My Amazon TV Now Unmutes Itself During Prime Video Commercial Breaks | Hacker News Reader

My Amazon TV Now Unmutes Itself During Prime Video Commercial Breaks

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138 pointsMourYother97 comments

Would be good to know if this is actually true. From a comment in the thread:

> Assuming that you tested that this happening only during commercials. When you google the issue, it seems like a lot of other people are saying that it unmutes in general after 5 seconds, which matches what happened to you from the video.

Why would a TV need to unmute itself after 5 seconds?

Presumably it's a bug/defect in the TV.

While that is stupid and I would return such a defective product, there's a difference between "my TV's mute is broken" and "my TV specifically unmutes itself during ads".

For the same reason of Netflix requiring writers to announce what there characters doing. [0]

"I'm about to unmute the TV and watch an advert from Amazon"

[0] https://www.worldofreel.com/blog/2024/12/27/netflix-tells-wr...

It wouldn't, but could do as a result of a bug that has nothing to do with trying to force you to listen to adverts. My Apple TV box, AVR and TV between them sometimes seem to get into a state where the sound is muted and whenever I unmute it, it unmutes and immediately mutes again. I have to reboot the Apple TV box to get the sound to stay on again. So this sort of thing does happen.

Funny how the bug is not muting the TV during commercials, eh?

You did not read the thread.

Its like this Chrome feature where it doesnt wait for Extensions to load on cold start thus will happily display all the Ads on the first page loaded.

I may be dating myself, but there was a time when you could buy a TV and not have to worry that something as basic as volume control might have a software bug.

So you're right - it may not be a nefarious thing related to ads, but for people like me, that's an irrelevant detail. I don't even want to think about buying a TV that can't get volume control right.

I get your frustration with bugs but, what TVs (or any other consumer electronic product) aren’t reliant upon software for basic system control nowadays? Hardware isn’t inherently bug-free and the “quality” of old hardware is usually due to its narrow scope of functionality; the ability to (theoretically trivially) modify software means that hardware can/does become better/more capable. I see so many folks complain that software makes everything worse but I also see so many products that become more capable due to regular software updates. It seems like we can either build things that are “reliable” yet limited in functionality, or we can build things that are “buggy” but capable of evolving with expanded functionality.

> what TVs (or any other consumer electronic product) aren’t reliant upon software for basic system control nowadays?

How many of them can't get basic volume control to work?

Yes, the fact that modern TVs are so filled with SW is one of the reasons I haven't upgraded my TV in 15 years. More importantly, can anyone explain to me the benefit of these TVs (other than display) compared to the old ones? What smartness in modern TVs can I get that's important to me that I can't get via a Roku or similar device?

> Hardware isn’t inherently bug-free and the “quality” of old hardware is usually due to its narrow scope of functionality;

Same question as above: Why not have narrow scope? What expanded scope in new TVs is actually something I would care for?

And I've never come across a "HW" TV that failed at the very basics. I've never had to return one for a recall. One of the things that makes adding SW to any device really crappy is the "ship now, fix later" mentality. And a lot of things often never get fixed (e.g. my old, ATI video card had features that were broken in Linux, and they never got around to fixing it - never bought ATI/AMD cards since).

> the ability to (theoretically trivially) modify software means that hardware can/does become better/more capable.

Until the manufacturer stops supporting it. I recall when I bought my (dumb) TV, smart TVs were just coming out, and most of my friends opted for smart ones ("it already has Netflix"). Fast forward less than 3 years, and they all switched to Roku or something similar because the TV apps either sucked or stopped working.

Owning a TV is something one should be able to do for over 10 years. Can you guarantee that most of the nice features on your TV will work more than 10 years from now?

Likewise, I should be able to buy a 10+ year old used TV and have basic stuff just work without having to register, etc. If it doesn't, then these manufacturers are simply adding much more waste to the ecosystem than the dumb ones did.

(As you can guess, I have often bought old, used TVs and never had trouble with them).

> What expanded scope in new TVs is actually something I would care for?

I think this is the crux of our confusion; you may not desire the expanded functionality but others certainly do. You can suggest that manufacturers force unwanted functionality onto consumers but I have trouble accepting that premise unless admit our own complicity; maybe I’m part of that problem though.

> Owning a TV is something one should be able to do for over 10 years.

Again, that’s your preference and the choice you’ve already made; I choose to not set arbitrary time limits but instead make decisions on purchasing new TVs (and other non-essential products) depending on the available technologies and toys—and, of course, the girth (if any) of my wallet . We have different preferences, we make decisions based on those preferences, yet—as far as I can tell—we are both satisfied with our choices; why complain about a system capable of implementing a bug that doesn’t affect us?

