My Amazon TV Now Unmutes Itself During Prime Video Commercial Breaks

[modwilliam]

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.

[xattt]

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

[lqet]

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.

[AnimalMuppet]

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

[madmulita]

What do you mean "My TV"?

[xattt]

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?

[jsheard]

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

[jasonjayr]

> PLEASE DRINK VERIFICATION CAN TO CONTINUE!

[drawkward]

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

[magic_smoke_ee]

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?

[arresin]

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.

[nh23423fefe]

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

[gausswho]

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.

[theage]

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.

[qwertox]

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.

[nhance]

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.

[reginald78]

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.

[DamnInteresting]

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/

[pixxel]

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.

[MourYother]

Arguably we have the RI-powered uBlock called Piracy

Super universal.

[A_D_E_P_T]

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...

[jsheard]

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.

[BeetleB]

> 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-...

[linsomniac]

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.

[ta1243]

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.

[Mindwipe]

> Not sure if you can do that on their TVs

You can't.

[johnea]

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...

[cowboylowrez]

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

[Dansvidania]

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

[JKCalhoun]

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.)

[afandian]

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

[jsiepkes]

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.

[oneeyedpigeon]

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.

[c64d81744074dfa]

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

[mrichman]

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

[ryanianian]

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.

[pryelluw]

McFrodo has a nice ring to it.

[deergomoo]

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.

[apalerwuss]

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.

[rasz]

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.

[magic_smoke_ee]

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.

[Molitor5901]

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.

[matthewmacleod]

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

[Insanity]

That is a bit of a condescending comment. But that said - I am not convinced other companies like Samsung and LG are meaningfully better.