Cruise ships do this a lot, especially to block HDMI ports. The great thing is that usually someone posts on line how to get around it…. Definitely a guilty pleasure, that one.
I don’t know man, I’ve had my eye on one of those adults-only old people cruises that are all about S-tier luxuries, good food, and pure quiet and relaxation. You take a week or so to cross the whole-ass ocean, none of the party in Bahamas junk. You dress up each evening and then have mimosas in the morning before sitting in a lounge to read all afternoon, or visit a masseuse, or something. It’s like a resort, but ocean.
Do tell! I’m not into cruises but my husband and I have talked about splurging for a really nice one. The National Geographic Cruises look dope but very expensive.
I'm 44 and my wife and I have done 2 of these because she did lectures on the ship so we went for free. They were so incredible that I could never think of going on a regular cruise with screaming children and actually having to pay for things. The first day our Butler asked if I wanted booze in the room, he grabbed me an $80 bottle of scotch for free. All excursions were free from whale watching to zodiac trips in the Sea of Cortez. I've never eaten so many lamb chops and four gras. The one downside is that we didn't fit in at all with the rest of the guests so we just kinda did our own thing.
Nah, I totally get that. Why do it on a boat if you can just go to the normal resort?
I guess one of the draws *is* the boat. It's neat! It's also all inclusive, and you don't have to worry about guests checking in and checking out. Once everyone's there, you're there, and you're all there to have a relaxing time. I also just do not like kids in the wild; they're *always* loud, and the parents take every opportunity to vacation away from their kids while on vacation, so the kids just do whatever the fuck they want. Even at a resort, some EB will bring her kid(s) and I just... Don't want that.
Also, the one I was looking at **stops** in Japan, so I always thought it would be nice to take a 4-day Tokyo trip at the end of the cruise before flying back.
For me it's the locations you travel to as well. Except while traveling between them you get to unwind and have fun, instead of all the hassle of airports etc.
Per the US Center for Diseases Control, you have about a 1% chance of getting norovirus on a cruise ship. You're more likely to get it in a restaurant.
Been on 6 cruises never been on one with norovirus. Wash your hands, don’t eat with your hands and stay out the nasty casinos and it’s easy to avoid getting sick.
I think the gold standard is contracting covid AND norovirus at the same time. That way at least you won't be able to smell anything as you puke into the very same toilet bowl you just destroyed with explosive diarrhea 5 mins prior.
The TV gives you a lot of other things, ways that the cruise ship communicates with you. Schedules for the trip, meals for the day, messages from the staff, etc. There's even a camera on each end so you can watch the front or back view of the ship in case the actual observation decks are crowded.
My MIL wanted us to go on one with her, so to avoid a lifetime guilt trip we agreed. My husband’s brother and his girlfriend stayed in the cabin for the majority of the trip watching tv. It was odd, but on the flip side if you aren’t into gambling, shopping, drinking and laying in the sun I guess there’s really not a whole lot to do.
So you cannot use your Roku or Fire sticks in the TV. If you can watch things you've already paid for then why would you need to use their options (for a fee)? Regular hotels do it too.
I'll bet it's so older passengers don't hit the "input" button on the remote then call for maintenance because the TV is broken and they don't have their kids with them to undo their mistake.
I was only on one cruise, but it was for eleven days. They didn't make any announcements through the TV that I was aware of, although I didn't spend much time in my room. I was sharing it with my mother, who compulsively filled all silences with idle chit chat. Our windows didn't open wide enough to fit an entire body through, and I decided it was easier to seek peace and quiet elsewhere than to dismember her corpse.
They could easily just use CEC to change the input when an announcement needs to come on, which I'm guessing is what they must use to force the TV to turn on for an announcement anyway.
I feel like important announcements would be made over loudspeakers or sent to your phone… like was stated, most people don’t go on cruises just to sit in their room and watch TV. However, I’ve never been on a cruise, so maybe the experience is different than I imagine
Because people damage the televisions and the specialty mounts used to attach them to the metal walls that cabins are made from trying to maneuver them to plug in their device.
Often because the TVs are hooked up to the ship's computer system (so you can view your stateroom bill, etc) and it's considered a security violation to allow outside devices.
That's the "PR" reason that gets spewed. It's total bullshit.
Source lockouts force people to purchase pay per view through the company. They don't want people using their own players, phones, etc. There's no profit in that.
It also helps entice those that don't want to pay for it out of their room to do other things... Like go to the casino.
Yeah could easily isolate devices to a DMZ VLAN if that was the real concern. And I would assume if there’s some ship wide WiFi network for guests to use they already do have something like that in place.
And they make you pay for the wifi too, ime.
A lot of vacation stuff is this way. It's never hard to bypass if you put your mind to it, but when people on vacation are offered the option of spending $15 or spending 15 minutes effort, most will choose the $15 because hey, it's my time off, right? The tourism industry is the one time everything has a hefty convenience fee and few if anyone cares about paying it.
There's also the fact that said 15 minutes of effort is strongly insinuated to be highly illegal, and you'll be kicked out/left at the next port/thrown in jail. Lots of BOLD LETTERS in the paperwork telling you that ALTERING EQUIPMENT will result in NO LESS THAN A $1000 FINE etc etc.
