YouTube TV removed from Roku channel store amid Google contract dispute
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Now their business is "collecting money from your subscriptions" -- which is not really in my best interest. I got screwed on the HBO Max thing. Now this.
Personally, I'm done with Roku. But there isn't really an option that is "unaffiliated" anymore :(
The next version had pre-programmed buttons for various services that had paid them off, and I was annoyed, but whatever.
The version after that they wanted me to enter my credit card information just to activate the device.
And finally they just started plastering it with ads, including ads for the "Roku Channel".
I don't know why they couldn't just raise prices and sell a device. I don't know what to do next; I tried an Amazon Fire TV but it's garbage. Chromecast I also found unusable; the app would lose connection all the time so pausing was always an iffy proposition. There are generic Android boxes but I have no idea what to expect quality-wise, and there are options like building my own Kodi box but I don't know how well streaming services are supported. I guess Apple TV is the last option? Last time I tried one it was just okay, and now Apple has its own streaming platform so I'm sure it's going to get into these same fights.
My only slight worry is that it's running on Android TV, so there's always a chance google bans something.
I switched from Roku to Shield when the first Shield came out in 2015. That device is still going strong, still plays everything I throw at it, has excellent support with Kodi and Plex and every single catch up TV app is available for it.
6 years later, and NVIDIA is still issuing regular Android updates for it. The only Android device that's getting official support from OEM 6 years after release.
highly recommend.
I used to run various PC based home theatre bits of software, but they're all inevitably a pain to manage, don't work right, and require fiddling.
Got the Shield TV pro 2019(?) version, pointed Plex at my NAS, and it plays content flawlessly. Youtube, Amazon Prime, Netflix all work well too.
In theory it also plays games - but Nvidia's game service isn't launched here in Australia, and I've not found a game on the Google Play store that's isn't outright terrible. Steam Link theoretically works, but none of the games in my Steam library are suited to play with a controller. Theoretically there's emulators for various consoles which I've seen people saying is excellent, but I've never been able to make any of them work.
Like just about any modern device - it does need to be rebooted occasionally, but for the most part it's just turn on and go.
I've basically disabled everything on my Shield, just leaving Netflix, Disney+, etc. activated and it's made it much more responsive and stable. I had the feeling some of my slowdowns were occurring as apps polled back home to see what content they should be displaying on the home screen, downloading thumbnails, etc. and sure enough, it's now zipping along like the old days.
Just to add to everybody else, I've had this box for nearly 6 years and it's as good as the day I bought it and has kept up with technology in an amazing way. 4K HDR with whatever surround format you throw at it is incredible. Especially as it acts as a Plex server in the background with no major power consumption. I seem to remember only paying £125 for it on an Amazon deal as well. One of my best tech purchases of all time.
But to be honest I miss Amazon's voice search. It worked much better to find thing from the Netflix and Prime Video catalogs than Google assistant does now.
And on the other hand I actually would like to get the new Google TV interface of the most recent Chromecast. It looks way prettier than the plain Shield home screen and its universal watch list sounds very useful.
Yours and responders' enthusiasm puts the shield on my list for if my roku stops seeing youtube.
> I don't know why they couldn't just raise prices and sell a device
This comment is exactly my feeling , and why for most products , is an unfortunate outcome of the reoccurring rev model.
edit: As pointed out below, Windows is implementing DRM via decoding in hardware, which WideVine (Google’s DRM layer) on desktop Linux doesn’t / can’t do, so there’s no special exemption here.
The LG C9 processor is quite powerful and extremely snappy. My HTPC is almost always an inferior option on that front. I would rather recommend someone buy something like the nVidia shield instead of an HTPC if they mainly consume content via streaming services. I still like my HTPC for other uses and it is also great for Zoom/Skype calls with friends and family from my living room.
[edit] by "audio" I mean, in particular, sending the right codecs to get surround sound for a particular source, when you ought to have it.
For 30~50 I can get a Fire TV that can plays for all the sources that I use (Netflix, Amazon Video, and Diskey+), and save on the electricity bill.
Chromecast with Google TV doesn't have TrueHD support, ethernet, 6/8ch PCM HDMI output, automatic frame-rate switch, game streaming (yes this is an obvious troll, but still it is true). nVidia Shield have those, and more.
