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Comment by Animats | Hacker News Reader

Oh, joy. Another "TV OS" from an ad company.

How about a "TV OS" that isn't from an advertising company? People might pay for that.

For a short time I was thinking perhaps Ubuntu Core [0] could be such a thing. But the focus is different now (TVs perhaps never were). Still, Nvidia really mascaraed their shield line with (inappropriate at times) ads on its home screen, and they aren't even an ad company...

[0] https://ubuntu.com/internet-of-things

Ubuntu TV was such a shame that it basically was a tech demo, and died there.

TIL it's actually a thing [0]. It's not official (as in Canonical sanctioned) though, and relies on Unity (the old DE).

[0]

Putting Android TV into "basic TV" mode pretty much does that. Disable the internet connection for sure, but that's a cheaper option than going for those business display models that will charge you through the nose.

Android TV itself is open source, and I've seen a few people running LineageOS on their TVs. Anyone can make a TV OS based on it and it comes with an SDK already, but nobody is incentivised to do it.

You don’t even need to take Android TV offline. Just replace the ad-ridden launcher with ATV launcher, and remove the default one with adb. Also replace the youtube app with SmartTube. Very happy with this setup.

I didn't even bother using ADB with Projectify launcher from the Play Store (it just has a couple settings I needed to enable to take over the home button) and I haven't seen the default launcher once. I am using an Onn Pro 4k on my main TV (for Ethernet) and CCwGTV on the others.

Incredibly snappy setup with detailed customization options, I switched all my TVs over to use it. I also recommend Button Remapper to customize the remote app buttons to your liking.

> How about a "TV OS" that isn't from an advertising company? People might pay for that.

Then after the suckers buy it, boom! We update it to have ads.

Like the nVidia Shield.

The customers for this would be TV companies looking for a revenue share agreement.

Would they? People don't pay for shit.

It would be a feature on the TV, probably.

The long tail of the Internet theory says there's a market for it, but there are just so many sizes and the initial outlay is so expensive. I don't feel there's a big enough market for me to buy a bunch of TVs, reflashed them to not have adware, and then resell them.

What about an Apple TV-like set top box? Maybe an ASOP based replacement for Android TV ala graphine.

You mean like taking a Chromecast and putting it into "Apps only mode"? :)

It's a setting right there.

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