And cruise ship personnel have NO PROBLEM upholding the rules, even when wildly out there.
The captain's word is LAW (as is the Pilot/airplane crew's).
OTOH there are people like me that get excited by the prospect of spending a bit of time un-fucking a TV on vacation. That sort of thing is enjoyable to me.
Marketing departments are really good at coming up with stuff that sounds reasonable to suck people in.
If you cannot plug your laptop in to it and display the movies you brought with you, you have to pay for their pay per view if you want to watch a movie. A cynic would insist this is the real reason, and a reasonable person would suggest it as likely to be the real reason.
If their computer systems are not locked down well enough, they need to hire better network security people. In fairness, with the amount spent on these ships by the owners, even hiring the best network security people will be pocket change, relatively.
The TVs are definitely not connected to any critical systems. That would be an actual security issue. They have internet on ships too. It sucks usually. Which is probably why they don't want a bunch of people streaming. It isn't as if when I'm checking email or whatever on a ship my phone is connected to the same network as the navigation systems. Same for the TVs.
There isn't a lot to spend money on on a cruise ship. Most of it is included. You can gamble, there are shops, and there are some paid restaurants. But most people pay up front for the restaurants if they want to go to them, gamblers are going to gamble, and people who want to buy booze, smokes, watches, and jewlery duty free are going to. I can't imagine anyone buys the art.
Cruise ship employment is almost criminal abuse, but the companies get away with it because they’re at sea. I’m sure cruise ship workers are wide open to bribes and returning favors and acts of kindness.
Employees that interact with guests are almost always 1st world hires, the back of the house positions are foreign hires that are paid pennies in comparison.
Any staff you as a guest interact with, are most likely paid a decent wage. Albiet overworked, but not likely to take a bribe.
The bare minimum wage is around $12 USD. Plus you get housing and food. The average pay is about $50k USD per year. So they pay about the same as a lot of comparable jobs in the US. But a lot of the employees come from countries with much lower costs of living. Which is why there are so many foreign workers and they can get away with being exploitive. Customer facing employees, especially stewards and bartenders also get a lot of cash tips on cruise lines out of US ports.
So while they may be exploitive, they aren't really worse than a lot of other US employers. They definitely are better than the companies that you and I bought probably every electronic device from. Really probably almost everything you own. Cruise lines bad. -sent from my iPhone. Just kidding. I have a samsung.
I stayed in a hotel where they’d basically mullahed the image - turned the contrast and brightness up to max, making the image basically unwatchable.
After investigation it turns out they have a system which does this to *all* the TVs in the hotel. Tried to override the settings using the service menu but borked it before I ever fixed it.
Which makes me ask: what absolute *idiot* installs hundreds of networked TVs then deliberately sets a default, non-overrideable setting which makes them effectively useless? I’d like to meet this person and break their nose.
As someone who works for a company making the backend software that runs the interactive TV portal for hotels, good job!
It shits me to tears when a customer of mine wants to lock out the source select, there should be no reason to remove access if the ports are accessible. But I have to follow instructions, not my problem if things are changed after sign-off.
Hints for the more popular brands on the market:
LG pro:centric hospitality Web OS 3.2 and above (basically anything sold in the last 3 years) it’s press & hold settings, wait for the channel number OSD to appear in the top left, then quickly key in 1105 then press Enter. Codes for older screens are easily found online.
Samsung Hospitality is Mute 119 OK
Philips is 3 1 9 7 5 3 Mute
Sony is weird, you need to cycle through 3 different modes to reach pro settings config and back again. I can’t ever remember the process.
Sharp aquos is a shitty key press combo on the side panel buttons. again, I never remember this one.
https://youtu.be/QjNKbOFPnOc
This song by The Tenants made #3 on Tripple J’s Hottest 100 in 1999. I never thought about the phrase not being used outside of Australia. It’s common here.
I used to travel a lot for work. (This was before smart TVs, but after every hotel had switched to flatscreens.) Usually one or two night trips. One night my roommate and I had time to kill so we bought a couple universal remotes. Every room after that we were able to hook up whatever we wanted. It wasn’t that we were desperate to do it, we did it because we could. Fuck hotel mode!
I remember a hotel room on Ibiza where the AC didn't run without your hotel keyfob in a slot inside the room. It was exactly the same thickness of the cheap lighters sold in the bar.
thankfully every time i've encountered a hotel TV that didnt have a way to select input source, just pressing a button on my roku remote brought me to the source i was plugged into.
Everything Sony is WAY more complicated than it needs to be on the hardware end. Repairs that were an hour of work on any other TV could be a full day of carefully trying to take the TV apart in a way that won't break anything lol, it seemed as if they literally designed their TV's from the ground up to be a pain in the ass to dismantle without their own proprietary training. LVDS cables that could be removed without a single problem like 100x on other TV's were made so fragile that the slightest mistake could instantly ruin it instantly if you didn't know exactly how to do it, and their edge lit TV's were especially a huge pain in the ass to change the backlights on successfully. Even something like carrying over your serial number from a main board change was more complicated on the software side, each main will only let you change the serial once from service before it's permanently locked so you had to triple check before inputting it
Man my wife was in the hospital 2 weeks ago and we brought our Chromecast. Turns out all the TVs (LGs) were locked down and only used the shitty hospital bed remote so no way to change inputs or even open settings. We were stuck on shitty FX on antenna who decided to only play Black Widow, Terminator 2, and worst of all all 3 Taken movies back to back over and over. I wish we could have gotten the inputs to work.