Also, the Nvidia Shield is truly a lot better in terms of hardware and application support. Quite a lot of Chromecast "apps" are inferior to the Android TV versions that also run on the Shield.
I'm at the point where not only are the various set-top boxes and smart devices trash, but the content is as well.
I don't want to watch recycled stories from my childhood, but darker and grittier. I imagine good content exists, but honestly I just can't be bothered to hunt it down anymore, and then wade through the literal sea of ads required to watch it.
Finding great stuff is hard - but the less you watch the longer the good stuff lasts! The Office USA has been great for wind down entertainment.
I imagine every language has the same unique stories and content that will never be translated well enough.
The ad industry is a cesspool these days.
I cut those buttons off with a knife because I kept accidentally pressing them just by picking up or holding the remote, which would exit whatever I was currently watching.
I bought an LG OLED CX this past November. I was planning to hook a roku up to it. My experience with smart tvs in the past has been hugely underwhelming to downright unusable. But I've been more than happy with just using the apps on the LG tv. Your mileage may vary, but I have a good picture quality and I'm pretty happy with the remote. It allows me to program the keypad to hard-press them to launch an app of my choice. Additionally, they have their own channel offerings similar to Pluto.
I have heard great things about the Shield as well. That is probably the closest you can find to without building your own HTPC.
They're publicly traded, so selling only hardware makes their business model too predictable and 'low-growth' for Wall St. Also competitors could eat their lunch considering that their hardware isn't any more complex than a $50 Android TV box you can get at a flea market.
In order to create a moat to stave off competition, you make your business model all about 'services', with an increasingly less important hardware component.
I assumed it was the opposite: Roku decided, instead of merely selling neutral hardware, they'd make themselves some extra money by charging streaming services.
And that naturally means services disappearing - if Service A is paying you $1/user/month and you'd like them to pay you $2/user/month you gotta remove their app until they cough up.
Frustrating that the new ones don’t have an ethernet jack on them. WiFi in a condo or apartment building is unreliable and slow.
EDIT: Nevermind, they have official ones built into the power bricks! https://store.google.com/collection/accessories_wall?compati...
Netflix only supports 720p on Linux, and I believe Amazon Prime is limited to SD as well.
Disney+ doesn't support Linux, but works for me right now with a spoofed user agent, and claims to be 1080P. YouTube TV works fine without any spoofing, and also claims to be 1080P.
I don't know if Hulu works now, I haven't tried it in years. Vudu doesn't support Linux and I didn't try to work around it. Not sure about any of the other new services like HBO Max, or the CBS or NBC streaming services.
Moved to FireTV which has plesk as a downloadable, that allows me to view photos off my local network as I was doing before ... Plex is awful now, the UX is terrible for me (it's geared to viewing Plex's content, which I have never used nor wanted), so I moved to just using VLC (clunky for photo viewing but good enough).
We only use Netflix, Youtube and free catch-up channels and only have 1080p, but FireTV was/is way better than the Roku device was.
What's garbage about FireTV?
I've gotten used to it, and now that the new AppleTV is out, I probably won't even bother upgrading. Or if I do, I'm on the fence about it.
The Roku interface is easily the worst of the bunch.
Because "everyone else is doing it."
It's the reason that the entirety of the tech industry seems to be getting worse, not better. Outside of the people who get profiles in the Wall Street Journal, there are no real leaders, only followers now. And with the bloating of middle-management ranks, reliance on consultants, and fear of leaving the comfort of mediocrity, the lack of leadership only gets worse.
Amazon has the same business model as Roku with the Fire.
They don’t raise prices for a few reasons
1. People are cheap
2. Most of their installed based is now coming from cheap low margin TVs with Roku embedded.
3. Selling a device that people only replace once every 5 years isn’t sustainable.
There is only one company selling streaming devices at a profit - Apple. Have you noticed that every streaming provider is on AppleTV day one even though it has the lowest market share by far?
Streaming providers can just download Xcode, follow a few simple requirements (not link to their website for payments) and submit an app.
Before I get the standard replies, no streaming providers are not required to go through in app purchases and many don’t - including YouTube Live TV.
Also before I get the other retort. Yes they do have to work with Apple to be integrated into the TV app. Which is an app on iOS devices.
