A patent application from the company spotted by Lowpass describes a system for displaying ads over any device connected over HDMI, a list that could include cable boxes, game consoles, DVD or Blu-ray players, PCs, or even other video streaming devices. Roku filed for the patent in August 2023 and it was published in November 2023, though it hasn’t yet been granted.
The technology described would detect whether content was paused in multiple ways—if the video being displayed is static, if there’s no audio being played, if a pause symbol is shown anywhere on screen, or if (on a TV with HDMI-CEC enabled) a pause signal has been received from some passthrough remote control. The system would analyze the paused image and use metadata “to identify one or more objects” in the video frame, transmit that identification information to a network, and receive and display a “relevant ad” over top of whatever the paused content is.
Just do it. I ripped our DVDs and put them on my NAS with minidlna configured, and I can now stream my stuff directly to my TV through the “Photos and Videos” app. My other TV has a Raspberry Pi running Kodi, so if my next TV doesn’t support dlna, I’ll just do that.
Screw all of these companies and their predatory practices.
Jeff Geerling discusses having done the same, in one of his videos.