> Can you guarantee that most of the nice features on your TV will work more than 10 years from now?

Almost certainly I can. There are both massive and minuscule communities, aftermarket solutions, and DIY makers/hackers/activists that focus on all kinds of technologies and products dating back over a hundred years. The original iPod is 25 years old and yet there are still folks making firmware updates for it. The Commodore 64 has a multitude of projects, products, communities, and marketplaces to keep the product alive — nearly fifty years after it was released! There are literally thousands of examples. Interestingly, and calling back to my original point, these kinds of secondary markets are only possible because of those products’ use of a combination of quality underlying hardware and user-updatable/modifiable software—well, and that nerds like us dig breaking things.

>What smartness in modern TVs can I get that's important to me that I can't get via a Roku or similar device?

Only you know what is important to you, but I like automatic volume levels, for example. I stayed at AirBnB a couple years ago, which had some commodity TV (Vizio?) w/o automatic volume and learned they still do loud commercials. My home TV keeps volume at the same audible level during commercials. Same with auto-brightness, I get nice image all through the day and night illumination levels in the living room. Voice control is handy when you don't live alone so other people may have a remote at the moment or it could take some time to find.

Apps on my 6 y.o. TV still work just fine, I don't need to attach devices to a TV, which neatly hangs on a wall without things hanging from it. The TV is running Android so it will keep updating from the Google's app store as long as the app vendor keeps maintaining it.

Of these, the only thing I would like is automatic volume control, and HW only versions have existed for a long time.

Auto-brightness - I put in a lot of effort in setting the brightness/contrast, and would really not want some SW messing it up.

Voice control - couldn't care less (and yes, I do own voice assistants and use them).

Something claiming to be X doesn't mean it's X at all least good at being X. This option on tube TVs that I had never worked for commercials, works so well that I don't notice it on a "smart" TV.

If you don't want auto-brigntness you don't have to enable it. I have a hunch that a TV sets it better (just for the reason that you are unlikely to adjust every time you turn lights on and off) but tastes do differ indeed.

That's still not good. If I mute the TV, it shouldn't unmute itself. It should stay muted until I unmute it.

There's a big difference between a bug that slipped through during a release or two and an actively user-hostile design decision

I agree. The bug is bad enough - it would be an appalling QA failure. The design decision is much worse - maybe worthy of a class-action lawsuit.

So: Is it a bug, or is it a deliberate "feature"? Is there any evidence, one way or the other?

To the end user, there is very little difference. It's not doing what the user expects, regardless of intent or lack of intent on the part of the manufacturer.

For people like me, that's an irrelevant detail. I don't even want to think about buying a TV that can't get volume control right. It's a basic feature that should never break - and one shouldn't have to wait for a firmware update.

Or maybe until you turn it off and on again.

Yeah, I also strongly suspect that this is either a software bug, or something is wrong with the remote. Here is an issue which seems to hint at a hardware problem: https://www.amazonforum.com/s/question/0D56Q0000DailmRSQQ/mu...

> But if I press the mute button real hard, it mutes. Same with unmute: if I press it real hard it unmutes. If I press the button normally, it mutes for 2-3 seconds and then unmutes on its own.

Another issue when a soundbar is connected:

https://www.amazonforum.com/s/question/0D56Q0000DkFJCFSQ4/fi...

> Same behavior. None of my FireTVs will stay muted when hooked to a soundbar via HDMI/earc. This is software related to a FireTV update in the last year as it is happening on all firetvs despite the soundbar bar and did not have this behavior when initially set up.

What do you mean "My TV"?

Same way that people refer to a house under mortgage as “their” home.

Edit: How about a rental in a building with ads in the elevators?

They do own the house. The mortgage holder has a security interest in the property.

Your idea of ownership is simplistic. Around me, the local government owns the home as can be easily found out if you don't pay your annual rent called "property tax".

Even if you are not a homeower, you still are not free and clear...

I would say that _your_ idea of ownership is simplistic. You seem to be implying that ownership is only possible if you can own something in perpetuity without any related responsibilities. It's the same idea as "taxation is theft" and other libertarian nonsense.

> and other libertarian nonsense

Hacker News subtitle

I'm not a libertarian by any means, nor do I think of tax as theft.

But if someone can legitimately take away property because you don't pay them, I don't think it's yours.

Which is why that’s an extremely simplistic view. It’s literally the simplest possible idea of ownership.

