Channels & viewing

[Xerotrek328]

Have I think a roku2. Got it used. Already had an account on it but I never changed it and don’t pay for stuff anyway. For YEARS no issue. I pay for my Hulu and Home internet and watch it all on my tv. Hardwired tv to player. I have gotten good at casting from my iPhone 7 to player onto the tv. And I restart the roku every couple weeks. It is on selfupdate. 

NOW there are YouTube ads in middle of videos.  I HAVE NEVER HAD RHEM BEFORE. Not on cpu. Definitely not on roku. Cell phone always of course is what it is. But wtf if this YouTube bull**bleep** on my tv?  Something changed. 

I fall asleep with a playlist of videos on my tv to drown out stuff. Now ads come up and they are loud and I wake up. Over and over.  What. The. **bleep**. 

 I looked online to settings menu fix. Well there isn’t ad tracking on my drop down so try the **bleep** again. 

YouTube may have added stuff BUT roku allowed it to happen. No notice no nothing. Just now there are ads.  I want it back the old way. What the do I do roku.   Xerotrek328@aol

[atc98092]

That is Google, not Roku. They started adding ads within normal YouTube videos quite a while ago. You can subscribe to what I think they call YouTube Red and for a monthly fee the ads are supposed to be gone. 

Roku didn't allow anything to happen. The content providers have sole control over what is streamed on their channels. Roku has zero control over the content of any channel other than The Roku Channel. Since they are the content providers for that one, yes they have control over the ads there. 

[Xerotrek328]

I don’t know about that. How come ads played on phone and then much later the computer and now finally on the tv?  It was done in stages. Not all at once. Which means they had to find a different way to get them into the tv version. U have to have been involved. And it’s very recent. Like a couple weeks ago. Not months like computer or almost a year like on phone. So there’s a flaw that n u saying it’s them cause it took them time to get it onto your device platform. And u did nothing to let us know or stop it. Or else they threatened to not have their app on your devices and that scared u into doing jack **bleep**. So don’t tell me u weren’t complicit. Total bull. U can edit or block and filter anything u want. U CHOOSE not to. 

[atc98092]

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@Xerotrek328 wrote:

I don’t know about that. How come ads played on phone and then much later the computer and now finally on the tv?  It was done in stages. Not all at once. Which means they had to find a different way to get them into the tv version. U have to have been involved. And it’s very recent. Like a couple weeks ago. Not months like computer or almost a year like on phone. So there’s a flaw that n u saying it’s them cause it took them time to get it onto your device platform. And u did nothing to let us know or stop it. Or else they threatened to not have their app on your devices and that scared u into doing jack **bleep**. So don’t tell me u weren’t complicit. Total bull. U can edit or block and filter anything u want. U CHOOSE not to. 

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Different players, different devices. I get just as many ads when I use my Nvidia Shield as I do with a Roku player. It's not Roku, it's Google. 

And by the way, I'm not a Roku employee. I'm just another user like yourself, perhaps a touch more knowledgeable than some. 

[makaiguy]

Why not complain to your internet supplier -- that's who delivers the signal into your house. Or maybe you should blame the tv that displays the ads.

[Xerotrek328]

When I see changes on same device Months after changes on others then they had a heads up to do something. They failed to. By choice. If u can limit ad tracking which online says is supposed to resolve it then at least the drop down should be there like it was months ago. It isn’t  anymore. Which means there was a change to roku itself.  Because now the ad tracking drop down is no longer there. So it makes sense the two would be related. U all know so Much more than me. Explain that. Why can’t I limit ad tracking. Anymore. I’m could before. Now the option is gone off my player. And. NOw there are ads. Pretty obvious. 

[atc98092]

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@Xerotrek328 wrote:

When I see changes on same device Months after changes on others then they had a heads up to do something. They failed to. By choice. If u can limit ad tracking which online says is supposed to resolve it then at least the drop down should be there like it was months ago. It isn’t  anymore. Which means there was a change to roku itself.  Because now the ad tracking drop down is no longer there. So it makes sense the two would be related. U all know so Much more than me. Explain that. Why can’t I limit ad tracking. Anymore. I’m could before. Now the option is gone off my player. And. NOw there are ads. Pretty obvious. 

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You can believe what you want. All I'm saying is the Google has control of any and all content within the YouTube channel. They can absolutely treat apps on different devices differently. Roku has zero control of the functionality of the YouTube channel, nor any of the content that is streamed within it. 

[F1inBisbee]

Can't remove the ads.   But you can remove the youtube app and never add it again until an ad blocker is provided, somehow, on Roku.   Until then, the only solution is to watch youtube on a pc with adblock or adblock plus or ublock origin and crank up the settings to the max.

As it is now,  the youtube app on Roku is unwatchable with the ad loads.   Keep in mind it's absolutely NOT Roku's fault whatsoever - - it's the creator of the youtube channel you are watching that decides when and how many ads.

[cut_the_cord]

Most of these responses seem to focus on complaining and blaming rather than finding a solution to this problem. 

With that said, I'm going to start with blaming someone.  However, I'm going to give details of why.  Youtube/google allows the channel providers to include what they call "mid-roll breaks" (what we the viewers call annoying commercials that show up mid-sentence):

https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/6175006?hl=en

I have not seen this when using my browser to watch youtube, but it seems it does happen there also since someone has a fix (doesn't help roku users though): https://easyboard.org/2018/10/25/remove-ads-from-embedded-youtube-videos/

Youtube/Google claims that if you pay for Youtube Red you won't see commercials, but seems that's a lie:

https://thenextweb.com/google/2017/09/18/google-youtube-red-ads/

The only solution I've found so far is you'll see places where the commercials could be as a yellow dot on progress bar and you can fast forward over those places.  However, this is a real pain.  I was watching a 30 min video that had 8 of those yellow dots, so this isn't really a practical solution.

Xerotrek328 talked about falling asleep with a playlist of videos.  One option is if you search for 'white noise' followed by something about your personal taste (ocean, forest, etc) there are videos that go as long as 10 hours.  So far, I haven't seen any of those with 'mid-roll breaks', although they may have one a the beginning.  You can also try the word 'ambience', so victorian ambience, ocean ambience, etc.

Personally, I'm about to give up watching youtube on my Roku.

If anyone has a solution or suggestion, then please let us all know.  If you want to complain, then contact the person who uploaded the video.

[cut_the_cord]

This is a good overview about why there so many ad's on youtube now:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvCq1JeMgh8

(16min 52 sec long)