>1. People are cheap
This is always the answer. Or rather they can not raise prices, because then sufficient number of consumers will not buy the product.
Not many companies can survive with Apple's business model, but without the luxury Apple brand.
The fire tv and android tv both have ads/recommendations that take up more space, at least roku ads get in the way less.
I wish there was a kindle like option to pay and remove ads on all these devices.
I think you’ll be happy.
Apple's market cap: 2.212T
After owning quite a few internet appliances through the years (Roku,Fire,Shield,internet radios,Kindles,etc.) I've noticed that they one thing you can always count on working is a desktop/laptop PC.
edit: I notice that people above have also mentioned the Shield. Sorry for the repeat.
I keep wondering how long youtube will be standable. You can see the ads sneaking in bit by bit over the last few months (5 seconds with cancel, 2 x 5 seconds with cancel, 2 x 6 seconds with cancel, 2 x 6 seconds without cancel on one thing I watch. The worst has been firing up somebody's music list and getting a 5-10 minute(!) ad between each song).
I really should be getting to work on a hoard of videos stored locally. The days of 'free' entertainment are coming to an end.
Every time I see a comment like this, I get a jarring reminder that some people don't have uBlock Origin installed. Probably unavoidable on a "device", but like you say the PC is eternal.
It has all worked well except two things:
-The remote is inferior to the one that ships with roku. The touchpad you can get used to, but there are so few buttons and one of them is dedicated to just opening the apple tv app (even though we mostly use netflix / amazon).
-I signed up for paramount+ from apple tv's app, and then later needed to change my credit card number. They want me to open iTunes to do this. I can update my card number on the website, but seemingly to get that associated with my streaming subscription I need to use iTunes. Why a proprietary app on a closed platform is needed for something everyone else let's you use a website for is beyond me.
I'll say Apple is famous for their UX design, but something feels unintuitive with the remote and some of the UI choices. However, overall we've gotten used to it and it works well.
That button is configurable in the settings. I have it set to go to the home screen, which makes way more sense to me (and it's what it used to do before the Apple TV app existed).
Also there is a preference so that button goes to Home screen instead of AppleTV app.
You also have the option to buy the new remote separately and use it with your existing Apple TV:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.theverge.com/platform/amp/2...
If you buy a new Apple TV make sure you get the one that just came out with the new Siri remote, it looks much better than the old touchpad one that I think at best people tolerate.
With Chromecast, the dongle is actually just a remote-less streaming stick. So it streams directly from the server and the streaming app on your phone is the remote.
This appears to be about more than av1.
"we cannot accept Google's unfair and anticompetitive requirements to manipulate your search results, impact the usage of your data and ultimately cost you more."
The "ultimately cost you more" sounds like spin for requiring AV1 hardware support.
Roku I believe already has AV1 hardware support on their $100 device. I think they couldn't get it into their cheaper products.
On the other hand, Google doesn't seem to be leading the way in terms of hardware support despite making it mandatory for other hardware makers.
> Despite Google's internal zeal for AV1, when it comes to streaming hardware, Roku is actually doing a better job supporting AV1 than Google. The official scoreboard shows that Roku has one AV1-compatible device, the $100 Roku Ultra, while Google sells zero AV1 streaming devices. Google's newest, most expensive dongle, the $50 Chromecast with Google TV, does not have a chip that supports AV1. Google has made AV1 support mandatory for Android TV devices, but again, those are other companies' devices. Google should be leading by example here, but it isn't.
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/04/roku-vs-google-part-...
Are there any budget streaming solutions that have AV1 support?
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/04/roku-vs-google-part-...
I used to have one metered internet provider whose network crumbled when kids would be out of school and use would go up. I wonder if they mismanaged their finances or something to get into this state.
Sadly, more efficient codecs aren't going to decrease bandwidth enough.
I noticed that Xfinity, when you use a rented modem from them, will remove the cap for a small extra fee.
Av1 codec the content providers are pushing is 25% more efficient than VP9 in terms of bandwidth. Most people could stream 4K for and stay under the caps with the codec change.
My next device might just be Apple TV.
The CEO admitted as much on a ReCode (?) podcast.
You can not profitable provide a “good product” by selling a bunch of $25 sticks.
