Apple TV Privacy over Roku?
Majestic @ Majestic @lemmy.ml Posts 0Comments 205Joined 2 yr. ago
Majestic @ Majestic @lemmy.ml
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Yes. An Apple TV will be about as private as you can get for something that supports mainstream streaming apps (running a mini-pc won't allow better than 720p quality and you'll struggle to get remotes to work, it'll be a clunky experience via web browsers often). It will be a lot better than a smart TV, especially a Roku who are among the worst.
If you want a bit more privacy consider running a pihole and redirecting DNS traffic at your firewall to your pihole or blocking all DNS traffic not from your pihole. I run a firewall solution that includes DNS redirection and blocking and there are a lot of measurement endpoints for streaming apps that you can block without the app breaking so that's another little ounce. This doesn't require a ton more effort though it is more effort it can be a set and forget type of thing. Importantly this does not block in-app ads.
For me the fact they don't have any ads is what sells me on it. I don't want ads on my homescreen. I don't even want them in the apps but getting that peace and lack of clutter on the homescreen is so nice.
Apple TVs are also just so smooth. Smart TV's feel sluggish and pathetic compared to how well everything just works on a device that's properly powered for the task and not constantly sucking up all your data.
Apple TVs also have a lot of Apple privacy settings though obviously some of them apps may not allow like many streaming apps require a location check at least intermittently for licensing reasons to prove you're still in the country but you can limit it as much as possible.
If you have a decent wifi network and you know you're not going to be streaming say homemade BluRay rips the wifi entry model is excellent (currently it supports wifi 6 and has a really good wifi chip). I personally run Plex and a media server so I choose the wifi+ethernet model to have the reliability of ethernet and don't regret it but it's understandable if your situation precludes being able to use a wired connection or you want to save the $20 extra they charge.
Bureaucrat governing specialists class seems to not be exactly the idea pf workers democracy. Socialism needs direct democracy in some form and not “representatives” that already live in a different reality.
Why wouldn't you want specialists in charge? You have a view of the world where a gardener and a clothing factory manager should have direct input on state medical policy? On foreign policy? On the details of implementation of an ecological plan to protect a distant region they've never visited? I hope you can understand that's absurd.
If I have medical problems I don't act like a crank and ask random cranks on the internet what I should do then listen to their nonsense advice to treat it with essential oils and eating nothing but meat for a month. I go to a medical doctor who has a degree and is certified. The doctor consults with me hopefully and explains what is going on, what they're going to do. what I need to do and gives me the chance to ask some questions to be informed.
People do not have time or energy to inform themselves about all the details of things in order to make rational, scientific choices on all policy while trying to do their actual day-jobs and enjoy recreation. That's why there exists the party and bureaucrats who help draft, debate, etc such things to achieve OBJECTIVES that meet the wants and needs of the people and who are answerable to them for the results.
Here is what Xi Jinping has to say on China's democracy: https://redsails.org/xi-on-democracy/
Here are some other pointers: https://dessalines.github.io/essays/socialism_faq.html#is-china-a-democracy
You likely have a chauvinism, a prejudice, a capitalist defined idea of this precious pure form of socialism that can never exist anywhere and never will. More specifically a kind of fetish for this ideal that you're convinced is the only acceptable goal (why? propaganda. Whose? western capitalists who claim their liberal system is closest to this ideal and therefore you should side with them until this perfect socialism they've depicted arrives (it never will), how convenient!).
A system is what it does. If the rulers of a place so fear the people they have to pretend to be communists and do everything communists would do to serve the people (a ridiculous notion I think) I fail to see a difference in outcome. It is outcomes we concern ourselves with. Marxism is not a religion. It is about results. Purity fetishism gets you nowhere, it makes you feel self-righteous and good but it doesn't feed kids, it doesn't lessen exploitation, it doesn't build a better world, it doesn't improve the lives of others. Communism is not a switch, it is a historical process that resolves contradictions over time but not immediately, it shall exist with contradictions just as capitalism has contradictions.
