this post was submitted on 02 Dec 2023
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Currently using a Roku Streambar for all of our streaming needs but if they pull this crap, everything we consume will be downloaded, served on my Plex server and streamed using the gaming PC I have under our TV.
Getting beyond sick of these companies using every measure and device they can to shit ads into our eyes.
My Roku is pie holed, I don't Even get the main screen ads anymore.
as soon as services and sites start doing the same thing yt does.. delivering ads via the same servers and hostnames as the content.. pihole and other dns-based solutions lose their effectiveness.
Oh I have my own content. I've also been doing this since we were recording off air broadcast TV breaking out commercials from a live stream is nothing but an inconvenience.
i just uncovered a box with over 100 vhs tapes from the days before i switched to pc-based recording. that'll be a future project after i get done with de-duplicating and consolidating the files i already have.
Coming back from VHS is a bit painful, I've done quite a lot of it at this point. (I think I'm up to a few hundred tapes)
I used to use TiVo to record broadcast and cable, export as MPEG, strip the commercials and then turn that into DivX. There are options out there to automatically strip commercials they're 'mostly' good and work way better with digital sources.
The problem with VHS is another layer of substantial loss. If someone recorded it as SLP (and that's pretty much what we all did back in the day) you're going to spend a very long time with AI video denoising to get something even remotely watchable. Analog CRT hid so many video sins.
Topaz Labs video AI does a reasonably good job under certain circumstances. When you go to rip your content don't just rip it all and then worry about it later. Rip a couple of things and then mess with them until you're happy enough with the results to continue.
Generally speaking the stuff you start with needs to be kind of watchable If you expect it to turn out into something truly watchable. AI is good at cleaning up artifacts in a little snowy grain and straightening out fuzzy edges. But if your source material is coming out as utter disappointment it's not going to fix it.
Do you know what you had to block to stop the Roku ads?
It came free with one of the standardized block lists. Let me go see what my pi hole is blocking.
I can't tell exactly what it's nixing without rebooting it and there's somebody watching it right now.
Here are the obvious candidates from the Stephen Black block list
P.ads.roku.com
Austin.logs.roku.com
Mobile.logs.roku.com
Scribe.logs.roku.com
logs.Roku.com
Interesting. I'm using nextdns on my router, I had manually blocked ads.roku.com and now have the Stephen Black block list enabled too but I'm still getting ads.
Now that I look through my nextdns logs, I don't see my roku at all so something seems to be up with my config. Thanks for the help!
If you can't get it straightened out Hit me up again here and I'll restart my Roku and see if I can figure out what else it's hitting
Thanks! I've just got it working now - something weird is going on with my ddns setup but manually linking my IP to the nextdns profile did it.
Something to be aware of, some devices will straight ignore your DNS settings in DHCP if they can't get to their ads. My iPhone 13 did that. I had to block port 53 udp/tcp for everything but the piholes.
I'm sure eventually we're going to see DNS over https doing the same and I'm 100% ready to mitm all devices that pull that bullshit..
Oh, that's great to hear. I have a pi hole ready to set up, but I'm waiting on a card reader to come in the mail so I can finish it, but I was curious in how effective it would be.
I run a Piehole and don't see any of the ads on my Fire TVs.
It's that or because I'm still running the old gen2 firetv box that's way out of OS support...
Did you order it on Amazon?
Naw, newegg
Noice!
Broke: PiHole and a Roku
Woke: PiHole and a regular-ass computer that doesn’t need to be PiHole just to not see ads they’re not even expensive and and can do EVERYTHING why would anyone use a Roku or Amazon stick this run on sentence does not understand
The run on nature of that sentence is unfortunately the least of its transgressions.
That said, I don't have space or power in the location where my TV is located for anything larger than a Nintendo switch dock. It needs to be silent, low profile, low power.
Roku gives me all that plus it's 60 frames UHD and HDR. It's about the size of a slice of bread and capable of decoding most of the things I throw at it, unfortunately It's a bit picky about 4K streams.
My grown ass PC is in the basement in a rack, It has a 2070 in it but it's old enough that it can't quite keep up with 4K live encoding.
So now to be woke I need a real, silent PC to fit in a tiny space. Then I still have to deal with some kind of remote. Most of the options out there honestly don't look great.