If you want to see what the real cost of these devices with margin would be, look at the comparatively ridiculously priced new AppleTVs.
That's quite over-powered for a device whose main function is decoding video which can be done in hardware rather than the main CPU performance.
The last generation came with 3GB of RAM which is also more than you see in TV devices. This generation might be 4GB.
Likewise, the remote is metal, comes with a scroll wheel, and is rechargeable rather than using AAA batteries like competitors.
I think the cost of Apple TVs is partly because Apple has decided to create a device with much better specifications. No other device is offering performance that rivals the best Android phones ever made.
I think part of this is that Apple is (half-heartedly) thinking of the Apple TV as a gaming device. They noted that you could hook up XBox and Playstation controllers to it during their keynote.
The real competition for an Apple TV is the NVidia Shield. The Shield TV costs $150 and the Shield TV Pro costs $200 - similar to Apple's price point, but with worse specs.
The Shield TV Pro is $200 and comes with 16GB of storage (compared to 32GB on the base Apple TV 4K at $180). The Tegra X1+ processor is no match for an A12. The cheaper ($150) Shield TV stick only comes with 2GB of RAM and 8GB of storage. It's hard to find Geekbench results for the X1+, but this (https://androidpctv.com/comparative-nvidia-tegra-x1-plus/) seems to indicate Geekbench 4 results of 1,300 and 3,700 for single/multi-core. The A12 hits around 4,800 and 11,000. NVidia is selling a competitor with less storage and way less processing power for more money (probably less RAM too).
I don't think one can compare a Roku or Chromecast to an NVidia Shield TV. The Shield will run circles around those devices. An Apple TV will run circles around the Shield. Some of it might be companies not having the same business model, but some of it will be the fact that the Apple TV is a device with way higher specs.
This doesn't hinder your argument though.
The competitive advantage for Roku was that they were able to be app agnostic.
IMO it was unauthorised access under the Computer Misuse Act (UK).
Moved to FireTV installed same app from app store; not sure who was to blame but both companies are on my naughty list.
I rip all my Blu-rays to MKV files complete with all audio tracks and subtitles. The only solutions - literally the only solutions I have - for direct play through Plex Media Server from my server across my network is NVIDIA Shield Pro or an Xbox Series X because they support 4K Direct Play.
I have been a fan of Roku devices since 2013 or so. To be forced to switch all the Rokus in my home to NVIDIA Shield Pros over the past year (the timeframe by which I built my media server) has been frustrating to say the least. $200 per device for a total of three devices.
I know $600 doesn't sound like much, and in truth, it isn't, but the fact I have to do this in order to enjoy the 4K Blu-rays I have purchased, at any time, in any room in my home, on multiple devices, is bothersome and feels like an unnecessary expense.
micro PC + some multi-launcher? I'm sure there's some 3rd party windows/Linux app that streamlines multiple services. Then add Plex server for any custom/downloaded media. It takes setup, but that's seems to almost always be the case; either a black box or assembly required (stability never guaranteed).
Perosnally, my "set top box" is a chromecast. and then localcast/airflow for anything that doesn't have chromecast support (all my subcribed streams do, fortunately). It's google so it's not really "unaffiliated", but as long as I can mirror a screen, I technically never have to worry about contracts blocking chromecasting.
I run Kodi, Freetube, and the native Netflix and Prime Video apps on mine.
Advantages are that I don't buy any hardware, I know it works with any streaming service, I don't need a smart tv, I don't need to struggle typing in passwords and search terms using a tv remote. And, not once have I felt - oh I wish I had a roku or chromecast or whatever, and something would have been better.
I no longer have HBO since AT&T owns it and pulled the channel from Dish.
I know some people might think "another TV-less life snob" but that's really not my point. Just tuck the TV in the closet for a month and see what you think. You'll have more fun. Honestly.
Maybe this is wrong.
Perhaps we, the demos should be demanding a sort of "least favoured nation" [do I mean 'most'?] deal where content owners have to make works available to all streamers at the same rate. Disney sell to Disney Streaming Channel? They also have to sell to $streamingChannel at the same rate, then people can watch copyright content without channels manipulating the market by restricting access.
Then, if they don't want to follow that rule we should say 'fine, no copyright for you'.
