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These homescreen ads are really interesting because in the future of television, they might be the only thing viewers are guaranteed to see a glimpse of. In th

These homescreen ads are really interesting because in the future of television, they might be the only thing viewers are guaranteed to see a glimpse of. In the era of linear TV, the masses had to watch what the networks put in front of them. People had to watch whatever was available in the broadcast medium of their choice (air/cable/satellite). Channel flipping meant that the networks had a brief moment to expose themselves to viewers, and maybe even hook them with those repetitive post-commercial recaps. But non-linear television means that the network execs can fuck right off because people will watch whatever they want, whenever they want, on the subscription service they want. The fragmentation is real. The homescreen ads present themselves as a rare chance for channel producers to say "hey! come look at our amazing content!". Right before a viewer fires up Netflix or whatever. (On a personal note, those overly loud and obnoxious homescreen ads are fucking annoying and usually turn me off from whatever the hell is being advertised. Turning on my TV should be a source of joy and relaxation, not a a desperate desire to pull up Netflix as fast as humanly possible. I'm also certain that in the future when all of our smart TVs have 128-core RISC-V CPUs with 16GB of RAM and can run k8s, TV software producers will intentionally slow down the loading of apps so viewers are forced to watch the homescreen ads.)

msluyter 6y ago
FWIW, we have an LG smart TV and I've never seen ads on it because our standard use case is a) turning it on and b) immediately pressing the built in Prime/Netflix button. I barely even know what the home screen looks like.
criddell 6y ago
> Channel flipping meant that the networks had a brief moment to expose themselves to viewers Offtopic, but modern TVs are terrible at channel flipping. I don't know if it's the TV or the cable box or the DRM, but something makes it take 3-5 seconds to change a channel. This feels like something they could fix. There not being a reasonable way to opt-out of the homescreen ads tells me that Google knows they are garbage. Google has 20+ years of data from many of us. They promised us that sharing our data with them would let them produce targeted ads that we would value. The ads on my TV homescreen feel less targeted than the ones I see during a baseball broadcast.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > Offtopic, but modern TVs are terrible at channel flipping. I don't know if it's the TV or the cable box or the DRM A combination of digital video encoding chocies and a UX decision that nothing is better than the artifacts from not waiting for a full frame to start display.
  - criddell 6y ago
    Feels like they could have a bunch of decoders and make a guess at what my next channel will probably be and keep a few streams ready to go.
    - dragonwriter 6y ago
      > Feels like they could have a bunch of decoders and make a guess at what my next channel will probably be and keep a few streams ready to go. If you have a multichannel cable box (usually, to support simultaneous DVR and viewing), some of them I think do do that (or at least camp on the last-used for each tuner that isn't needed for active display or recording) and give a fast switch if you hit one that it's on, but the ratio of decoding streams to available channels tends to be very low. And I would imagine that video decoding is the biggest use of horsepower in a cable box or smart TV, so there's probably a non-negotiable cost (including in power usage, heat, and component lifetime) in malign a significant change there.
- kevin_thibedeau 6y ago
  It's your cable box. For many digital channels you are essentially getting streamed VOD and their backend equipment is slow. Modern ATSC tuners are reasonably fast with a clear signal. You can legitimately surf like on analog.
dragonwriter 6y ago
> These homescreen ads are really interesting because in the future of television, they might be the only thing viewers are guaranteed to see a glimpse of. I don't know, I almost never see the homescreen of my Android TV. Once you have it initially setup, it normally goes straight to the current input and most functionality is accessed through the remote without navigating through the homescreen, including Apps, etc., being accessible through overlay menus without returning to the homescreen.

msluyter 6y ago

FWIW, we have an LG smart TV and I've never seen ads on it because our standard use case is a) turning it on and b) immediately pressing the built in Prime/Netflix button. I barely even know what the home screen looks like.

criddell 6y ago

> Channel flipping meant that the networks had a brief moment to expose themselves to viewers Offtopic, but modern TVs are terrible at channel flipping. I don't know if it's the TV or the cable box or the DRM, but something makes it take 3-5 seconds to change a channel. This feels like something they could fix. There not being a reasonable way to opt-out of the homescreen ads tells me that Google knows they are garbage. Google has 20+ years of data from many of us. They promised us that sharing our data with them would let them produce targeted ads that we would value. The ads on my TV homescreen feel less targeted than the ones I see during a baseball broadcast.

dragonwriter 6y ago
> Offtopic, but modern TVs are terrible at channel flipping. I don't know if it's the TV or the cable box or the DRM A combination of digital video encoding chocies and a UX decision that nothing is better than the artifacts from not waiting for a full frame to start display.
- criddell 6y ago
  Feels like they could have a bunch of decoders and make a guess at what my next channel will probably be and keep a few streams ready to go.
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    > Feels like they could have a bunch of decoders and make a guess at what my next channel will probably be and keep a few streams ready to go. If you have a multichannel cable box (usually, to support simultaneous DVR and viewing), some of them I think do do that (or at least camp on the last-used for each tuner that isn't needed for active display or recording) and give a fast switch if you hit one that it's on, but the ratio of decoding streams to available channels tends to be very low. And I would imagine that video decoding is the biggest use of horsepower in a cable box or smart TV, so there's probably a non-negotiable cost (including in power usage, heat, and component lifetime) in malign a significant change there.
kevin_thibedeau 6y ago
It's your cable box. For many digital channels you are essentially getting streamed VOD and their backend equipment is slow. Modern ATSC tuners are reasonably fast with a clear signal. You can legitimately surf like on analog.

dragonwriter 6y ago

> These homescreen ads are really interesting because in the future of television, they might be the only thing viewers are guaranteed to see a glimpse of. I don't know, I almost never see the homescreen of my Android TV. Once you have it initially setup, it normally goes straight to the current input and most functionality is accessed through the remote without navigating through the homescreen, including Apps, etc., being accessible through overlay menus without returning to the homescreen.