Not one bit. They've shown anyone who cares to look exactly who they are many, many, many times.
Being guilty of killing those two would be sprinkles on top of the mountain of their horrific crimes. It would be interesting only in that people would be more aware of the fact they killed a sitting president, that is that there were and almost certainly are elements in the US government who do not answer to the chain of command, who do not respect the purported institutions of US liberal "democracy".
Most likely he won't release anything meaningful. They've had decades to prepare a false narrative that looks better and didn't hesitate to destroy most of the MKUltra documents rather than turn them over.
Why not HEVC 10bit? We're quickly approaching the age of AV1 and HEVC has been on the scene for a decade now so might as well have a relatively recent codec and HEVC offers improvements of 20% bitrate reduction for same quality even for 480p content vs 264. Modern devices don't have any issues decoding it either even in software and open source encoders are mature enough. AV1 might be an even better bet but encoding time takes a really noticeable hit compared to HEVC and client device support still isn't entirely there, the encoders are also still a little more finicky than HEVC.
As to ripping DVDs to EAC3, I wouldn't.
Almost all DVDs are natively AC3 regular dolby digital. You can't add more quality by doing lossy conversions and the bitrates typically present for DVDs are low enough that doing a conversion to lower the bitrate doesn't really make sense. We're talking 512-640kbps for 5.1 audio (and 192 to 240 for stereo) which isn't unreasonable and the damage incurred in conversion to save say half that IMO just doesn't make sense with modern storage prices and the amount of storage being used for 480p content. You can easily save as much without damaging the audio by choosing HEVC10 as your video encoder. If you insist on doing a conversion for DVD audio I would suggest doing so to either AAC if you have a good encoder and know how to use it or Opus but I wouldn't recommend it (all TVs pretty much natively play/decode AC3 audio so given you're not saving that many bits you're just inducing degradation of conversion from AC3 to AAC/Opus and again back to AC3 for playback).
Now for BluRays I fully agree converting from those massive 2000-4000kbps DTS-HD MA, TrueHD, PCM audio streams to EAC3 at 640kbps for multi-channel audio can save a fair amount of space at scale and doesn't incur meaningful audio degradation (while offering equivalent quality to 1000kbps AC3).
Yeah as far as "just works" goes AppleTV with infuse is really high up there.
Support for all the lossless audio you want, dolby-vision, perfect framerate switching, etc. Either that or something like a Dune-HD box (no framerate switching bugs, lossless audio, DV, etc) or an NVIDIA Shield Pro (though the value of this last one is not great, hasn't been refreshed in years hardware-wise, more expensive than AppleTV, still has issues with framerate switching not working as well as the looming fact that it feels like Nvidia could kill it and its support off any year now).
Biggest complaint with infuse would have to be lack of extras support after people have begged for it for a decade. Other than that and having not quite as many sort options as something like Kodi/Libelec it's pretty great. It allows for directplay and pretty efficiently connects to Jellyfin, Plex, etc. You do have to pay for a pro subscription to infuse if your library has 4k/HDR/DV video or uses any audio codecs but AAC and FLAC as they even gate regular Dolby Digital behind payment (the patent on it has expired) and claim it's because they use the official Dolby SDK and have to pay for that. Not a lot of money admittedly, $12 a year, it's peanuts compared to what most spend on streaming services, less than the cost of one month ad-free anything.
As a leftist myself (communist)
Very, how do you do fellow kids energy from this comment.
I don't think I've ever interacted with a communist who would be upset about a lack of reactionaries in their spaces, they'd be relieved to have a place free of them and their ignorance and hate.
And the fact you think that "centrists" and "right-wing" are somehow not extremists (but this made up special category of MAGA which by the way is most conservatives in the US and in a lot of the world somehow is) tells me you are politely not really politically literate.