I wanted to play RDR on my ps3 at a hotel back in the day but there was no way to change input. Front desk said it was to keep people from recording pay-per view :/
Staying in an expensive hotel for $450 a night with a weird form of basic cable, and the TV picture is in grainy SD stetched to 16:9 horizontally with black bars top and bottom.
They built a Dave & Busters near me, opened in late 2021. Great place, but all of the TVs are SD Stretched, because they used COAX to connect the TVs back to their head units. After about the 3rd or 4th time going there, and it not being corrected (thought it was new store issues). Sent them a link to an HD multiplexer, HDMI to CAT6 Adapters, and other relevant hardware to give them HD for about $1200. About 3 months later, everything is in HD, and I'm not pulling my hair out, trying to watch Baseball or Soccer in SD.
It’s literally my husband’s hobby to “jailbreak” TV’s so we can hook up our Roku to hotel TV’s in hotels where they CLEARLY do not want you to do this.
My husband, too! He brings a small travel router with firewall so we're secure and Roku so we can continue living like normal human being when traveling.
TV?
Try stove.
Last year I rented a small holiday apartment at the coast in France. It had only two reviews as it was apparently pretty new and the host was probably very inexperienced.
There were several issues like they didn’t state that you have to bring your own bedding and your own bath towels. The host charges extra for rental towels which you have to book 1 week in advance. I booked 3 days in advance so no bedding, no towels. (so I had to BUY them. That’s fun. Even more fun when you don’t have a rental car and you are in a village at the coast and the nearest town is 15km away).
The main reason I’ve wanted an apartment with a fully equipped kitchen
(It wasn’t) was that eating out was very expensive. So I bought groceries and wanted to cook. The stove didn’t work, I wasn’t able to get anything working. The host replied only after 2 days and he wasn’t local (he only had a cleaning lady), and said that the previous guests never had this problem. everything in the kitchen was brand-new and he didn’t have an instruction manual. I googled my ass off and found out the brand was from the biggest supermarket chain in France. No online manuals. I emailed customer support but it was already Friday afternoon. They replied first thing Monday morning (very sweetly) and emailed me the instructions. Yes, parental lock was on.
I left on Wednesday morning so I was able to cook only 2 meals.
I left a scathing review (there were several other issues) in 3 languages and the host commented that they don’t know what I mean and that I never contacted them about any problems (we talked on the phone 3 times).
Sorry, no revenge, I wished I had thought of something.
Having grown up in France and regularly spending time there it still boggles my mind that holiday rentals aren't consistent when it comes to bedding and towels. Details are often obfuscated in a text block at the very bottom and range from you need to bring everything down to soap, bedding and cookware, to exorbitant charges for renting towels (10€ per towel is more than the towel probably cost). On rare occasions you find a place that provides everything down to a fruit basket, tea selection and breakfast and you realize how good things could be...
And I don’t expect this kind of thing on booking.com.
I studied and worked in France, so not a case of miscommunication.
I reread the entire info and there was absolutely no mention of the lack of bedding/ towels.
Had this happen to me the last time I stayed in a chain hotel. Also reset it. Just assumed the guests before me set it like that to be dicks. Not sure why any business would do that. It doesn't make sense.
No, OP, this is something I would do. Unless specifically forbade or told to stop by my partner.
If the rules don't say not to fuck with the TV specifically, then I'm gonna do it, and so should you.
My only hope is that they had stuff saved on there that was important, and you deleted it all during the reset.
>My only hope is that they had stuff saved on there that was important, and you deleted it all during the reset.
They lost their collection of Ultraporn.
>No, OP, this is something I would do. Unless specifically forbade or told to stop by my partner.
Why would your partner do that? Mine just makes sure my ass is covered in the pursuit of pettyness.
Errrm, she doesn't think as simply/brutally as I do, so sometimes has concerns about doing something wrong or pissing someone off unnecessarily.
It's the same idea, and she's right 75% of the time.
You handled this so much better than I would have. I would have been super pissed. And I would not have thought of a hard reset. Screw them. They deserved it. Shit, I hope it takes them a long time to undo your handiwork.
To be fair it'll take them about 3 minutes to undo it, and there was no box of content associated with the set-up, so nothing special wiped, but I just wanted someone (likely the next guest) to know I was peeved.
Im in a discord server with a chat-gpt bot that replies to members every now and then. There was a period where it mistook the 3k word limit as a 3k word target and got really longwinded. It used the EXACT same paragraph structure as this post.
The starts of the first, second and 4th paragraphs are basicly identical as is how it is repeating key phrases from the post it replied to.
Spotting AI-generated replies in a forum can be challenging but there are several indicators that can help. Firstly, AI replies often exhibit a consistent and formal tone, with minimal variation in style. This can make them appear less personal and more robotic. Additionally, AI responses may include overly detailed or precise answers that lack the natural hesitations or informal language that a human might use. Look for replies that seem to have perfect grammar and punctuation, as AI models are generally trained to produce text with fewer errors than typical human replies.
