Forum Discussion

asim18's avatar
asim18
Rising star
23 days ago

Any way to block ads in user interface?

Hi there, I have had many TV boxes over the past few decades and all have been ad-free. Even my £25 DVB-S tuner from china is ad-free.

Since switching to the abominable 360 box, I have noticed that instead of tuning into the channel that was last watched, sometimes it will tune into a FULL SCREEN advert for various nonsense. And then tell me to press a button to get rid of it.

This happens about once a week.

As a temporary mitigation I have resorted to anti-reccommending anything which is advertised to me. I'll tell everyone I know not to use any product or service which I recieve unsolicited and unwanted advertising for. But does anyone know how to disable these ads? The other day I was bombarded with a shocking advert for some sort of gym membership featuring a huge sweaty person.

Any help disabling these ads is much appreciated.

  • Mr_K's avatar
    Mr_K
    23 days ago

    TV boxes are not designed for customer needs any longer, advertisers come first. Hence the push towards streaming where it'll become impossible to fast forward through adverts. The 360 is another step on down this road. 

  • newapollo's avatar
    newapollo
    Very Insightful Person
    23 days ago

    The 'ads' cannot be disabled. They will appear everytime you press the Home button, also when the 360 box receives a new software version update which is normally around once every two or three months, or when you've turned off the box either at the mains or by using the on/off switch on the actual box.

    It was the same on the older tivo and V6 boxes

     

    • asim18's avatar
      asim18
      Rising star
      23 days ago

      Wow. Thats a shame. Looks like my 360 box is another VM product that will be thrown into the loft to rot, just like the last box. Shame that it won't actually rot.

      What a waste of earth resources, it's a shame that my bill was CHEAPER with the TV box than it was without. I wonder how much plastic and copper is wasted on unwanted TV boxes.

      Actually now it makes sense why my package was cheaper with the TV box, so they can bombard me with adverts. 😄

      • roy247's avatar
        roy247
        Superstar
        22 days ago
        asim18 wrote:

        Wow. Thats a shame. Looks like my 360 box is another VM product that will be thrown into the loft to rot, just like the last box. Shame that it won't actually rot.

        I wouldn't just throw it into your loft because if you do you will receive a bill from Virgin because they own the box and basically you just lease it, that's why replacement boxes are free unlike Sky AFAIK.

         

  • japitts's avatar
    japitts
    Very Insightful Person
    23 days ago

    Neither TiVo nor V6 have ever had full-screen ads in all the time I've been using them. They have the discovery bar at the top of the menu system which is a "shop window" for anything being promoted. Easy to ignore, easy to select if you're interested.

  • Mr_K's avatar
    Mr_K
    Knows their stuff
    23 days ago

    TV boxes are not designed for customer needs any longer, advertisers come first. Hence the push towards streaming where it'll become impossible to fast forward through adverts. The 360 is another step on down this road. 

  • Roger_Gooner's avatar
    Roger_Gooner
    Alessandro Volta
    23 days ago

    Don't press the home button. Once you've been using the 360 for a while you can get directly to where you want by voice control.

  • asim18's avatar
    asim18
    Rising star
    23 days ago

    I do feel sorry for future generations. I believe advertisers are desperately trying to establish a mechanism which will check our eyeballs and make sure we are looking at adverts before allowing us to continue.

    • newapollo's avatar
      newapollo
      Very Insightful Person
      23 days ago

      The 'ads' can also be useful for customers such as advising them of the introduction of new channels such as That's TV 2 and That's TV 3, or that the kids TV channels will be available to all users at no additional cost such as the free period during the October half term, or the addition of new FAST channels, or new free apps such as Rakuten TV, or live Olympic or tennis channels in UHD.

      • asim18's avatar
        asim18
        Rising star
        23 days ago

        Totally agree with you. Information about changes to the EPG are useful of course.

        But in my opinion, that's not an advertisement, that's just courtesy information. I believe an "advertisement" is a commercial designed to get people to purchase a product sold elsewhere. Such as the fitness advert I recieved.

        Mixing important service messages into the same mechanism as commercial advertisement space is bad UI practice, in my opinion of course, which obvously doesn't matter going forward as such practice likely generates more ad revenue as Mr_K quite rightly understands.

        If we dont stop now, I believe future set top boxes will begin showing still adverts as soon as you press pause. I would love to be proven wrong. I guess I can only wait and see how bad it gets. 😛

  • Roger_Gooner's avatar
    Roger_Gooner
    Alessandro Volta
    23 days ago

    As the full-screen ads only appear a few times a year for me and the screen is easily dismissed, so I find it no big deal.