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Sony Appears To Be Blocking Kodi On Its Recent Android TVs (androidpolice.com)
Several reports indict that at least some of Sony's recent Android TVs are actively blocking Kodi, the open-source, cross-platform streaming and media player that allows you to access and play local, network, and remote content. Android Police reports: The official Kodi project Twitter account pointed out Sony's deficiency a couple of days ago, but reports on the Kodi forums of issues installing and running the app from the Play Store go even further back to last year. A handful of affected enthusiasts believe they have discovered the cause of the problem: Sony seems to be blocking the package ID for the app from being installed/run. Supporting this theory is the fact that recompiling the app from scratch with a different ID allows it to work.
it is Sony tv not your tv
For the illusion of protecting their revenue from their content division? This is my shocked face.
Sony hardware used to be great. Used to be. Now it's overpriced compared to a dozen competitors. No reason to buy it.
Fuck those fucking fuckers.
remember when beating the DRM nazis was as easy as photocopying the manual to answer page/line prompts?
- In Soviet Korea, only old people loose all their bases to Natalie Portman's petrified hot grits overlords.
Return the defective product.
If proven consumer affairs need a big yellow warning label on their product reporting said limitations and or telemertry - which is probably also baked in.
Then a class action to compensate for the time in returning and setting up a different brand.
Last Sony gear I bought was a PLM-A35 when they released.
- In Soviet Korea, only old people loose all their bases to Natalie Portman's petrified hot grits overlords.
The only reason I bought Fire Sticks was to run Kodi. I'd be royally pissed if Amazon pulled the same crap as Sony.
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DRM is like antifreeze, to the MPAA/RIAA it's sweet, to the consumers it's poison.
especially smart ones. I guess it's a Ford/Chevy kind of loyalty.
When SONY made 200lb 30+inch CRTs they were pretty good.
Nowadays, SONY is overpriced and under performs compared to most other vendors/.
And don't get me started on "smart" televisions.
I'd much rather toss a $100 media box when it becomes useless than have to bypass all the smart features by blocking a tv on WIFI after updates are discontinued (and still have to buy a media box).
Over time tvs also stop being powerful enough to run updated software that works on media boxes, tablets or smart phones.
If a tv doesn't have at least 2GB of memory, don't call it "smart".
Oh and please don't even bother with other integration like alexa/siri/google... voice spying "services" or usage/metric reporting back to the mothership. /RANT off
I stopped using any of the smart TV features on my TV over the summer. I got a refurb small form factor PC and plugged in the HDMI to my TV. Windows is a little clunky, but it runs way better than whatever was on my TV. Runs Netflix, Plex, tons of web browser based TV channels, and anything else you would ever want on your TV. Easily connects to a VPN and can even run a bunch of games. I tried a couple Android boxes, but they were terrible and there was a bunch of apps that just didn't run. I don't think there's a smart TV or other TV box that beats having an actual PC hooked up to your TV.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
It's not like it's difficult to get an Android TV box. Amazon is overrun with a bunch of Chinese-made Android TV clones, with all of them happily running Kodi. After I cut my cord last year I bought three of them. Three different ones. I wanted to compare and see which one was better (in case anyone wonders, I liked the GooBang Doo one the best -- yes, that's a real name).
So, all that Sony has accomplished here is that millions of people are going to be making a mental note to skip Sony, and go with somebody else. If the Sony ones are carried on Amazon, I expect to see a bunch of one-star reviews popping up, complaining about Sony blacklisting Kodi. Should be interesting to see if Amazon decides to censor the reviews, and with what excuse -- after all, the reviews will be factually correct.
Great job, Sony. You haven't learned a thing from your Betamax days. Like with Betamax, Sony is ignoring what their customers want, because they think they know better. Their customers wanted to record football games and movies that run for 2-3 hours. So, Sony was convinced that Betamax recorders, with one hour tapes, will be good enough.
Similarly, Sony is now convinced that their customer do not, I repeat, do not want to run Kodi on their Android TV boxes, and that they, Sony, should helpfully make sure of that. Good luck with that.
The problem is many still remember the days of the trinitron where they were actually a premium brand but you got one of the best quality TV's for the money. They don't realise Sony is no longer the leader in Quality or performance but they look at the prices and think they must still be the best as they are extremely expensive. They just don't know that Sony now trades on their name from quality of yester years.