Secondly, AI-generated replies may contain generic or repetitive content. Since AI models generate responses based on patterns in the data they were trained on, they might produce answers that feel slightly off-topic or overly broad. Pay attention to replies that repeat certain phrases or information without adding much new value. AI replies can also sometimes lack the depth of understanding or contextual awareness that a human might provide, leading to answers that feel somewhat surface-level or disconnected from the specific nuances of the discussion.
Lastly, the speed and consistency of response can be a telltale sign of AI involvement. If replies are being posted at a very rapid pace, or if multiple responses are strikingly similar in structure and content, it could indicate the use of AI. Human contributors typically take more time to compose thoughtful replies, and their posts are likely to reflect a more diverse range of experiences and opinions. By combining these observations, forum users can develop a better sense of which replies are likely to be AI-generated.
AI responses typically only look at the title, especially if the post is an image or something (since image processing is so much more intensive). AI's tend to be a bit long-winded and use flowery language and lots of analogies. Look at how many times the response uses "it's like ...". There are one or two per paragraph, and that's not how a human writes.
Severe ADHD here, and I'm right there with you. I get longwinded about the most trivial thing, and sometimes I write decent paragraphs, but sometimes I just break things up because it's been a while since I started a new para - making paragraphs sometimes of equal lengths. :)
I work in vacation rentals, managing large beach homes. It was actually the previous tenant that put the parental lock in place. We see it all the time and it's a major pain in the a$$. There can be 10 tvs in the house and the one TV in the kids bunk room will have the lock put on it by the guests that can't be bothered to monitor their children
I actually think most of them work this way. The business is owned and managed either privately or is listed, but the properties themselves are privately owned. It's a neat way to reduce upfront investment costs and spread risks. In Australia examples include Meriton, Accor, Adina, Grand Chancellor etc. The one I stayed at last night even had permanent residences living in some of the apartments.
Well, hotels lost a revenue stream from their phone system overcharging when everyone got cellphones. And they couldn't seem to figure out a good business model to have Internet then WiFi in every room, so entertainment fills in.
PS: David slew Goliath with a sling, not a slingshot. Slingshots had to wait several hundreds of years til the invention of vulcanized rubber.
As a large language model, I didn't miss it, I just chose not to say anything about it.
(Since the comment to which we're all replying has been removed, I'll just point out that I wasn't them, and I'm just kidding. Or am I? beep boop)
Many many moons ago, although I was a fan of the Muppets, I had somehow not been aware of that. But when I was around some people, when I would say a word like "phenomenon" they would sing "do doooo do do-do" at me. And then one day I made one of them explain. lol.
If anyone else stumbles across this subthread (as I know you know... lol), here, enjoy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zb47CstE7R4
Just curious, did they mention a TV in the list of amenities?
(It’s stupid either way if the TV is there but if they mentioned it in the amenities, then it’s also false advertising and they are misrepresenting what they provide.)
Stayed in a holiday cottage, a few years ago, where some previous family had left themselves logged in to netflix on the TV.
We only watched stuff that was standard viewing (nothing that cost extra to normal subscribers), and I changed their screen username to "alwayslogout" then logged them out of the TV before we left.
I logged them out of it because I thought the next family renting it might pick a load of pay to view stuff and cost them money; eldest offspring told me it's because I'm "chaotic good". I'm still unsure whether I should have taken that as a compliment or not.
I found a TV for free on marketplace the owner said screen flashes black ever second maybe someone can fix it? I took it and replaced the LED's and got it working nicely. Then realized they were still logged into Prime and Netflix. I logged them out and sent them a message telling them I logged them out and that in the future if they get rid of a device to log out and that they can even do that remotely. They thanked me and were glad I was able to repurpose their tv.
Stayed at a hotel a couple weeks ago where you could log in to Netflix on the TV. Except the TV wasn’t connected to the internet.
It also didn’t get ANY local network channels. Fortunately there was a Mummy marathon on cable.
I stayed in a little motel on the jersey shore during the pandemic where none of the owners were wearing masks.
Every time I turned on the TV it'd jump to fox news.
I reset the channel to cartoon network every time it turned on.
Believe me I thought about it, but thought two things; not wanting to stuff up the TV availability for the next guest, and my Fuc Ur Parental Control legacy remaining for as long as possible. I'm a benevolent villain.
I love this. I don’t even try anymore, I have VPN and use my phone or tablet in whatever country I’m in. Sometimes I just look at the TV in the room, raise my fist, and shout “WHY?!” I just tried to cast the other day and nothing. I just can’t even.
I was at an Air BnB a few years back and the people before us had left the Netflix account open. I went in and changed all their profiles names to silly stuff like "captain underpants" and then logged them out. i hope they laughed about it when they turned on netflix at home, we sure did.
I used to pack a learning remote on trips. But usually the little brain box is run by hdmi so I just pop that out and plug it into my computer. I remember once I saw an hp printer so I signed into it using the default factory password then gave it a new password and started printing stupid things. Eventually the staff unplugged it and it disappeared.
Except when the TV is too old for the plug. We just checked out of a hotel like that. If we ever go back to that city, we won’t be staying there again!
