Sony Appears To Be Blocking Kodi On Its Recent Android TVs (androidpolice.com) 115
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.
that's Sony for you (Score:2, Insightful)
it is Sony tv not your tv
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So install a root-kit. Sony is totally fine with this approach.
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Re: People still buy stuff from Sony? (Score:1)
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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 SIGNI
Sony screwing their customers again (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Sony screwing their customers again (Score:5, Insightful)
For the illusion of protecting their revenue from their content division? This is my shocked face.
^This.
It is a huge conflict for hardware makers to also be content purveyors, and the people who buy their products are worse off for it.. The same is true of ISPs.
If you want to avoid crippled equipment or services you are better off dealing with people who have no financial interest in what you actually use them for, because otherwise your needs are always going to come second.
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If you want to avoid crippled equipment or services you are better off dealing with people who have no financial interest in what you actually use them for, because otherwise your needs are always going to come second.
*cough* Apple *cough*
Re:Sony screwing their customers again (Score:4, Insightful)
See, why would you want to root your android device? There's no need to root your Android device anymore. The manufacturers will protect you! There's no reason for root.
This should cause failed certification.. (Score:2)
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 fuc
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Their OLED broadcast monitors are still leading the market. It's just a shame they don't sell a consumer version and use LG's WOLED panels in their consumer OLED televisions. They were also the first to show a Micro-LED display at CES 2012. Then they decided not to commercialise it and now Samsung are showing 75'' Micro-LED displays this year.
There seems to have been management issues at Sony and they've gone for cost cutting rather than leading the market. If they really wanted to cut costs they should
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I am adding this to the long list of reasons why I will not own any Sony produced electronics or hardware period.
My gaming is done on a PC but if for some reason I did want a console, it would probably be an xbox because Microsoft are (at least right now) the least anti-consumer of the lot.
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The irony of this all is that Sony got into the content business because the existing content business screwed over DAT by refusing to release content for it.
The idea was that the hardware division could use it's financial muscle to buy a content producer and then it could guarantee content on it's new hardware platforms.
However it appears we just ended up with the tail wagging the dog :-(
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If you already bought it then return it. It says it's got Android but Android apps don't work on it. It's broken, defective by design.
Fuck those fucking fuckers! (Score:2)
Fuck those fucking fuckers.
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And here I thought I was the only one left who intentionally didn't buy Sony products. Stay strong, brother.
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Anyone wanting a high end android phone without a large screen, would be one class of quite sensible people, which includes myself, and several members of my family.
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Perhaps you have not heard of Moto. They make high end phones with large screens AND UNLOCKABLE BOOTLOADERS. And removable batteries, and headphone jacks. Buying Sony crap because you want quality is an idiot move. They haven't offered anything worth buying since the nineties, and haven't had the best of anything since the eighties.
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Especially the year Turbo Tax slipped DRM into the software, using disks that couldn't be read if you'd every played Sony media since it'd quietly replace the optical disk driver with a defective version. Both of them can die in a fire.
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that means there is more for the rest of us who know what the fuck we are doing.
Consuming like an automaton?
Consuming because your PC based media devices don't work after exposure to Sony?
We don't doubt Sony works as long as you're vendor locked with Sony and make no attempt to consume outside of the boundaries Sony sets. But if you, say, consume Sony media on a PC and discover your PC is malware infected with rootkits and spyware and also that your hardware drivers have been replaced with crippled versions so your tax software won't run you may be upset. Well, not you... someone
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if you don't want it that means there is more for the rest of us who know what the fuck we are doing
Pretty sure that's not how it works, sorry.... ;-/
It's seriously pro-sumer level shit
On the other hand, I can't work out whether you're trolling or whether this is *meant* to be parody. :-)
man (Score:3)
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Or just buying the product with the manual to support the developers?
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I remember Starcontrol 2 shipped with a starchart too big to fit on the photocopier, and you had to identify stars to start the game. Those crafty DRM people were a technological step ahead at that point.
Return defective product for full money back (Score:2, Insightful)
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.
I hope Amazon doesn't get any ideas (Score:1)
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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It's why you have to sideload it on a Fire Stick compared to just installing it from the Play Store on a Shield.
You do have to sideload it, but having done so, it runs fine. Perhaps it even runs well, so far I've had very good results. And Amazon doesn't make it difficult to do so — you can in fact download a downloader app and a file manager/apk installer app from their app store. And I don't mean ES File Manager, although that spyware is in there too.
I don't get why people still buy SONY Televisions (Score:5, Informative)
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
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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!
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> 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.
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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 ga
No more smart TV for me (Score:2)
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 t
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Navi/Zen2 APUs coming out later this year will be just about the ideal SFF processor, hang in there.
Re:No more smart TV for me (Score:4, Informative)
It is a fundamental lifetime issue. Smart things, like your phone, have a standard life span of about three years. TVs are typically kept for around ten years. Putting a device that goes obsolete in three years inside a device that you will keep for ten years is never going to work very well.
See also, cars with built in GPS maps or last generation's iphone connectors and smart fridges with a twenty year life span.
Betamax, The Sequel (Score:1)
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 somebod
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I would never let a smart tv get online or I'd block it from connecting outside my network, considering the snooping many of them do. I prefer my Vero 4K and trust the fine folks over at osmc.tv a lot more.
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As for why Sony is blocking Kodi, start with the most likely, rational reasons and work outwards. Chances are it is one of those.
Oh noes! (Score:3)
Crappy move by Sony, but ultimately futile.
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Can use the TV remote for Kodi through Raspberry Pi, just fyi.
Most modern media boxes supports CEC, including Raspberry Pi.
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As long as you have room for it somewhere vaguely near the TV, it doesn't matter much how big the PC is because you can get long HDMI cables cheaply, e.g. from Monoprice. What matters is noise, and also power consumption. Perhaps one of these new AMD mobile processors coming out?
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I wouldn't be so quick to moan about Sony though without knowing the reason which could be rather mundane. Other smart TVs are little better, in some senses rather a lot worse since most of them don't even run Android so you can't run any app on them except the ones blessed by the device.
Yet another reason to not buy SONY (Score:1)
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&
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I do the same. Not letting any smart tv getting connected to the internet and they're really great people over at osmc.tv; very friendly and happy to help iron out any issues.
Most likely reasons (Score:2)
I guess one way to narrow it down is try some other free streaming / playback apps and see what happens to those.
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Absolutely none of those things are true, and you've got a little Sony on your lip there, sport. Sony is evil and making excuses for them is stockholm syndrome.
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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.
Just in time for Kodi to be irrelevant for piracy! (Score:1)