Liberals are reactionary enough in their excuse for genocide, you think for some reason we need space for not only them but the people who want to take away rights from trans people, who want to kill trans kids, who want to make women second class citizens, who are incredibly racist, war-mongering, anti-science, etc?
As much as I align with many of the views expressed here, I wonder if we’re missing out on valuable dialogue and perspective by not having a more diverse range of political opinions represented.
You can get that literally anywhere else offline or online, especially your home instance. You're not from a leftist instance but from the most reddit-brained, centrist neo-lib instance.
This is false equivalence, the idea that the left is too extreme and needs balancing with the right. Please just accurately identify your politics or don't bother mentioning them as we can easily guess them from a post like this.
Break me? No. Really depress my mood? Probably no longer having Plex and my media collection. If my hard drives and back-ups all spontaneously combusted right after a trade war drove their prices through the roof x5 or something and I couldn't afford to replace (and/or couldn't find any to replace because of shortages) I would be quite sad. Additionally I've worked quite hard to curate my collection so losing it entirely in the first place would be depressing because of the amount of work required to rebuild it, encoding, scraping hard to scrape rarities, setting the posters just the way I like them, etc.
"Foreign bad actors" Sigh. This is propaganda framing.
The fact that reddit is astroturfed by the US government, US actors like Hillary's campaign in 2016, etc is very well known. Reddit even did an oopsie many years ago admitting that the most active reddit city was a US air force base with influence operations located there, aka psyops, aka propaganda bots.
If it has foreign "bad actors" they don't control the narrative, they don't control the main big subs, they don't have an in with the admin team, they don't run even a large minority of bots.
If these mythical creatures people like you believe in (as a result of the US policy of always accuse your enemies of what you're doing to hide it better) to pretend that the problems are all those evil foreigners do exist they exist as grains of sand caught in a mighty torrential river of US propaganda machines and influence operations. They exist hopeless. Helpless. With no friends on the admin team unlike the US propagandists, fighting a pointless fight where they are almost certainly subject to frequent, near immediate bans after mass downvotes by controlled moderators and/or mods who just are that happy to prevent any viewpoint but the US one from existing.
Even framing your question like this is a massive pushing of US propaganda. This isn't so much a question as a weaponized trojan horse that starts from the point of view of the people who control the most bots and the narrative totally on reddit.
The only thing approaching foreign, non-US "bad actor" astroturfing and botting would have to be the zionist bot effort which is admin and main subs moderation team backed and also backed by the US government by the way who doesn't care to get upset about it or raise it as an issue and demand it stop because they're supplying weapons to that genocide.
I mean the way you state it is literally the line being pushed by US government censorship proponents who are angry any foreign voices, any voices but their own are getting through.
Incredibly offensive, racist propaganda bullshit. Pure invention by hateful, deranged minds paid for by US congress.
Let me start posting crazed stories about American congressmen going to schools and shooting the children in front of their parents. Perhaps that will even the odds. Closer to truth anyways considering the absolute tranches of human rights atrocities the genocide backing US government and their propaganda rags they call media cover for and cheer on.
Honestly I left reddit so I could get away from US state dept employees posting their weird fiction.
They’re US vassals. They don’t care about soft power just enriching themselves as much as possible while avoiding drawing US ire and being taken out back to be killed for competing too successfully. (See plaza accords when Japan did this)
In other words their power doesn’t come from a positive view by westerners but by loyalty to Washington’s geopolitical interests. They’re never going to change anything because they can’t overcome US-centric media and its power.
No amount of cultural popularity will help them if they’re turned into a villain for being a threat to the US’s interests. Similarly it’s not necessary for them to have good PR for soft power in the first place because of their subservient position. Their interests are tied to that of the US so displacing the culture power of the US with their own at no profit doesn’t benefit them and no individual corporation or capitalist is going to forgo profits for some vague hope of their country having more leverage as a vassal in 20 years.
