this post was submitted on 03 Mar 2024

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Roku TV bricked until agreeing to new terms of service (programming.dev)

submitted 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

270 comments fedilink hide all child comments

See title - very frustrating. There is no way to continue to use the TV without agreeing to the terms. I couldn't use different inputs, or even go to settings from the home screen and disconnect from the internet to disable their services. If I don't agree to their terms, then I don't get access to their new products. That sucks, but fine - I don't use their services except for the TV itself, and honestly, I'd rather by a dumb TV with a streaming box anyway, but I can't find those anymore.

Anyway, the new terms are about waiving your right to a class action lawsuit. It's weird to me because I'd never considered filing a class action lawsuit against Roku until this. They shouldn't be able to hold my physical device hostage until I agree to new terms that I didn't agree at the time of purchase or initial setup.

I wish Roku TVs weren't cheap walmart brand sh*t. Someone with some actual money might sue them and sort this out...

EDIT: Shout out to @[email protected] for recommending the brand "Sceptre" when buying my next (dumb) TV.

EDIT2: Shout out to @[email protected] for recommending LG smart TVs as a dumb-TV stand in. They apparently do require an agreement at startup, which is certainly NOT ideal, but the setup can be completed without an internet connection and it remembers input selection on powerup. So, once you have it setup, you're good to rock and roll.

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[–] [email protected] 28 points 8 months ago (3 children)

That sucks, but fine - I don't use their services except for the TV itself, and honestly, I'd rather by a dumb TV with a streaming box anyway, but I can't find those anymore.

Search for monitors, not televisions. For example, you can get an 48in and 55in OLEDs dumb monitors with multiple HDMI inputs.

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

This is a really good advice. I will be looking for a new TV soon and it seems like there are no more dumb TVs.

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

Commercial display TVs are dumb. They are TVs meant for store displays and lack "smart" functionality.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

Another good idea. Will keep that in mind when looking for a TV.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Be careful with this as monitors are usually a different aspect ratio to a TV so a you may get a distorted/cropped picture or black bars (depending what you connect to it) which will be noticeable at larger sizes.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

monitors are usually a different aspect ratio to a TV

What? Aren't like 90% of monitors and 99% of TVs 16:9? There are a few monitors that are 16:10, some extremely rare 5:4 and 4:3 and then there are the ultrawide monitors which are obviously a different aspect ratio but saying that monitors are "usually" a different aspect ratio is factually incorrect. If you're deciding between a 4K TV and 4K monitor, then there's no danger of accidentally buying something of different format.

[+] [email protected] -6 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Nah there are more

5:4, 8:5, 21:9, 64:27. And more.

And these aren't exact. There's fault tolerance, so to speak. You can have slightly different sizes rectangles between several different 16:9 monitors.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

Nah there are more

5:4, 8:5, 21:9, 64:27. And more

I already mentioned 5:4 and 8:5 equals 16:10.
21:9 and 64:27 are just ultrawide formats which I also mentioned and you can't really mistake those for 16:9, can you? Same goes for 5:4 and 4:3 which are rather square-ish (4:3 was typical for old CRT monitors and TVs).

And these aren’t exact. There’s fault tolerance, so to speak.

I don't think "fault tolerance" means what you think it means.

You can have slightly different sizes rectangles between several different 16:9 monitors.

Are you telling me that there are monitors that don't have square pixels? Or that the number of (square) pixels doesn't give an exact 16:9 ratio?

Anyway, yes, there are more aspect ratios out there but the important thing is how common they are. I just looked at the biggest local e-shop and if I try to filter parameters by resolution, I get this:

The number in the parenthesis next to the resolution is the number of products. (Note that this is only showing 1609 out of the total 1629 items - if I scroll down, there are 20 other options which all have 1 product each so I took the liberty to ignore those as those are ultra rare items (and some of them aren't even regular monitors but just some specialized displays. Even here, for example the 2200×1024px is an e-ink touch screen)).

I simplified each ratio to the simplest form, so those are exact ratios (but for some added a ratio with X:9 or X:10 in the denominator in parenthesis for easier comparison to those more standard formats). Turns out that 1379 out of 1609 monitors are exactly 16:9, so that's 85.7%. The biggest variety are among the ultrawides which I colored in purple but again, those are pretty much unmistakable. Just like the 5:4 and 4:3 in blue.
So realistically you have to watch out for the red ratios where 1379 out of 1426 are 16:9, that's 96.7%.
So I really wonder how you came to the conclusion that "monitors are usually a different aspect ratio to a TV".
Now of course one e-shop isn't a completely representative sample but I hope we can agree that the numbers will be in the right ballpark. Feel free to make your own statistics from a different source.

fault tolerance

[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

1280 x 800 is 16:10

1280 x 768 is also 16:10.

1280 x 720 is 16:9

No, it is not exact. Yes there is a "fault tolerance" built into how we describe aspect ratios, unless you want to get way more specific.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_common_resolutions

[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

Dude, what the hell you're onto?

1280 x 800 is 16:10

That's exact.

1280 x 720 is 16:9

Also exact.

1280 x 768 is also 16:10.

In the link you provided, it literally says it's 5:3. It even has its own line in the infographics. And while the article is titled "List of common resolutions", it looks more like an exhaustive list of almost any resolution that has been ever used in any kind of consumer device. It's definitely not limited just to standard computer monitors so that table isn't really that relevant to the topic of the discussion.

Also show me a monitor with the 1280 x 768 resolution that's currently available on sale.

You're picking up some extremely rare cases to make an argument that your initial statement about "usually different aspect ratio" was correct but that's not how it works. That's just moving goalposts.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 8 months ago

No I'm looking at the most common cases but you do you.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

Just make sure they have audio out too (unless your source can drive a soundbar directly). I just got a new monitor that had built in speakers. They're dog shit, and I didn't plan on using them anyway, but I hadn't appreciated how useful it was having a device that can decode the audio stream from HDMI or DP.
I still have my old usb soundbar for the times I want a loudspeaker, but I can just leave my headphones plugged into the monitors jack and switch the output device on the computer.