Seems fair to me. I'm already so over every streaming channel monopolising content.
This is entirely my personal opinion.
Big hitters like Netflix presumably negotiate custom contracts, but 20% is the standard rate.
It might be up to the content owner to decide where to distribute it, but the content owners may feel like some platforms are especially burdensome to distribute on.
You simply can't pull shit like this on the web (and I'm talking about both Roku and Google here, as well as all the crap Amazon has pulled before now). It's an open platform and it's one of the only places you can access all streaming services (I think?). But the web was never able or allowed to adapt to TV set-top boxes (if I recall Mozilla made a TV stick but like Firefox OS it went nowhere). It's a real shame.
Have a read: https://decoded.legal/blog/2021/04/the-eus-terrorist-content...
Genuine question, because I thought that this was only a requirement if you are trying to conduct business with EU.
But if you are only running your website for fun, for example, and aren't making any money off of it at all, would you still be in trouble for not following those EU guidelines (as a US resident)?
Yes and no. Yes, they all seem to be available, but not entirely as DRM implementations have varying support across browsers and platforms which currently just limits your access to HD content but could in theory limit you entirely.
The web is dominated by YouTube to an absurd degree, which is the root of the problem.
Look, I love the web. The web is awesome. But it's not a self-correcting mechanism. It's possible to build monopolies on the web, and once that happens, it screws over everyone and makes things move in a closed, proprietary direction. You can see examples of this everywhere.
YouTube TV is their offering for watching broadcast television channels over youtube.
Seems like those parties should be able to come to an agreement!
> What's next: Roku says it remains committed to reaching a good-faith agreement with Google
which makes a lot more sense in context.
[0] I tried things like LibreElec and other Linux-based solutions including just straight ubuntu and they always had sound issues when switching between Kodi and the browser. Yes, I did try both Pulse and ALSA. How is this still a problem in 2021?
As far as I can tell from the outside, it's because every company involved thinks that it owns the audience and thereby is in a position to sell it to any given counterparty.
I can well see Roku starting out with best intentions and then realizing that they're gonna have to play the game too if they don't wanna be priced out.
You can't really rely upon the average person shopping for a TV media player understanding the economics of content distribution. They'll get the device that looks cheap and good.
Consumer friendliness and investor returns are at odds with each other on this one.
I'm using Kodi (running on plain Debian, no specialized distro) on my HTPC/server, with Kore on my phone and a Firefox extension to send Youtube to my TV. It's more complicated than it needs to be, but with neither Google nor Apple opening up their ecosystem enough to have an alternative, it Works For Me (TM) as best as I can make it.
I still blame hardware manufacturers for any shitty Linux support because they're the ones with the ability to fine-tune their Linux support, or at least provide an audio interface. The fact that some people are running into trouble but others aren't implies that the hardware level support is once again the reason things are broken for some users.
As the hardware or service providers get greedy, they keep trying to extract more money from the consumer.
Not saying Roku got greedy, merely saying it could happen with the hardware or the streaming services themselves.
I don't have a great solution.
Back in the day, I was able to use Android Flash plugins on x86 Linux browsers by loading them with binfmt_misc. You might be able to use binfmt_misc in a similar manner with WINE.
Another poster suggested Edge, I'll try that, though honestly the entire process has just taught me how little I value the streaming services anymore, so I'm not super motivated.
I would pay good money for that service if anyone would fucking offer it! Gabe Newell nailed it long ago when he said that piracy was a service problem, but unfortunately nobody fucking listened.
It might be your hardware. I have a similar setup with an Ubuntu box hooked up to my TV, and I haven't had issues with sound when switching between Kodi and the browser. The last time I had issues with audio on Linux was over a decade ago.
There are USB sound cards that you can pick up for a few bucks, and it might be worth trying one out.
I do not wish to purchase new hardware for this trivial application. The hardware works fine in Windows, so I use Windows. I have no desire to spend the better part of a year researching and coding and convincing some kernel maintainer to merge my changes to fix the damn thing, nor do I wish to spend that time collecting logs and other debugging data for whoever maintains that driver so that they can completely ignore it.
I think if you spoof your user agent on your windows box you can use youtube.com/tv
https://9to5google.com/2019/09/16/youtube-leanback-tv-interf...
