Channels & viewing

[Rashin]

I thought I replied to the last response in this thread.   I am just going to back away slowly......   RUNNING>

[GARYDERBY10]

FACTORY RESET. TO REMOVE ADDS?

[atc98092]

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@GARYDERBY10wrote:

FACTORY RESET. TO REMOVE ADDS?

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No, that won't do anything. The ads are within the YouTube channel itself, not the Roku OS. Resetting the box just gives you the task of setting everything up from scratch again.

[Jumper5]

There is something definitely odd going on at times. I really only watch one YouTube channel on my Roku. Sometimes the ads are very bad in terms of frequency and length. Other times, definitely not so much.

I might try the factory reset, and see if that does anything (unplug the USB power cable, and plug it back in). I already have the personalization turned off, and while at first I thought it made a difference, I just got a new Roku, finally with "fast" 5GHz wifi 🤣 🤣🤣, and I was seeing the same exact ads after I turned off personalization as before.

With that said, *most* times I'm watching the channel I'm watching, I can exit out of most ads in 5s or so, but sometimes, yeah, I'm stuck watching a 3 minute ad for something I have absolutely no desire in. (I am admittedly different than most people. I typically do want to watch an ad the first time, see what it's about, and then try to jump out of the next time if I have no interest.)

Anyway, fwiw.

[atc98092]

@Jumper5a factory reset will do nothing for this. The YouTube channel is in complete control of the ads seen on the channel. The Roku OS has nothing to do with it. Google seems to send more ads to Roku devices than other devices. Since they sell a competing product, my guess is it's intentional, and I have zero faith that Google will make any changes. I now use an app on one of my Android based players that block ads on YouTube. But there's no such app/channel for Roku devices, so we're stuck with whatever Google decides to push out to our devices.

Oh, and unplugging the power cable and reconnecting is not a factory reset. That's just a reboot, and doesn't impact any channel or the Roku operating system, other than ensuring all background apps are restarted.

[Jumper5]

"The YouTube channel is in complete control of the ads seen on the channel. "

Don't agree. That does not explain why sometimes they are worse than other times. I think there is some other influence going on.

[atc98092]

Certainly your privilege to have a differing opinion. But the Roku OS does not have any way to impact an operating channel. They can't insert their own ads. For one thing, it would invite lawsuits from the channel providers. That alone is enough reason to reject it's happening from outside the channel itself.

The other thing you have to remember is YouTube is owned by Google. They make their income from selling ads, so the more ads they place on a video is good business for them. And if they only do it on a competitor's player, they really aren't going to care. Why does it appear to be worse at some times, and not as bad at others? It's simply they way they have programmed the ad insertion logic. That's the only influence happening.

I don't own any Chromecast devices, but I do have Android based players, as I mentioned before. The ads on the Android player are about as bad as they are on a Roku player. So another point in the ads being driven by Google, not another party.

[fluke]

Roku OS can lightly influence the type of ads you end up seeing.

In the case of YouTube, the prefer method to track for choosing ads is by being logged into YouTube. However, YouTube does not require you to login to use it.

If you are using YouTube while not logged in, Roku OS can supply two things that may influence the type of ads that are shown. It can provide meta-data for personalized ads and an advertising identifier to help the channel track Roku between different launches of the YouTube channel.

If you don't want Roku OS to supply personalization meta-data then go to Settings -> Privacy -> Advertising and then uncheck Personalize Ads. If you don't want the Roku advertising identifier provided to YouTube (and other channels) to remain the same then choose Reset advertising identifier.

Aside for those two pieces of information, Roku OS doesn't do anything else to influence the ads. Everything else is up to Alphabet/YouTube. The frequency and exactly which ads are selected are determine by the YouTube service. YouTube also chooses the frequency based on which video you are watching. If you see ads more often on Roku than on a laptop it is likely that is because what video is being played on Roku has a higher rate of ads than what video was selected for playback on the laptop.

My experience has been if you play the *same* video on a laptop, android phone, android tv media device and roku while making sure to *NOT* be logged into YouTube on all the devices then the frequency and type of ads remain similar. I have not been able to reproduce any Roku bias except by playing different videos in which the bias is based on which video is being played, not by the device it is played on.

[atc98092]

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@flukewrote:

Roku OS can lightly influence the type of ads you end up seeing.

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I'll grant the potential to influence the types of ads, as you state. But many users are complaining about the number of ads, and I can't see any way of controlling that from the Roku OS. That's all on Google.