Well, it's certainly less simplistic than "I claim I own it therefore I do"

And if that was an actual statement people made, then you'd be right to say that. However, I think we can dispense with the strawman. Ownership exists in the real world, which means it necessarily conforms to the laws of the society in which it resides. Your view is a child's perspective on ownership.

You mortgage your TV?

in the UK people used to rent TVs, a company called "Radio Rentals", and in the days when TVs were unreliable it made sense - you paid a fixed amount per month and got a working TV in return. A service like any other.

That was more akin to renting a house though, rather than borrowing money to buy a house.

My stepfather did this and paid for his ancient TV many, many times over. You'll do this with a mortgage too, of course, but to a much lesser degree.

Not really with a mortgage, as you're not looking at the fact $1 today is more valuable than $1 tomorrow.

Very very different, and something which lets the advertising industry of the hook

Another step closer to that one Sony patent being realized: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/sony-patent-mcdonalds/

> PLEASE DRINK VERIFICATION CAN TO CONTINUE!

In case someone else didn't know where this was from, like myself - it's a green-text from ~12 years ago:

[1]: https://imgur.com/please-drink-verification-can-dgGvgKF

Advertising is a virus. It will take over all ecosystems.

If it wasn’t effective it would go away. Enough people out there are actually clicking on these things to be profitable. Who are they? I’ve literally never clicked on an ad in my life. I’m pretty sure no one I know has also (I hope) so who are these people clicking and paying.

Even if you don't click it, you still receive the message. A big part of marketing is repeating the same thing over and over again in multiple forms so it sticks with you long enough to inform a purchasing decision.

I have so many things lodged in my brain from TV adverts in the 1990s, I'm confident that I make purchasing decisions skewed by those.

Ultimately in a fight between a trillion dollar brainwasher and me, I'm going to lose.

go ask anyone who uses tiktok or instagram regularly, literally everyone woman/femme person i know who uses either platform has bought stuff off of it before

I don’t think OP is saying it’s not effective. It can be a virus and effective. The point is more about the consequences.

As someone who worked in the ad measurement space for over 15 years: we have no idea what is effective. Advertising measurement is a morass of misaligned incentives.

The marketers at a company that buys advertising do not get their bonuses because of effective, accurate ad measurement. They get their bonuses because their advsrtising "worked". How do they know it worked? By hiring a third party wo uses statistics to estimate an almost entirely unobservable thing: how many widgets were bought that would not have been bought in the absence of advertising.

Well guess what, there are many vendors that offer these "measurement" services, and when you debut a provably more accurate measurement methodology than your prior one, but the results are lower than the less accurate one? You lose business to companies that give better (i.e., higher) results.

This is easily solvable: ad measurement should be accountable to the CFO and not the CMO. The CFO cares if advertising wastes money; the CMO gets their bonus if the advertising "worked".

A few years ago, Freakonomics Radio [1, 2] had a very good 2-part overview of recent ad research done by the University of Chicago [3] and other academics. Their research, which is divorced from the same misaligned incentives I cited above found that ad effectiveness is vastly overstated. At that year's advertising research industry conferences, where some of the academics were invited to speak, they were pilloried by the research heads at some of the biggest people in the ad research industry.

It's all super fucked.

[1] https://freakonomics.com/podcast/does-advertising-actually-w...

[2] https://freakonomics.com/podcast/does-advertising-actually-w...

[3] https://www.chicagobooth.edu/review/why-power-tv-advertising...

I'll add a little more: the vast majority of statistical tools used in ad measurement are basic basic things that have zero hope of extracting causal relationships between ad exposure and behavior. Even many of the more advanced tools have issues with the fact that advertising is usually targeted in one way or another, thereby creating a bias in your test group.

Add to that the fact tbat advertisers commonly time their ad spending with times of peak seasonality or big sales, thereby creating all kinds of endogeneity problems gor a would be statistical researcher. Third, consider the walled gardens: so much advertising happens in them that it is nearly impossible to get a full view of whether your control group is truly unexpsoed to advertising. Fourth, there are vast difficulties in linking online behavior to brick-and-mortar purchase outcomes. Finally, consider the notion that the advertisements qnd advertised products themselves change quite frequently: the results of one ad study are not necessarily applicable to future behavior.

As i said: we really have no idea beyond very basic notions what truly works and what doesn't. Some advertising very likely works; others very likely dont.

I appreciate the insight. What would you say works? Also do you have a blog? I would like to read more about this from an insider's perspective.

Isn't it a subset of the problem of "excessive, continuous profit maximization is a virus", and advertising is just one obvious manifestation of it? Maybe we need social ventures along the entire stack of hardware, software, and cloud platforms? And then group buys for licenses to and streaming of media?

