Roku is exploring ways to show consumers ads on its TVs even when they are not using its streaming platform: The company has been looking into injecting ads into the video feeds of third-party devices connected to its TVs, according to a recent patent filing.

This way, when an owner of a Roku TV takes a short break from playing a game on their Xbox, or streaming something on an Apple TV device connected to the TV set, Roku would use that break to show ads. Roku engineers have even explored ways to figure out what the consumer is doing with their TV-connected device in order to display relevant advertising.

    • BradleyUffner@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      13
      ·
      3 months ago

      Read the incoming video signal from an HDMI input, inject and render an ad over top of it (like a lower 3rd banner for example), and display it on your screen.

    • Draconic NEO@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      3 months ago

      Probably injecting the ads into blank screen periods.

      Maybe we should bring back screensavers, would really fuck with devices like this that look for blank screen time that would simply never occur.