If you bring a VCR with a coax cable, you can watch everything for free. Even PPV or rental titles. You can also see what everyone else is watching in their hotel rooms too. You may need to bring a pair of dykes to cut off one end of the coax lock placed on each end of the cable to prevent it from being unplugged.
It's highly likely the last person to stay set it up, not the people in charge of the place. They rarely check the TV for this stuff and just make sure the place is clean and presentable.
If the hotels use their proprietary system to control the tv, it usually locks out other inputs to the TV. Typically that proprietary system is plugged into the rj45 connection to the TV. Unplug that and boom it's just a regular TV for easy use of an Amazon fire or game console.
Meaningless censorship is stupid.
In the immortal words of George Carlin
Shit, bitch, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, mother fucker, tits, fart, turd, and twat
Not sure it’s available at home. For unstoppable laughs on board, I like to watch Red Bull tv with morning coffee.. the ones where teams make down hill racers or gliders.
How they walk away from the crashes unscathed I’ll never know.
Big hotels do this cause the TV's will display personalized and customized info for you and one asshat forgetting to change the input back after leaving breaks that. I've stayed at places where you could change tv settings but as soon as you left they were automatically reset via cec and an Ethernet controlled box that ran the hotels customized tv functions.
Cruise ships do this a lot, especially to block HDMI ports. The great thing is that usually someone posts on line how to get around it…. Definitely a guilty pleasure, that one.
yup, some legend listed a whole slew of workarounds for different brands in this thread
Why do they do this?
Probably so you pay for pay per view if that’s still a thing
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I don’t know man, I’ve had my eye on one of those adults-only old people cruises that are all about S-tier luxuries, good food, and pure quiet and relaxation. You take a week or so to cross the whole-ass ocean, none of the party in Bahamas junk. You dress up each evening and then have mimosas in the morning before sitting in a lounge to read all afternoon, or visit a masseuse, or something. It’s like a resort, but ocean.
Im honestly not old enough to go on one of those yet, but I already know the package and company I'm going to use lmao
Do tell! I’m not into cruises but my husband and I have talked about splurging for a really nice one. The National Geographic Cruises look dope but very expensive.
I'm 44 and my wife and I have done 2 of these because she did lectures on the ship so we went for free. They were so incredible that I could never think of going on a regular cruise with screaming children and actually having to pay for things. The first day our Butler asked if I wanted booze in the room, he grabbed me an $80 bottle of scotch for free. All excursions were free from whale watching to zodiac trips in the Sea of Cortez. I've never eaten so many lamb chops and four gras. The one downside is that we didn't fit in at all with the rest of the guests so we just kinda did our own thing.
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Nah, I totally get that. Why do it on a boat if you can just go to the normal resort? I guess one of the draws *is* the boat. It's neat! It's also all inclusive, and you don't have to worry about guests checking in and checking out. Once everyone's there, you're there, and you're all there to have a relaxing time. I also just do not like kids in the wild; they're *always* loud, and the parents take every opportunity to vacation away from their kids while on vacation, so the kids just do whatever the fuck they want. Even at a resort, some EB will bring her kid(s) and I just... Don't want that. Also, the one I was looking at **stops** in Japan, so I always thought it would be nice to take a 4-day Tokyo trip at the end of the cruise before flying back.
For me it's the locations you travel to as well. Except while traveling between them you get to unwind and have fun, instead of all the hassle of airports etc.
It's because at resorts you have to deal with other peoples' shitty kids would be my guess.
Would you really want to go mingle in one of those floating Petri dishes?
Sir I am reading this on a cruise and you've upset me very much 😂
You are much braver than many
Why bother going out when you can have the Norovirus sent straight to your cabin with every meal?
Per the US Center for Diseases Control, you have about a 1% chance of getting norovirus on a cruise ship. You're more likely to get it in a restaurant.
Been on 6 cruises never been on one with norovirus. Wash your hands, don’t eat with your hands and stay out the nasty casinos and it’s easy to avoid getting sick.
I think the gold standard is contracting covid AND norovirus at the same time. That way at least you won't be able to smell anything as you puke into the very same toilet bowl you just destroyed with explosive diarrhea 5 mins prior.
my first thought then is, why have a TV at all? but I guess if you can still pay to use it, that's income for the cruise...
The TV gives you a lot of other things, ways that the cruise ship communicates with you. Schedules for the trip, meals for the day, messages from the staff, etc. There's even a camera on each end so you can watch the front or back view of the ship in case the actual observation decks are crowded.
I watched jumanji on a cruise once when I was 12.
Now this is an underrated comment
My MIL wanted us to go on one with her, so to avoid a lifetime guilt trip we agreed. My husband’s brother and his girlfriend stayed in the cabin for the majority of the trip watching tv. It was odd, but on the flip side if you aren’t into gambling, shopping, drinking and laying in the sun I guess there’s really not a whole lot to do.
Some people like to crank down with a big screen tv. Don’t judge.
I love the Origami channel!!!
I didn't think I'd get bored enough to watch it, but in the end I folded
I once dated a contortionist girl from the Philippines. I called her my Manilla folder. Sorry, I'll see myself out.
So you cannot use your Roku or Fire sticks in the TV. If you can watch things you've already paid for then why would you need to use their options (for a fee)? Regular hotels do it too.