Rational agents offer information hoping to persuade their counterparties?!?!

if it were an offer, then i could choose not to be exposed to it.

I'm surprised we haven't seen the "AI-powered" uBlock Origin of video yet. Not blocking by the web request but rather by analyzing the video signal itself.

Or even a nice appliance-tier solution. I want to buy an HDMI splitter that when it sees an ad coming through Input 1, switches to Input 2. Switches back to Input 1 when its over.

For folks still stuck with cable TV this is Nobel Prize territory.

I've looked multiple times for something like this that I could load onto my nvidia shield, but nothing seems to exist.

There is a tool available for chromecast that works very well, but my ideal solution would be an app I can load onto the shield that auto-mutes during ads and un-mutes when the ads are finished.

If I didn't already have my hands full with side projects, I'd dig into this on my own time.

I agree even just an auto mute functionality would go a long way.

People used to hack on this stuff decades ago. I suspect it's not as common now because for those who care (said hackers) they already cobble together some ad blockers and pi-holes. But ad delivery has stained so much daily life now they've sweetened the pot for a new generation of, not ad blockers, but... video shields?

I might have talked myself into tinkering on this. Curious what tools HN recommends.

Can you point me to that chromecast tool or tell how it worked?

I'm in the process of releasing a video player with adblocker for live IPTV on android that can definitely auto-mute the whole adbreak for you if you watch the stream in the player (see my previous comment for link).

But if you are suggesting a system-wide mute triggered by a dormant app as another live broadcast plays in some official app then that's easier in some respects and harder in others because people need to trust the data is accurate. Once we have enough users sharing accurate adbreak data (powered by accurate software with human corrections) we can offer a system-wide mute for ads in any other app playing those known broadcasts.

These SBCs like Radxa ROCK 5 have HDMI in and out, and a good amount of processing power. If it weren't for HDCP, we might see some OSS solutions in the next couple of years.

SponsorBlock[1] does a pretty good job of skipping inline adverts and similar stuff on YouTube. It is, however, crowdsourced rather than using machine learning (so far as I am aware).

[1] https://sponsor.ajay.app/

Nice for sure. Until then: pay for sub, never use it, grab content from ‘other sources’.

Apps like https://overseerr.dev make it incredibly simple for household members to request content.

This was an ancient feature that was used when DVR/PVRs were popular to remove ads from recorded files. IIRC it used a heuristic to see if things matched but commonly it would just key off of obnoxious volume.

A guy at work mentioned using one of these on a football game and it reduced the runtime to like 45 minutes.

Arguably we have the RI-powered uBlock called Piracy

Super universal.

The whose a what?

We've built an android video player that lets you adblock live IPTV [1]. It does exactly as you describe and more. Just endlessly avoids ads going from A->B->C->A and helps you update what plays instead of ads with ease. A passive hardware solution is certainly the endgame, we got enamored with adblock at the codec level as lets us add all the extra worthwhile UI features that should be inside of an innovative linear TV player.

[1]: https://relaxoplayer.com - join waitlist for link to beta apk.

Buying electronics from Amazon means getting ads -- and always in the most obnoxious way possible.

I got a Kindle Oasis as a gift /w lockscreen ads, and it's unbelievable how annoying and embarrassing they are, and many are for AI-generated gibberish. And that's a Kindle. Now just imagine living with an Amazon TV...

Not to excuse the ads, but apparently it's pretty easy to scam their customer support into removing them for free. Just send a support message saying the Kindle belongs to a kid and you're concerned about them seeing inappropriate ads, or something along those lines.

No scam required, if you ask nicely they are usually happy to. Not always, but you could always try again with a different agent.

If not that, a relatively small fee will remove the ads. I believe it's under $20, one time.

Thanks. That's a good tip. And not even much of a scam: I do have a kid who uses the device, and they do push ads for vaguely pornographic romance novels. (Though I've never read a romance novel in my life...)

They'll probably come back when the next update is pushed. That would be my bet, anyway.

Or just buy the non advert infected one.

> Buying electronics from Amazon means getting ads -- and always in the most obnoxious way possible.

Customer obsession at its finest.

https://www.amazon.jobs/content/en/our-workplace/leadership-...

ProTip: If you download Prime video content and then watch it downloaded, it doesn't have commercials. Not sure if you can do that on their TVs, but seems to work fine on my Android phone and Fire tablet.