:D
Someone should inform their apps team then, as that recent "quality menu" change has all my devices bumping down to 240/480... On a network and devices that up until that point had flawlessly delivered 720/1080 without a hitch.
There is only a certain amount of RAM, and when it's all used up by thousands of coders writing new UI toolkits, there isn't enough RAM left and you're forced to have smaller video buffers and lower resolutions to prevent the app running out of RAM.
If I switch it back to 720/1080, There. Is. No. Issue.
No app crashes, no stalling out buffering, it works fine, just like last month, just like last year, and the year before that.
But now video starts in "potato quality" and nessecitates button mashing to get back to being watchable.
Imagine the connection from your ISP to youtube is 1 Gbit.
Thats 200 HD AV1 streams, or 100 MP4 streams, or 1000 Low quality streams.
If your device only supports MP4, then by you selecting HD, 5 other people have to watch in SD.
Youtube autoselects the quality to maximize overall enjoyment, but lets individuals override it. But by overriding it, you probably hurt other viewers experience (they will get auto-defaulted to lower quality).
https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/20/21187930/youtube-reduces-...
Honestly with how the UI of the menu is designed it reeks of one of the Googlers wanting to "be bold" to get a promotion/side transfer. changes for changes sake and nice padding on their CV.
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/auto-quality-for-y...
Hardware may be part of it, though.
Codecs also affect bandwidth. Videos in newer codecs often have a smaller file size which is less bandwidth to stream and smaller files to keep on their edge nodes. At the scale of Google and Netflix this is substantial and plays into their costs.
Google, via YouTube, has a history of only wanting to support the latest systems. I've had older devices where the YouTube app has gone away. This is a bit of forced obsolescence to push people to buy newer stuff. Not because they need it but for reasons outside the end users needs.
https://variety.com/2020/digital/news/roku-stops-selling-hbo...
That in turn means that more people in your neighbourhood (or a shared cable link) can watch video at the same time without lowering quality or buffering.
Now I'm getting AppleTVs but I suppose it's just a matter of time before they start the same thing.
I guess the underlying issue is the reliance on these large platforms (like YouTube etc), and how they can use access to their walled garden platform as a way to coerce independent commercial negotiations.
https://developer.roku.com/docs/developer-program/getting-st...
Why did they withhold support in the first place? I had assumed it was because they wanted to sell fire sticks. It's not in Google's interest to make Chromecast less capable.
I have a Roku and an Amazon Prime account. The account is based in the US, but right now I’m living in another country. The stuff that’s “included with Prime”, that I can watch without paying an extra fee, is completely different through the Roku and through a computer. It’s the same IP and the same account: I need to log in to Amazon through the Roku and through the computer. If I pay for a show on the web, I can not watch it on the Roku. I naively think that there should be no difference.
A possible workaround is to create a new separate Roku account from your new country and add it to your Roku, however beware this requires factory resetting your device. Also before doing so make sure Amazon Prime is available in your new country.
Also,if had a Roku tv, i would try and jailbreak my roku, or otherwise download an unofficial youtube app.
I'm not happy about it, but there we go. "bye Youtube".
Yes, I also realize that if I go into YouTube TV, then I also get my data scraped, but at least it's not shared across applications.
It does say existing customers can use the channel/app if it's there, but "don't delete the app" as it's not in the store.
An update to our YouTube TV members on Roku - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26996972 - April 2021 (71 comments)
Related from earlier this week:
Roku says it may lose YouTube TV app after Google made anti-competitive demands - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26942862 - April 2021 (396 comments)
Roku Warns YouTube TV Customers That Service Could Go Dark - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26942227 - April 2021 (84 comments)
It's not very clear, from the above sentence, that you exclude consumption of creative works. In any case, how do you draw a distinction between consumerism and consuming certain works?
It's ridiculous we are expected to buy a new phone every 1-2 years, a TV every 3-5 years, just to be able to consume mediocre media. Meanwhile the e-waste just keeps on piling up. I might just be a grumpy man but I just don't think Avenger movies are worth destroying the environment for.
Roku+YT was a great marriage: great platform, great content.
But if they get divorced, I gotta follow the content. Goodbye Roku.
It was more of 'web 2.0' thing.