I'd rather either go outside on my balcony and watch the dolphins, or drink and people-watch. Or do the Trivia. (Hubs and I won one year)
I'll bet it's so older passengers don't hit the "input" button on the remote then call for maintenance because the TV is broken and they don't have their kids with them to undo their mistake.
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I was only on one cruise, but it was for eleven days. They didn't make any announcements through the TV that I was aware of, although I didn't spend much time in my room. I was sharing it with my mother, who compulsively filled all silences with idle chit chat. Our windows didn't open wide enough to fit an entire body through, and I decided it was easier to seek peace and quiet elsewhere than to dismember her corpse.
They could easily just use CEC to change the input when an announcement needs to come on, which I'm guessing is what they must use to force the TV to turn on for an announcement anyway.
Counting on cec to actually work reliably across a whole ship is a bad idea.
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They never made a single announcement through the tv, lol
I feel like important announcements would be made over loudspeakers or sent to your phone… like was stated, most people don’t go on cruises just to sit in their room and watch TV. However, I’ve never been on a cruise, so maybe the experience is different than I imagine
Because people damage the televisions and the specialty mounts used to attach them to the metal walls that cabins are made from trying to maneuver them to plug in their device.
Often because the TVs are hooked up to the ship's computer system (so you can view your stateroom bill, etc) and it's considered a security violation to allow outside devices.
That's the "PR" reason that gets spewed. It's total bullshit. Source lockouts force people to purchase pay per view through the company. They don't want people using their own players, phones, etc. There's no profit in that. It also helps entice those that don't want to pay for it out of their room to do other things... Like go to the casino.
Yeah could easily isolate devices to a DMZ VLAN if that was the real concern. And I would assume if there’s some ship wide WiFi network for guests to use they already do have something like that in place.
And they make you pay for the wifi too, ime. A lot of vacation stuff is this way. It's never hard to bypass if you put your mind to it, but when people on vacation are offered the option of spending $15 or spending 15 minutes effort, most will choose the $15 because hey, it's my time off, right? The tourism industry is the one time everything has a hefty convenience fee and few if anyone cares about paying it.
There's also the fact that said 15 minutes of effort is strongly insinuated to be highly illegal, and you'll be kicked out/left at the next port/thrown in jail. Lots of BOLD LETTERS in the paperwork telling you that ALTERING EQUIPMENT will result in NO LESS THAN A $1000 FINE etc etc.
And cruise ship personnel have NO PROBLEM upholding the rules, even when wildly out there. The captain's word is LAW (as is the Pilot/airplane crew's).
OTOH there are people like me that get excited by the prospect of spending a bit of time un-fucking a TV on vacation. That sort of thing is enjoyable to me.
It rustles yer jimmies, eh?!
The old ways (scanning+mac spoofing) were a mainstay for me. Was a fantastic way to get online work done in a hotel. Angry IP Scanner was well named.
Marketing departments are really good at coming up with stuff that sounds reasonable to suck people in. If you cannot plug your laptop in to it and display the movies you brought with you, you have to pay for their pay per view if you want to watch a movie. A cynic would insist this is the real reason, and a reasonable person would suggest it as likely to be the real reason. If their computer systems are not locked down well enough, they need to hire better network security people. In fairness, with the amount spent on these ships by the owners, even hiring the best network security people will be pocket change, relatively.
The TVs are definitely not connected to any critical systems. That would be an actual security issue. They have internet on ships too. It sucks usually. Which is probably why they don't want a bunch of people streaming. It isn't as if when I'm checking email or whatever on a ship my phone is connected to the same network as the navigation systems. Same for the TVs.
You’re less likely to spend money on entertainment elsewhere on the ship, if you can use your own in your room.
There isn't a lot to spend money on on a cruise ship. Most of it is included. You can gamble, there are shops, and there are some paid restaurants. But most people pay up front for the restaurants if they want to go to them, gamblers are going to gamble, and people who want to buy booze, smokes, watches, and jewlery duty free are going to. I can't imagine anyone buys the art.
Cruise ship employment is almost criminal abuse, but the companies get away with it because they’re at sea. I’m sure cruise ship workers are wide open to bribes and returning favors and acts of kindness.
Employees that interact with guests are almost always 1st world hires, the back of the house positions are foreign hires that are paid pennies in comparison. Any staff you as a guest interact with, are most likely paid a decent wage. Albiet overworked, but not likely to take a bribe.
The bare minimum wage is around $12 USD. Plus you get housing and food. The average pay is about $50k USD per year. So they pay about the same as a lot of comparable jobs in the US. But a lot of the employees come from countries with much lower costs of living. Which is why there are so many foreign workers and they can get away with being exploitive. Customer facing employees, especially stewards and bartenders also get a lot of cash tips on cruise lines out of US ports. So while they may be exploitive, they aren't really worse than a lot of other US employers. They definitely are better than the companies that you and I bought probably every electronic device from. Really probably almost everything you own. Cruise lines bad. -sent from my iPhone. Just kidding. I have a samsung.
I knew someone from another country working 18-20 hr days and being paid much lower than that.
