WTF Bites
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Who the fuck sits down to watch TV and changes channels or otherwise interacts with such a device every couple minutes?
Minutes? Did you say
minutes
?
A typical tv user is expected to switch channels every few seconds! With a few thousand tv channels available, you cannot do anything different than switching!
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So my mom got a set-top box for her TV. She had issues with some sort of āimage appearing every 5 minutesā when watching TV. And it did happen when I was there too, because 5 minutes is short and allowed me to witness this annoyance for myself instead of just having old person badly explaining issue.
And I recognized it as a screensaver of the DVD player variety with a bouncing logotype. So I went into the settings and discovered there was a setting for screensaver. And it had somehow set itself to activate after 5 minutes.
So, my questions are: Why the fuck is there even an option for a screensaver on a SET-TOP BOX? And why does it (appear to) default to 5 minutes? Does the makers of the box not understand what it is and how people interact with it? Who the fuck sits down to watch TV and changes channels or otherwise interacts with such a device every couple minutes? Because it activating is based off nobody pressing a button on the remote. Watching TV? Nah, thatās obviously nobody actively using the device and therefore the screensaver must turn on. Because it is a simple model its only feature is watching TV. What else are you gonna do? Browse the settings menu?
It does have the usual power-saving setting of auto-turnoff like modern TVs got too, which does make a bit more sense. But also a screensaver? Just, why?
I get this with my samsung tv after every update.
ļ¬ you havenāt interacted with me for an hour. I will shutdown in 2 minutes.
youāre a fucking tv, not an xbox.They also fuck around with their terrible up scaling and psuedo 60fps settings too. I would unplug it from the internet but the other user canāt figure out how to use the firestick. Canāt blame her to be honest.
ļ° I need four clicks to do anything. Whoops. Back on the user select screen you canāt disable.
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Arris VIP 4302
Looks like a Roomba.
And it can connect to some screen and show a screen saver? Wow!
I'd expect a cleaning video only.
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samsung
Found the problem.
But yeah, at least auto-shutoff makes some sense if the limit is set high enough to not nag you in less time it takes to watch a movie. But only an hour? Fuck that shit.
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@BernieTheBernie said in WTF Bites:
@Gern_Blaanston said in WTF Bites:
The default installation location for Corel PaintShop Pro is:
C:\Program Files\
Ā Ā Ā Ā Corel PaintShop Pro\
Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Corel\
Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Corel PaintShop Pro (64-bit)But that seems to miss a lot!
C:\Program Files\\ Corel PaintShop Pro\\ Corel\\ Corel PaintShop Pro (64-bit)\\ Current Version\\ Corel\\ PaintShop\\ Pro\\ bin
Don't give them any ideas!!!
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What else are you gonna do?
Turn the volume down for every commercial block, and back up after? As I understand in the US and maybe other places having less than 5 minutes of programming between commercial blocks is normal.
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@PleegWat But then the 5 minutes would interrupt the all-important commercial blocks as they are longer than 5 minutes!
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What else are you gonna do?
Turn the volume down for every commercial block, and back up after? As I understand in the US and maybe other places having less than 5 minutes of programming between commercial blocks is normal.
US standard is ~18 minutes per hour of adverts. The average US prime time show is thus divided into a teaser and 4-5 acts as a result so yes, I could see that youād be interrupted every 5 minutes.
But itās still a dumb āfeatureā.
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US standard is ~18 minutes per hour of adverts.
And I thought YouTube was bad...
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@Zerosquare itās been that way for decades, through. Watch any box set DVD of a US-made TV series (or on something like iTunes where youāre not getting the credits cut out and auto played to the next episode immediately) and youāll see the timing trends around the 42-43 minute mark for episodes of just about anything - 45 minutes is a long one.
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@PleegWat But then the 5 minutes would interrupt the all-important commercial blocks as they are longer than 5 minutes!