Hook your service up to this other micro service and get a cool thing. It was one of the main selling points of web2.0.
But turns out your service is very dependent on that microservice.
I have seen this happen over and over in many products even completely free ones. Service X needs service Y. The people who own the machines for service y say 'hey this is expensive can you chip in?'... crickets. So they turn themselves into a paid for API, or turn it off. Suddenly service X can no longer function even slightly correctly without that service Y.
Had a neighbor that was mad someone was bulldozing a bunch of trees behind his house. He had even paid the builder of his house to 'live near trees'. But he however did not own them. The real owner decided something else was to be done with that land. The lesson? You dont own it, you dont control it.
(Not ignoring the capture corporations in the pre-Reagan world had on US foreign policy. However there wasn't the current religious dogma that concentrated corporate power is the only true form of freedom, and companies that went too far in harming societal interests were indeed checked.)
If Chromecast had an interface (which it might on the latest ones), that would be better.
I am liking the FireTV stick. It's small like the Chromecast, but has a really snappy UI and all the streaming apps that I need.
Just the other day I tried to chromecast it the FireTV stick and built-in chromecast in the Samsung TV. Failed on both. Eventually had to reboot the phone and the TV to get it to comply.
Another thing I hate while chromecasting YouTube. You can't change the video speed. If you start the video from TV's YouTube app, you can. But not if you are chromecasting.
Shield TV is a better device though, I'd recommend it. If you go Raspberry Pi/mini PC you don't have high enough DRM levels for a lot of services and the ones you do you'll get lower quality streams (again, see aforementioned requirement demands).
> Unfortunately, despite our best efforts, we have been unable to reach an agreement with Roku.
Given Roku's justification, I am pretty angered by the lie that Google is telling me. I'd be doubly angered if I was a Roku user.
Yes sure, Google, always the victim in these situations.
Also there is only one button at first I thought it was a directional button where you could move it up and down and press for selection. But pressing it once brings up the menu, pressing it again will move to the next item in the menu, holding it will turn the TV off.
Google wants the AV1 codec. It requires hardware decoders for low-power devices. This saves google a TON of bandwidth costs.
AV1 is actually royalty free available and praised by the industry.
Roku doesn't think that decoder chip will fit with their low hardware costs. Therefore wants to pass the cost onto google.
Neither Youtube nor Roku should have the final say in whether or not I connect to my own Youtube TV account from a Roku device. In a worst-case scenario, a 3rd-party client could be created and distributed by either Roku or by Roku's users (see projects like NewPipe on Android). But with Youtube TV, building that app would require breaking DRM, which would kill the project if it ever got any bigger than being someone's side-hobby.
My setup is all running through Roku's.
I run my Plex server, Dolby Atmos through an Ultra, and a tonne of other channels through 3 Roku's.
Youtube is the expendable link here.
They can up their negotiation game and strategy ... or become obsolete in our house.
It's the same with Sonos. I can't run or cast ad-based Youtube through Sonos either. Oh well. Am I going to give up Sonos? Nope.
Bye Youtube (?) ... Obviously their business doesn't depend on me, but weird to see a once favourite website so relegated ...
All I understand clearly is the end result as a customer.
And I'll switch away from Youtube far quicker than I switch away from Roku.
To be honest though, it doesn't feel that much of a loss. Youtube TV was always a "handy to have". Youtube feels made for mobile or PC. Again, weird to recognise that relegation in my mind, and just clarifies their weakness on actual TV's.
As for your final point. Accepted. If that starts happening, then over the medium term I'll transition to a different solution. But that's then, this is now.
Personally, sticking with real speakers from real audio companies that won’t force me into either fragmenting my setup or throwing stuff away.
I detested Sonos for that and tried to avoid them because of it, but no one has stepped up. Other multiroom audio solutions have sucked in my experience, so far. Maybe Bluesound stepped up, but that's it.
And, kind of agreeing with you, I do stick with real speakers from real audio companies ... I just get the amps and multiroom app from Sonos.
And, back on point, to not be able to do a simple cast of youtube to Sonos and, I'm guessing, potentially Roku, is just silly and I jetison Youtube because of it, not Roku or Sonos. Doesn't matter who is right or wrong, that's the impact.