Discussions

[purrfectpatty]

And now my problem is gone. My 1-year-old TCL ROKU TV today made a loud cracking sound and went black. We can smell a metallic burnt smell, the sound is still there. Picture is gone. A fitting ending to an inferior product. Luckily, I have two older Vizio TVs which still work perfectly.

[wa2exz]

What is the recent channel view?  Why don’t you just listen to your customers and bring back manual favorites. It is an absolute pain in the ass to have to change channels without favorites. 

[Misanthrope]

Simple solution: Spend $30 and buy a converter box from Amazon, then you can "properly" use a favorites function, which Roku obviously doesn't care about. Roku, do you care to reimburse me for my $30 purchase? Please explain to us all how removing favorites is good for business? How dumb are you going to look when everybody goes out and buys a converter box to avoid your awful, over-the-air, software interface?

[wa2exz]

How can I manually go back to the previous firmware version and shutoff auto updating?  You people have lost your sensitivity to what customers are asking for and need. 

[chezjim]

Two procedural questions:

- Given that we get all kinds of updates by email already, why were we never advised of this change when it happened?

- How the **bleep** does SUPPORT not know about this?
[NOTE: The bleeped word here is a common one for the more unpleasant alternative to Heaven. Seriously?]

I put in a ticket almost a month ago asking why my favorites weren't setting automatically anymore. They asked me all kinds of questions, the last set being the version of my software, etc. And then? Nothing. Three weeks with no follow-up.

So I wrote again yesterday. And still haven't heard back.

Meanwhile, I start looking around here and finally find - a little by accident - that this is a known change. Something Support could have told me weeks ago. Presuming they knew.

Is anyone surprised I find this maddening?

[glend123]

You guys are barking up the wrong tree.  Do you think they made this change not knowing what it would do? They know exactly what they are doing.  The change is not to benefit the customers, it is to benefit the Advertisers.  The more channels we are exposed to, the more money Roku makes.   Just like everything else, follow the money to get your answer. 

[OhioCubs]

I typically switch around between my six favorite channels.  Imagine how irritated I was this morning to find that I have been "updated" to having to scroll thru hundreds of channels just to watch the news.  Looks like it is time to buy a new NON-ROKU TV.  Horrible update and product.

[Visitor45763]

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@glend123 wrote:

You guys are barking up the wrong tree.  Do you think they made this change not knowing what it would do? They know exactly what they are doing.  The change is not to benefit the customers, it is to benefit the Advertisers.  The more channels we are exposed to, the more money Roku makes.   Just like everything else, follow the money to get your answer. 

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I agree 100%. Your post should be marked a solution. Renaming antenna tv to live tv shows something is afoot. Adding 1000 streaming channels to antenna tv was step 2. Roku doesn't make money from antenna tv. No carriage fees. So, they add 1000 channels to antenna tv to try and get into your view (compete with antenna tv).

Presumably, antenna tv is a bad habit people need help getting out of. Favorites enable that habit. It's like a comfort zone of viewing. Now you have to see all the available channels. (You can't even hold the channel-change button down and change channels. You have to push it once for each channel. More "impressions." We're not customers, we're sources of revenue. We don't buy the Roku device/software, we rent it. The upfront price is just the cost of entry. Roku has a motivation to "shape" our viewing habits to make more money for Roku. Not satisfied with just selling demographic analytics about our viewing habits, but we're chattel for the highest bidder. Driving our habits to more profitable channels/content.). I can see a content provider doing that. But, when you buy a tv, you think you're buying a tv that's yours to use how you wish. Not a "tool" to persuade you to change your habits for the benefit of the tool maker. It's a "smart" tv. But, "smart" for whom? The motives aren't as clear as merely watching YouTube or Hulu, where you know they're heavily entrenched in advertising.

But then there's things that make you wonder if it really is all sneaky & crafty like that.

For example, the new 1000 streaming channels added to antenna tv can't be individually hidden. If Roku wanted antenna viewers to be exposed to more modern & varietal content, why would Roku give them only "hide all?" If Roku's goal is to do our thinking for us, and break "bad habits" (which, of course, is extremely insulting), why wouldn't they let us hide the 900 streaming channels we don't want to watch? Obviously people will hide all as soon as they discover that option. If Roku was as malignantly self-interested as it often appears to be, they'd give us the option to individually hide those 1000 channels, not "all."  That would be the way to make it harder for customers to revert to their "bad habits."

A lot of this stuff just looks like a badly managed company; development without vision or control. Uninspired. In most cases that is a much more natural explanation than a Q-like "plot" to milk us as mindless advertising consumers. Roku does a lot of stuff that is contrary to that, alienating customers, breaking their tvs. It just seems like they don't care (and never have); lack leadership, vision. I said before that Roku reminds me of a cross between Fry's Electronics & Harbor Freight. (Unbelievably badly managed, and a customer base that seems content with products that break easily/frequently.). It could be as simple as that. It's hard to believe a company wouldn't want to be more than that, so we assume there's a grand plan behind it. 

[mikeism]

@RokuDanny-R 

No this is not a solution. 

Getting the function previously provided by 'Favorites' is a solution.

[Visitor45763]

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@OhioCubs wrote:

I typically switch around between my six favorite channels.  Imagine how irritated I was this morning to find that I have been "updated" to having to scroll thru hundreds of channels just to watch the news.  Looks like it is time to buy a new NON-ROKU TV.  Horrible update and product.

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Totally agree. Before buying a new tv, you can: 1) go to home>settings>tv inputs>live tv, and hide all the streaming channels that Roku added.

Or, 2) Google for "hdmi tv tuner for monitor" or "antenna tv tuner hdmi output". I'm not sure what these devices would be called. But, they're inexpensive ($30). Connect the antenna coax to this device. Connect this device's HDMI to the tv's HDMI. Use your Roku tv as a monitor for as long as it lasts.

The trick would be to find the one with the best user interface. I had a couple digital-to-analog converters and they were wonderful. Someone put some thought into what a person would want, ease of access, features. Numeric remotes. I could press "5" and return to the low channels. I didn't even have to press a number for a valid channel. It would go to that channel. I could press the channel edit button right there to hide/unhide/fav/unfav the channel (without meandering through 4-5 other menus to get there). The channels changed *fast* as you held the up/down button continuously.

It felt like someone developed these things with a view of using one themselves. It felt intuitive and friendly. Roku would never try to learn something from those devices. That was over 10 years ago. The unenlightened stone age. We're supposed to do things different today.

So, that would be the wildcard. If these inexpensive antenna-to-HDMI tuners have good on-screen user interfaces. I'd love to have what I had with the analog-to-digital converters I had. These new digital tuners might not have that, I don't know.