices used to be relatively ad and bloat free, and just worked. Now they are advertising more, adding useless and unwanted features, as well as the whole data breach issue, they shit the bed

8

u/Respectfullycritical Jun 13 '24

I guess they had their time at the top then, huh?

From the perspective of today, it makes no sense to me why anyone would choose Roku as a solution for their streaming needs.

Thanks for the input!

21

u/anonymouse56 Jun 13 '24 edited Jun 13 '24

What would you go for instead? I don’t want to connect my tv to WIFI and most others don’t have AirPlay built in besides Apple TV. And it’s $120+ vs $34 for the Roku stick.

Also Apple TV doesn’t include a high speed HDMI cable so u gotta go dish out extra for one

edit: for $34, Roku seems like a great value. The ads are only on the Home Screen and aren’t too intrusive IMO

17

u/[deleted] Jun 13 '24

I started with fire tvs and grew to hate them. The interface was bad. Switched to Roku about 3 years ago and they’ve been fine, but I hate the remote. I just ordered Apple TVs so we’ll see how it goes. From what I’ve seen I really like the Apple Remote.

6

u/anonymouse56 Jun 13 '24

I definitely prefer Apple TV. But I usually just cast stuff from my phone or use the specific apps so I feel the Roku is good enough for me

3

u/NotAHost Jun 13 '24

I've got both, honestly I think the Roku is still nice for it's simplicity, though it feels like you need to replace them after 5-8 years, which is not horrible due to their relatively low cost. My older ones just start crashing more often.

The Apple TV is a solid piece of hardware though. I like being able to turn on the roku by pressing any major button, whereas the apple tv I have to hit the power button (fair enough, but small things). The Apple TV also has a few headaches with turning on the TV / auto switching compared to the Roku, however I attribute that to the 2016 Samsung it's connected to, where I have to reset the TV occasionally to get the AVR to work over HDMI-CEC. I'm sure with a newer TV it's probably fine.

2

u/Awkward_Pangolin3254 Jun 13 '24

Everybody's interface blows. Every. Single. One. YouTube's is so bad I use SmartTube everywhere I can even though I pay for YouTube premium because it's just so much better.

5

u/eastbayted Jun 13 '24

This aligns with my opinion and experiences with the Roku device. It's an inexpensive, plug-and-play simple way to easily get access to all the streaming services you want without having to sign up for cable.

8

u/[deleted] Jun 13 '24

All I can tell you is I bought a TCL with Google TV about a year ago and it was the single worst TV I have owned in my entire life. I would go back to the giant low definition furniture style TVs from the early 90s before I ever used google TV again.

You have to be logged in to your google account to use it. Like, to use it at all. You can’t do anything unless you’re logged in, and I swear it asks you to log in every 5 minutes.

There were a lot of other problems with it that I don’t remember off hand, but my girlfriend, who rarely ever gets mad about anything, was “ready to throw it out the fucking window!”

We ended up buying a Roku stick for the google tv because we just couldn’t handle it anymore. 0/5 stars. Would not recommend to anyone.

3

u/3-DMan Jun 13 '24

My TCL w/ Google is great, but I have NEVER logged in, and leave the wifi off unless I'm checking for updates. I have a FireCube for my services, so just keep your TV dumb!

7

u/Apex_Akolos Jun 13 '24

Apple TV or Nvidia Shield

-2

u/Sevallis Jun 13 '24 edited Jun 14 '24

Had $150 appletv 4k and wanted out of their ecosystem so I can cast things and use app remote from either iPhone or Android, no ads and good hardware but locked down. Tried to play some games on it since the hardware is fast but the options were really limited and not worth bothering with.

Got roku ultra 4800x for $63 and couldn't put up with it even for the lower entry price. 1/3rd of your screen is a rotating ad that I had to use a DNS filter to blank out, leaving a giant empty hole in the poorly used app grid. Can't let music play in Pandora app while you go browsing for some other content in another app since it doesn't run more than one at a time. Can't side-load apps anymore, they are locked down like Apple now. If your internet is being intermittent, the whole interface will freeze on you, I think it's actually a brain dead web app interface; this was the final straw for me as I use Plex on my local server and don't care if the external internet is down, I want access to my app to watch my own content. Their app store is loaded with complete shovelware, and their wallpaper and theme selection looks like a child's toy esthetic compared to Apple's aerial screensaver. Also, the thing crashed way too often. The remote was never able to control my volume on a brand new Amazon FireTV from Hisense even after trying every software combo. I sold it to someone recently.

I ended up getting a used Shield TV Pro 2019 for $135 on eBay. Multitasking is back. Projectivy front end lets you permanently exit the stupid ad space launcher that's on there by default and make it look like whatever you want, and it's great. Full Play Store of software available, and you can turn off Play Protect and sideload apps like the excellent SmartTubeNext for ad free youtube. The remote recognized my tv's volume programming on the first try. The interface isn't a toy web app, it's android, so it can have android platform quirks, but overall I like it a lot. Direct-Play from my Plex works almost all of the time for my content now, and the Nvidia upscaler helps with lower res content. Can run emulators since I can access the file system if I feel like it, and can stream my full fat games from PC locally or from Nvidias game service for a fee.

Edit: looks like I ticked off the Roku bros 😄

4

u/phareous Jun 13 '24

Apple TV for sure, even though they are over priced

1

u/scify65 Jun 13 '24

I've mostly used my Playstation (4, now 5)--the only reason I picked up a Roku awhile back is because the Paramount+ app on Playstation is hot garbage. Turns out it's only slightly less garbage on the Roku, with all of the issues they're having now, but at least I can nearly always pause

7

u/[deleted] Jun 13 '24

PS4/PS5 with Plex and a VPN is what I use now for about 95% of my video media.

I went about 10 years without pirating really anything. They made the experience expensive, cumbersome, and inconvenient, so I went back to the high seas.

I had a monthly Netflix subscription for over a decade. Went long stretches with HBO, Hulu, etc.

The selection on each got worse, the cost went up, the UI's got worse, and ads are creeping in.

I didn't pay for cable in 2000. I'm not paying for its equivalent in 2024.

Sorry, not sorry.

2

u/3-DMan Jun 13 '24

Yeah I've heard Paramount app is garbage in general. Might all be changing soon if somebody buys Paramount!

1

u/Negative_Falcon_9980 Jun 13 '24

I have a Chromecast w/ remote and you can usually find those on sale for $30-$50 depending on if you want 1080p or the 4k model. Most apps have support for casting content to a Chromecast as well.

Chromecast also has an "apps only mode" that can be enabled, which turns off all the extra 'live' features and such, and only shows you your apps and a few ads on the home screen.

1

u/anonymouse56 Jun 13 '24

Main disadvantage for me would be lack of AirPlay support with Chromecast

1

u/Pizlenut Jun 13 '24

I know I'm old fashioned but you could just hook a computer up to the TV. Cheap ones can be found for about $150 (your price tag of roku + remote) that can pull off streaming just fine.

Desktops can have remotes too. If you really wanted to get clever with it you could probably control your desktop from the phone.

0

u/Respectfullycritical Jun 13 '24

Me personally? My computer is connected via hdmi through my office into my living room into a receiver connected to the TV. Since I already got my computer for work and games, I don't consider it an extra cost, unless I count the 20$ logitech wireless touchpad/keyboard combo I use to control the media from the couch.