Japan is viewed favorably because the US forced them to commit economic suicide in the 90s and the hate campaign let up. We are 35 years out from massive racism and fearmongering about Japan pushed by the media which relented and created this space only after they were brought to heel. Look how many Asian food places in the west still say “no MSG”. That was driven by western media reporting, racism, and fearmongering and clearly is still stronger than any anime fan feelings of positivity towards a normal ingredient.
Also wasn’t that guy their puppet dictator first leader who presided over numerous atrocities with a regime full of Japanese collaborators?
There is a certain smell of parallel construction. I hope his legal team is very thorough in examining every little detail, tearing apart time-lines of events, chains of custody, witnesses and find any holes at all in the public narrative if this is the case. One hopes that the parallel construction is in the way of they used illegal surveillance and intelligence capabilities to catch him and it could bring their whole case down, not in the way of they made up a claim that someone at McDonalds called the cops but really they were doing basic legal detective stuff tracking greyhound buses.
Trump can just order them to give him clearance not that it matters or Musk cares. His government dismantling is going to be pointed very far away from the military-industrial-intelligence complex and all of its grift and waste towards social safety nets, environmental safety, things that the government does that hinder the profits of a greedy polluter like him and help the average person.
If you just don’t like ads AppleTV works great.
That said if you’re set on something less locked down you might look into Dune-HD boxes. They have some that have a dual OS. One is Android TV (not sure how mod-able) the other is Linux that can have other kinds of apps. They’re virtualized and accessible without a reboot. They have great codec support. Just realize only some of their models have the Android TV dual system thing.
They haven’t updated the models since 2019 yet still charge the same full price on older chips and parts ($200 for the pro). The value proposition has collapsed especially considering they originally didn’t have ads but now do. So they’re just pocketing profit off the decreased costs since then. Frame-rate switching still doesn’t work right. Meanwhile Apple has eaten their lunch in the premium segment with price-dropped Apple TVs for $50 less which get active feature and hardware updates annually.
So I hope Valve does jump in. I’m doubtful the major streaming services would allow their apps unless Valve locks it down though. Though they could do what Dune-HD does and run Linux in a container and another OS for Android TV in another container or something.
Just be thoughtful. Accessibility is not seen as an excuse for breaking copyright. Take precautions.
Also if you’ve never done audio editing I’ll mention audacity the editor has a tool called “auto duck” that’s perfect for lowering the volume of other tracks in a mix when your select track with your voiceover makes noise To enhance clarity of it.
Full disc rips perhaps. Unfortunately many remux don’t bother to pass through such tracks (though some do). Some groups like qxr often but not always may include them when available. Thing is they only really exist for movies released in the past perhaps 15 years from what I’ve seen.
For NAS getting something used from someone upgrading to something bigger on eBay is often a good route. Just be absolutely sure the model being sold meets your needs. Do you plan to run software on it for instance? Check what it can comfortably run first.
For drives. Server part deals always has good prices. I’d recommend only buying the ones with 1-3 year seller or manufacturer warranty though which is most of them. Easily half the price per TB you find most places. $150 gets you 14TB there.
Never been implemented. It doesn’t exist.
Cables support it but zero devices made it to the consumer market and both devices would need to support it for it to work. It’s a dead standard from another era at this point. WiFi speeds have become so significant that there’s just no reason for the additional costs that would be involved.
I admit if half of the people out there who bought smart TVs started refusing to connect them to the internet and bought streaming boxes instead there might be an incentive for TV makers to try it but no incentive for streaming devices to help them do it and at that point it’s just easier for TV makers to require an internet connection or the TV doesn’t work.
They can block specific communities.
Previously there was this whole thing over lemmy world admins banning their piracy community so I would not be surprised if they were blocking certain dbzero communities as well out of their extremely cautious and risk averse nature.
Beware I have heard that the latest revision of the Onn 4k box locks down the bootloader and prevents people from doing this as they found out and obviously wanted that data. Specifically I believe only models from before 2024 (should be model number that indicates this) still work with this.