Too bad there's no way to install Kodi onto an independent device which plugs into the HDMI port of your Sony TV.
Crappy move by Sony, but ultimately futile.
Just bought a Samsung 4K TV. Samsung, of course, does data gathering. It's in the EULA and you can't say no to it. However, I don't watch cable. I watch everything through my Vero 4K+ and my Plex library, which Samsung can't track. Screw you Samsung.
I also recently got AT&T's fiber Internet, replacing the loathsome Comcast I'd put up with for two years because they were the only high-speed option. AT&T, of course, wants to track my Internet usage. So I use a VPN for everything. Screw you AT&T.
Now Sony wants to limit what apps you can put on their TV's? Screw you Sony. Not only will I not buy your products, but if I am ever in the position of being forced to use one, I'll find a way to deny you whatever you think you'll get out of me.
These heavy-handed actions by companies will only engender more of us to find ways to throw monkey wrenches into their plans. Bring it on. There's nothing I love more than screwing over companies who thinks their customers are suckers.
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
This is actually should cause for them to fail the android certification.
like come on fuckers. You can't just block stuff like this for funzies. If you don't like it, lobby for it to be removed from the play store or something. Like the fuck, you're going to just ban all apps that you don't like? food delivery network didn't make a deal with you so you're going to ban their app from your phones too?
furthermore. you think people will buy the tv and your pushed streaming services more for doing this? fat fucking chance.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
I'd much rather toss a $100 media box
Media box? Is this the making of some old school joke? Next you'll be telling me you connect it to the TV with cables like something from the movies.
If a tv doesn't have at least 2GB of memory, don't call it "smart".
And now that I'm done picking on your for your view of the past, I'm going to pick on you for your view of the present. WTF do you need 2GB of memory for in an appliance!
I guess one way to narrow it down is try some other free streaming / playback apps and see what happens to those.
> And now that I'm done picking on your for your view of the past, I'm going to pick on you for your view of the present. WTF do you need 2GB of memory for in an appliance!
Becuase it runs android would be a good start. In fact I would say 4GB minimum for sane android use these days.
+----------------- | What is the question!
In fact I would say 4GB minimum for sane android use these days.
Based on what? Experience with a shitty phone? Android's RAM requirements are dependent on the rendering resolution which for TV interfaces is not very high. For a TV interface which renders at 1080p 512MB of RAM is fine for Android. "Oh but look at the RAM usage idle on my phone!" Well Android actually takes that into account just fine and on devices with less than 1GB of RAM you have to set ActivityManager.isLowRamDevice() = True which causes the system not to cache every bloody app.
The real problem is garbage coders, but more than that it's a TV. Just because it runs Android doesn't make it your multi purpose general pocket computer that people expect to use for multi-tasking. Really there's no reason why 4GB of RAM is required on a TV, definitely not because it uses Android. Hell 4GB is more than enough to get a full blown Windows 10 machine running butter smooth 4K to a display. And that bloated piece of shit (windows) should not be a benchmark.
You play PS4 games?
Uh, yeah. There's no denying that in this gen if you only have 1 system the PS4 is the one to get. I don't personally care about XBONE vs PS4 hardware wise - they both play games fine and for games released on both, the experience is fine on both. I'd recommend both systems just so that you can get the exclusives for both (or if a game you want to play goes on sale for one platform but not the other you can buy it for whichever its cheapest on), but if you can only have one PS4 exclusives have been SIGNIFICANTLY better.
And as to doing business with Sony - the other option is Microsoft. You might as well be arguing the moral superiority of choosing a pact between Baphomet instead of Belial.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
This just shows you how long it takes for a large company to respond to any shift in the market. Kodi used to be a haven for piracy, and now its often overlooked for standalone apk's like tvzion and morphtv et al that are more effective than kodi at piracy. If anything Kodi is used more often for legitimate purposes than piracy now, since most of the show and movie scraper apps have moved to standalone apks. Don't worry though Sony will block those as soon as people aren't using them any more... Also this comes on the heels of CES where there competitors are showcasing better and cheaper panels than Sony. Talk about getting completely dominated. The PlayStation product line shouldn't be your only profitable business sector, get it together.
Apparently 91.6 millions of those bought PS4s.
They're still bad enough with security that I suspect it might eventually end up being a matter of hacking the TV yourself and putting together your own OS for it.
Mind the frickin' laser...