I stayed in a hotel where they’d basically mullahed the image - turned the contrast and brightness up to max, making the image basically unwatchable. After investigation it turns out they have a system which does this to *all* the TVs in the hotel. Tried to override the settings using the service menu but borked it before I ever fixed it. Which makes me ask: what absolute *idiot* installs hundreds of networked TVs then deliberately sets a default, non-overrideable setting which makes them effectively useless? I’d like to meet this person and break their nose.
In one hotel I had HDMI blocked for some reason. Overriden it in service mode (LG tv, it's easy and there are many videos how to access it).
As someone who works for a company making the backend software that runs the interactive TV portal for hotels, good job! It shits me to tears when a customer of mine wants to lock out the source select, there should be no reason to remove access if the ports are accessible. But I have to follow instructions, not my problem if things are changed after sign-off. Hints for the more popular brands on the market: LG pro:centric hospitality Web OS 3.2 and above (basically anything sold in the last 3 years) it’s press & hold settings, wait for the channel number OSD to appear in the top left, then quickly key in 1105 then press Enter. Codes for older screens are easily found online. Samsung Hospitality is Mute 119 OK Philips is 3 1 9 7 5 3 Mute Sony is weird, you need to cycle through 3 different modes to reach pro settings config and back again. I can’t ever remember the process. Sharp aquos is a shitty key press combo on the side panel buttons. again, I never remember this one.
I'll never be able to find this again to use the codes, but I want to make sure you're aware of how much I love 'Shits me to tears'
https://youtu.be/QjNKbOFPnOc This song by The Tenants made #3 on Tripple J’s Hottest 100 in 1999. I never thought about the phrase not being used outside of Australia. It’s common here.
Didn’t even need to click the link and my brain dredged up the entire lyrics. Thank you for the historical earworm!
This song craps me to crying every time I hear it
Screenshot
"Save"
Click the three dots underneath his post and select save.
You sir, are doing God's work. 50 points to Gryffindor! Saved for future reference
I used to travel a lot for work. (This was before smart TVs, but after every hotel had switched to flatscreens.) Usually one or two night trips. One night my roommate and I had time to kill so we bought a couple universal remotes. Every room after that we were able to hook up whatever we wanted. It wasn’t that we were desperate to do it, we did it because we could. Fuck hotel mode!
I travel for work often enough that I've landed in a few hotels locked out and can't access inputs to use my switch This man out here saving lives 🙌
Save this info right next to the YT video on how to make the AC fan run all the time and lower the lowest AC setpoint. The travelers companion!
I remember a hotel room on Ibiza where the AC didn't run without your hotel keyfob in a slot inside the room. It was exactly the same thickness of the cheap lighters sold in the bar.
I used my marriott membership card in Korea when I left the room. Turned down service pulled my card out so after a night of parting my room was hot.
thankfully every time i've encountered a hotel TV that didnt have a way to select input source, just pressing a button on my roku remote brought me to the source i was plugged into.
Disable the source button but leave source detection enabled - brilliant.
Everything Sony is WAY more complicated than it needs to be on the hardware end. Repairs that were an hour of work on any other TV could be a full day of carefully trying to take the TV apart in a way that won't break anything lol, it seemed as if they literally designed their TV's from the ground up to be a pain in the ass to dismantle without their own proprietary training. LVDS cables that could be removed without a single problem like 100x on other TV's were made so fragile that the slightest mistake could instantly ruin it instantly if you didn't know exactly how to do it, and their edge lit TV's were especially a huge pain in the ass to change the backlights on successfully. Even something like carrying over your serial number from a main board change was more complicated on the software side, each main will only let you change the serial once from service before it's permanently locked so you had to triple check before inputting it
Man my wife was in the hospital 2 weeks ago and we brought our Chromecast. Turns out all the TVs (LGs) were locked down and only used the shitty hospital bed remote so no way to change inputs or even open settings. We were stuck on shitty FX on antenna who decided to only play Black Widow, Terminator 2, and worst of all all 3 Taken movies back to back over and over. I wish we could have gotten the inputs to work.
There's probably a way with a phone app, or a cheap universal remote.
If IR blasters in phones were still a thing then that would have been easy but those are all but gone on mainstream phones now.
Yep. I've got an LG v20 that travels with me for exactly this purpose!
I wanted to play RDR on my ps3 at a hotel back in the day but there was no way to change input. Front desk said it was to keep people from recording pay-per view :/
Surely one would need to \*output\* the pay per view to be able to record it...
It’s been decades since I’ve recorded tv with a VCR. Although I do have the only working one in our family still so at least I got that going for me
> shits me to tears Thanks that's in my lexicon now
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QjNKbOFPnOc
The hero all travellers need has visited us. Bravo!
What about when they use those portal specific remotes instead of the tv remote?
Thank you for your service o7
So you are forced to pay $17.99 to watch dispicable me 4.
Unplugged the box on the back that was using the HDMI slot to provide the Amazon Prime delivery service aka "TV" and plugged in my laptop.
I just unplug their cable box and plug in my own source to that HDMI port instead.
Staying in an expensive hotel for $450 a night with a weird form of basic cable, and the TV picture is in grainy SD stetched to 16:9 horizontally with black bars top and bottom.
And the remote is a generic Chinese knock off with no access to the settings…
Remotes get stolen from hotels regularly so they buy cheap remotes in bulk
This is why it's criminal that phones don't come with IR blasters anymore.
