Roku TVs could one day show ads as soon as you pause playing a game on a connected Xbox, or stop a stream on an Apple TV.
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.
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.
smart TVs are their own shitfest, frankly, if you don't want to deal with them, i hear you can just buy commercial signage displays. Which are basically just TVs but without the smart part.