And some commercials are that long! (there's some cosmetics ones that have to be at least 3 or 4 minutes. Sorry, , switching channels.)
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@Zerosquare itās been that way for decades, through. Watch any box set DVD of a US-made TV series (or on something like iTunes where youāre not getting the credits cut out and auto played to the next episode immediately) and youāll see the timing trends around the 42-43 minute mark for episodes of just about anything - 45 minutes is a long one.
This is why I record things. And watch later using fast-forward!
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This is why I record things. And watch later using fast-forward!
I dropped cable TV. I'm not paying to watch ads.
I have an antenna now. The ads pay for the signal
I pay for streaming services, where there is no ads.
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@TimeBandit Netflix is trialling ad services - currently as a lower-cost plan, but who knows what that will produce?
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@TimeBandit Netflix is trialling ad services - currently as a lower-cost plan, but who knows what that will produce?
:magic_8ball: Outlook all plans with ads no matter price.
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The other problem is that the streaming business model is basically fucked anyway - https://www.vulture.com/2023/06/streaming-industry-netflix-max-disney-hulu-apple-tv-prime-video-peacock-paramount.html has some interesting points on it.
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The other problem is that the streaming business model is basically fucked anyway - https://www.vulture.com/2023/06/streaming-industry-netflix-max-disney-hulu-apple-tv-prime-video-peacock-paramount.html has some interesting points on it.
They have been slowly increasing prices while reducing content for a long time now. Shows that you used to be able to watch are now on a different service, so now you need 5 instead of one.
They have these options:
- offer reasonable service for a reasonable price so I keep paying.
- keep increasing price while lowering service, slowly, so that it will probably take me a bit of time until I finally decide āfuck itā and cancel my subscription.
- introduce ads, at which point Iāll cancel my subscription the very next second.
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@topspin the problem is that the house of cards is going to come down sooner or later and weāre all going to lose out when it does.
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introduce ads, at which point Iāll cancel my subscription the very next second.
Iāve always felt you can have ads or charge me a subscription but try to catch me for both and Iāll cancel. Its why I refuse to pay for sports subscriptions these days. Or any subscriptions at the moment. If I had any scruples I would buy Dvds but
Now that Cinemas have started their luxury experiments Iāll pay for both but thatās a different kettle of fish.
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@TimeBandit said in WTF Bites:
I have an antenna now. The ads pay for the signal
Youāre probably paying a license fee for the privilege.
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@TimeBandit said in WTF Bites:
I have an antenna now. The ads pay for the signal
Youāre probably paying a license fee for the privilege.
Depends on the country. TV license fees are a UK thing (but do mean that at least some channels are ad-free). In other places they recoup the (real!) costs through other taxes, or by showing lots of ads.
I'm surprised there aren't ad breaks in the middle of ads in the US.
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I'm surprised there aren't ad breaks in the middle of ads in the US.
If they could find someone to pay for it they probably would have them.
Iām still in awe that people tune in to watch the Super Bowl for the ads.
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I'm surprised there aren't ad breaks in the middle of ads in the US.
Those mostly happen in kids' cartoons.
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Iām still in awe that people tune in to watch the Super Bowl for the ads.
They tend to have better writers and production values than most scripted shows.
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@boomzilla said in WTF Bites:
Iām still in awe that people tune in to watch the Super Bowl for the ads.
They tend to have better writers and production values than most scripted shows.
Indeed. A good ad you'll watch willingly and remember later.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2J4ImKbGztM
Morning morning as one says in this fine country and a good catch. You already caught something?
catches beer
What I wanted to ask: Can you live off fishing?
Nope. But we're also writing poetry.
Oh? Could you give me a sample?
We're standing here and fishing bass...
and the water is up to our ... knees.
But that doesn't rhyme!
Just you wait for high tide.
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Iāve always felt you can have ads or charge me a subscription but try to catch me for both and Iāll cancel.
