Roku Denies Aggressive Pause Ads Report

Streaming device giant Roku has denied claims they have introduced pause ads across its branded smart TV platform whenever users pause content – including live TV, streaming, or any HDMI-connected devices.

According to Cord Cutters News, the company has clarified that pause ads are exclusively displayed only when users watch content on The Roku Channel and not during HDMI-based activities such as gaming from consoles or streaming from external devices such as media players and disc players.

The statement comes in the wake of a report alleging that Roku was rolling out pause ads universally. Pause ads display banners or pop-ups covering a chunk of the TV screen whenever users pause content.

Roku reportedly does own a patent for technology enabling pause ads through automatic content recognition (ACR) and HDMI detection, but has not activated this feature for non-Roku Channel content.

Whether the company might implement it one day has sparked plenty of discussion on Reddit with much of it boiling down to either “get an Apple TV” or talking advertising and lagginess on most smart TV apps these days.

The statement follows in the wake of a reports of HDR issues across Roku devices following a recent operating system update reports ZDNet with the outlet indicating that “Roku says it’s looking into the issue”.

The post Roku Denies Aggressive Pause Ads Report appeared first on Dark Horizons.