Edot4: IS IT BETTER THAN AMAZON AD SERVER?
a: yee anything is, your Roku is trash
Idk man my fam isn’t mad rich yet we have computers on every screen it’s not expensive or difficult app run on sentence also a fucking Roku isn’t doing 60FPS you need SVP for that nothing is recorded in 60 the hobbit shitty trilogy was 48 and people were like “aaaaa soap opera” shit like what the fuck no
edit: ur rong
Its sad so many people seem to lack pattern recognition and don't appreciate that Plex is no different than any of these companies, they're just not as far along on the enshitification cycle.
They're for-profit, providing a "free" service. They will fuck you and the platform. It's not an if, it's a when. They're already moving in that direction. They've made many decisions in recent years that are very obviously stepped in trying warp the product into something more profitable. That will not stop, it only gets worse.
Why not get started on the move to Jellyfin now? You will have to in a few years to avoid bullshit, I promise you.
That's this weekends project, moving to Jellyfin with all the discover together fuckery they're pulling. Fuck Plex.
What OS are you using for the gaming pc under your TV? Wanted to do something alike but don’t know what would be the best OS for something like that
The best OS for your HTPC is whatever OS you're comfortable with
I don’t think Windows 3.1 supports .MP4
As I wrote on the other comment, I was looking for something easy and fast to use even if I'm on the couch. Something that i could set to almost look like a smart tv but that could also work with steam link/moonlight. So honestly I'm comfortable with windows but don't think it would be the best OS to use for my case
Kodi on a Raspberry Pi 4 is pretty good, and you can run moonlight from within Kodi. Of course, you have to find a reasonably priced Pi…
EDIT: Also, I use this setup in a spare room, but use an Apple TV in my living room for identical purposes. Though I use Infuse and the actual Steam remote play application.
OH! I didn't know i could use moonlight from within Kodi! Thanks!
i mostly use windows on the tv, an old laptop and a wireless kb/trackpad. runs cool, even with the lid closed all the time. reliably wakes up outputting to the external 'monitor' as long as it hasn't 'lost' its connection to the tv (can't unplug that input temporarily for another device--would have to flip open the laptop lid later to re-enable the external-only setting), and it's new enough (skylake) to have decoding in hardware for the formats i've been using.
the other hdmi is a linux sff desktop set up similarly, but i haven't got all the kinks worked out yet.
use firefox (with addons and some userscripts|styles) for online sites, and usb externals or lan connection for 'saved' content. shortcuts on the desktop (to web sites, playlists, lan shares) function as the 'home screen' or 'launch' page.
i do have the tv 'online' atm, though, because a lot of pluto 'live' tv get watched here, and the tv 'app' is faster and more reliable than their web site. the remote has a hotkey for it, too, which goes directly to the last 'channel' it was on.
Thanks for the thorough explanation! So you just use windows on the old laptop, no Kodi or anything else?
yup. just windows (or linux) desktop applications and networking. i don't need a '10-foot' ui; and don't (atm, anyway) need the remote streaming capabilities or other features of a jellyfin or plex.
the keyboard i have is an original logitech k400. it's really the piece that makes my setup usable, otherwise i'd have a full-sized separate kb and mouse sitting on the 'coffee table' (it's really just a low-standing tv shelf on wheels) instead.
Yeah that's a nice keyboard, maybe i'll think about it because it seems really useful and compact at the same time! Thank you again for everything :)
My HTPC is on windows 11, set to auto log-in and launch steam big picture. Disabled as much of the Microsoft BS as I can, including the nags to use Onedrive or sub to Office 365 every major update.
Using Unified Remote to control things with my phone and also Parsec/Moonlight for game streaming to other devices.
My media is served from my Unraid server to my devices both locally and remotely.
All working well so far. 👍
I think I can try your setup ! Thank you very much :)
Cant say for the other person, but I use linux mint for the gaming pc under the tv (and for every other computer my family uses)
I was looking for something easy and fast to use even if I'm on the couch. Something that i could set to almost look like a smart tv but that could also work with steam link/moonlight
Perhaps kodi might be what you are looking for then
I just read that i could use Moonlight from within Kodi, so I think that would be a nice idea
I can’t believe there isn’t a good HTPC OS that can handle launching Netflix, prime, plex, whatever.
I haven’t used Kodi in a few year but at least then Kodi and the big apps didn’t play well together.