At this point, I simply don't want to have ads. Period. I've pretty much stopped watching TV because of that. If streaming services introduce ads, I'm out. (I don't mind paying more than an ad-supported version, but there's the whole discussion on value vs cost, and with costs increasing and service getting more shit ... well.)
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the house of cards is going to come down sooner or later and weāre all going to lose out when it does.
Well, if you still care about what Hollywood and co. has to offer, that is.
Otherwise...
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@Zerosquare said in WTF Bites:
the house of cards is going to come down sooner or later and weāre all going to lose out when it does.
Well, if you still care about what Hollywood and co. has to offer, that is.
Otherwise...Itās not just about the new content, itās about the archives of existing content also being out in the world. If you never moved off physical media and still owe that physical media, great - but thereās decades of content that I fear will disappear and never be available again.
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@Arantor Apparently (not that I know first hand) the streaming services are disappearing content just to try to weasel out of paying proper residuals to the creators of that content. It's apparently one of the practices behind the current writers' and actors' union strikes.
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I'm surprised there aren't ad breaks in the middle of ads in the US.
I've seen them before, can't remember what product... They broke their ad into 2 15s parts that straddled another ad.
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@dcon They do that here too. Apparently it is more effective than one 30 second ad, or even one 1 minute ad.
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@dkf And if we would have had sane copyright this would not be a problem. We could drop it down to 10 years after release no problem and then we could have a streaming service to provide all older content just fine.
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@Atazhaia No, they're apparently dropping (and allegedly deleting) content in less than a year, long before any sane copyright at all would expire. It sounds like something is really rotten in the state of streaming, but I don't really know as I avoid all that stuff in the first place. I'm not going to pay for all those services, and I almost entirely don't watch any other TV either. Saves so much time for things that I prefer doing, like having
argumentsdiscussions here...
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No, they're apparently dropping (and allegedly deleting) content in less than a year, long before any sane copyright at all would expire. It sounds like something is really rotten in the state of streaming, but I don't really know as I avoid all that stuff in the first place.
In some cases, it's apparently just cheaper to drop shows rather than continue to to license them (and pay for the license) if they're not bringing in enough viewers. I figure this also relates to the whole licensing mess for media -- e.g., you need a separate license for Europe and NA, which adds overhead.
Not sure about e.g., Disney dropping its own shows from their own service.
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Youāre probably paying a license fee for the privilege.
I'm not in the UK
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@TimeBandit said in WTF Bites:
Youāre probably paying a license fee for the privilege.
I'm not in the UK
Probably still have the queen on your notes.
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Iām still in awe that people tune in to watch the Super Bowl for the ads.
That's because the show itself is boring
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@topspin the problem is that the house of cards is going to come down sooner or later and weāre all going to lose out when it does.
That already happened in the last season, but was not the primary reason I cancelled my Netflix subscription
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@TimeBandit said in WTF Bites:
Probably still have the queen on your notes.
It's moopoly money
I need to give up for the day. I read that at mono-poly and wondered if @Polygeekery was limiting himself to one fire a day.
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I need to give up for the day. I read that at mono-poly
Which is kind have amazing, considering there's not even an 'n' in 'moopoly'.
Edit: Muphry's struck.
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Youāre probably paying a license fee for the privilege.
Depends on the country. TV license fees are a UK thing (but do mean that at least some channels are ad-free).
We used to have the best of both worlds in the Netherlands: TV licence fees and ads on public channels. The fee was abolished per 01-01-2000, leaving just ever more ads. This is only one of the reasons I donāt generally watch Dutch channels, whether public or commercial.
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This is only one of the reasons I donāt generally watch Dutch channels
The primary one being that they're in that throat disease masquerading as a language?
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@Zerosquare yeah, I talked about this in a little more depth In other news today - the more the story goes on the worse it gets.
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The title of this article made me laugh. Although it's serious, the title almost sounds like something from The Onion.