Note: I haven't tried it for ~3 months, I just stopped watching Prime content. With as easy as this is, it's easier to use other providers that don't do this, and their user experience was already pretty bad. Searching through for something to watch and then finding I have to pay $15 to watch it is so annoying.

> Not sure if you can do that on their TVs

You can't.

ProTip: If you cancel prime then you don't see any prime adverts.

I love paying for content. I'm not going to support double-dipping.

I did the math last year, and with the discount on things I buy from Amazon cancelling Prime would cost me hundreds of dollars per year. So for me, cancelling Prime wouldn't send the signal that I'd want it to. As far as not purchasing from Amazon to being with, nobody else is even close, sadly.

The prime discounts are fake. Cost compare to Walmart. Their shipping is also free and fast. I hate Walmart, but I hate them slightly less than Amazon.

I have tried that in the recent past and not found that to be the case. There were no obvious wins in the things I get regularly, and quite a lot of things I get on Amazon just aren't available on Walmart, or if they are they are quite hard to find. For example, a recent purchase of "Fresh Roast" decaf whole bean coffee is over 10% more expensive on Walmart ($27.95 vs $24.25). A Milwaukee track saw blade is $58 vs $37.

As you say, not that Walmart is better than Amazon, but it would be nice to have some more competition to Amazon.

I'm amazed that any technically proficiet user would EVER buy/connect such a device.

Really, it's baffling.

I do have a fairly large Samsung TV, but I would NEVER EVER connect it to the internet. HDMI only is the way to go, with your own device driving the interface. I basically use it as a monitor, even when watching video.

The trend in life seems to follow the trend in s/w development: there seems to be an effort to maximize external dependancies.

This isn't going to end well...

thats amazing, we've finally arrived at our destination, "shittopia"

I wish we had arrived.. I think we are just getting on the way

All the stops for some time have been for Shittopia.

You can loiter a bit more though if you like, it looks like there will be plenty more stops for Shittopia. (We might in fact be on the Shittopia Line.)

Spotify paused its adverts if you muted or turned the volume down back at least a decade ago.

While I fully believe Amazon to be capable of making such an atrocious product it could also be that the "mute" function is broken in it's entirety (i.e. unmuting after a couple of seconds). The person just hasn't noticed because they only use the mute function during commercials.

Like all the worst reddit threads, the person who posted it does not seem to have engaged with it at all. I cannot find a follow-up comment from them. That suggest to me that they are overplaying the issue.

Very Black Mirror indeed: "View Obstructed - Resume Viewing". From the episode Fifteen Million Merits.

Pretty soon we'll be seeing McDonald's product placement in the next shitty Lord of the Rings season.

Frodo's eating a green-screen-like blob that your TV erases to add in a Big Mac. The car Vin Diesel is driving gets automatically replaced by the 2035 Audi. The actor just mumbles a thing, and the TV replaces it with company names in the actor's voice.

McFrodo has a nice ring to it.

I am so, so tired of what technology has become, and it’s far from over yet.

At least on the software side I can focus on the small web and applications from independent folks with no intent to abuse.

Hardware is much harder. I’m glad I can still disconnect my TV from the network and watch everything through an Apple TV, but I don’t expect that to last forever. A TV that refuses to work without an internet connection or Apple slipping further into “services” and crapping ads everywhere like Amazon and Google are both futures that seem perfectly plausible. I hate it so much.

I tried to replicate this and couldn't. I think this might be the straw that breaks the camel's back for me re: Prime Video if it turns out to be true though.

Saw a meme yesterday of new Discord feature where it automatically unmutes itself upon detecting sound of a Fart, and then this Amazon TV news drops. Life imitates art.

If true, yet another reason why I'm glad I ditched Prime Video.

I noticed that FireTV Sticks now autoplay ads on launch without an option to disable that. For such setups, I'm likely to replace them with Apple TV (not perfect, but better) that aren't naked ad-delivery platforms like they're trying to copy something from a dystopian sci-fi movie.

Also, it wouldn't work on my main setup because it uses a soundbar that's only controllable by an IR remote. I would be willing to bet that it sends an HDMI CEC signal to unmute stereo receiver volume levels too.

The slow motion advertising apocalypse is coming. Eventually, the advertisers will realize that it doesn't work and people largely ignore it, the content providers will force you to watch the advertisements to get at the content, which people will hate, and which may inevitably come full circle to paywalls for greater content. Until then, we endeavor to build a better ad blocker.

Problem is I don’t think that’s actually true.

The being forced to watch ads part has already started. Streaming has introduced unskippable ads, which we don't have with cable DVRs. It's naive not to think that will become the norm, they're not going to leave money on the table. They know customers won't leave.

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