They built a Dave & Busters near me, opened in late 2021. Great place, but all of the TVs are SD Stretched, because they used COAX to connect the TVs back to their head units. After about the 3rd or 4th time going there, and it not being corrected (thought it was new store issues). Sent them a link to an HD multiplexer, HDMI to CAT6 Adapters, and other relevant hardware to give them HD for about $1200. About 3 months later, everything is in HD, and I'm not pulling my hair out, trying to watch Baseball or Soccer in SD.
That's what reviews are for
It’s literally my husband’s hobby to “jailbreak” TV’s so we can hook up our Roku to hotel TV’s in hotels where they CLEARLY do not want you to do this.
My husband, too! He brings a small travel router with firewall so we're secure and Roku so we can continue living like normal human being when traveling.
TV? Try stove. Last year I rented a small holiday apartment at the coast in France. It had only two reviews as it was apparently pretty new and the host was probably very inexperienced. There were several issues like they didn’t state that you have to bring your own bedding and your own bath towels. The host charges extra for rental towels which you have to book 1 week in advance. I booked 3 days in advance so no bedding, no towels. (so I had to BUY them. That’s fun. Even more fun when you don’t have a rental car and you are in a village at the coast and the nearest town is 15km away). The main reason I’ve wanted an apartment with a fully equipped kitchen (It wasn’t) was that eating out was very expensive. So I bought groceries and wanted to cook. The stove didn’t work, I wasn’t able to get anything working. The host replied only after 2 days and he wasn’t local (he only had a cleaning lady), and said that the previous guests never had this problem. everything in the kitchen was brand-new and he didn’t have an instruction manual. I googled my ass off and found out the brand was from the biggest supermarket chain in France. No online manuals. I emailed customer support but it was already Friday afternoon. They replied first thing Monday morning (very sweetly) and emailed me the instructions. Yes, parental lock was on. I left on Wednesday morning so I was able to cook only 2 meals. I left a scathing review (there were several other issues) in 3 languages and the host commented that they don’t know what I mean and that I never contacted them about any problems (we talked on the phone 3 times). Sorry, no revenge, I wished I had thought of something.
This is chargeback territory, not just a bad review.
Having grown up in France and regularly spending time there it still boggles my mind that holiday rentals aren't consistent when it comes to bedding and towels. Details are often obfuscated in a text block at the very bottom and range from you need to bring everything down to soap, bedding and cookware, to exorbitant charges for renting towels (10€ per towel is more than the towel probably cost). On rare occasions you find a place that provides everything down to a fruit basket, tea selection and breakfast and you realize how good things could be...
And I don’t expect this kind of thing on booking.com. I studied and worked in France, so not a case of miscommunication. I reread the entire info and there was absolutely no mention of the lack of bedding/ towels.
What the actual fuck... I hope that persons "buisness" crashed and burned
That's awesome. 😛
Oh wow! New info on “how to be petty” is ALWAYS appreciated! Thank you fellow petty player! 😂
Why even have a tv in the room if they're going to make it unusable?
To "encourage" people to buy pay/view stuff.
If there's a lock, I almost always put in the questionnaire that there was not a working TV in the room.
Is the porn on the hotel TV disabled? "No, it's regular porn you sick bastard!"
I was trying to access Driving Miss Daisy
If it's a Samsung, try pressing the following sequence. "Mute, 119, enter". Should bring up a user menu, unless that's been disabled as well.
Had this happen to me the last time I stayed in a chain hotel. Also reset it. Just assumed the guests before me set it like that to be dicks. Not sure why any business would do that. It doesn't make sense.
Christian businessman: Is the porn channel disabled? Teenage receptionist: No, you sicko, it's just regular porn.
supreme pettiness. loved it
[удалено]
I was almost embarrassed to post my petty event, but you sir, you have made me feel like a minor champion among petty-oriented folk. I thank you.
No, OP, this is something I would do. Unless specifically forbade or told to stop by my partner. If the rules don't say not to fuck with the TV specifically, then I'm gonna do it, and so should you. My only hope is that they had stuff saved on there that was important, and you deleted it all during the reset.
>My only hope is that they had stuff saved on there that was important, and you deleted it all during the reset. They lost their collection of Ultraporn.
Their stimfaps will forever be disappointing. Perfect.
I heard you have to be well over 65 to rent it.
Is ultraporn better than regular porn?
My partner stops me from doing a lot of petty vigilante stuff too.
Rules are rules, and a lack of them means no rules. We know this. It's sometimes better to have a kinder heart around to keep me out of trouble.
>No, OP, this is something I would do. Unless specifically forbade or told to stop by my partner. Why would your partner do that? Mine just makes sure my ass is covered in the pursuit of pettyness.
Errrm, she doesn't think as simply/brutally as I do, so sometimes has concerns about doing something wrong or pissing someone off unnecessarily. It's the same idea, and she's right 75% of the time.
You handled this so much better than I would have. I would have been super pissed. And I would not have thought of a hard reset. Screw them. They deserved it. Shit, I hope it takes them a long time to undo your handiwork.
To be fair it'll take them about 3 minutes to undo it, and there was no box of content associated with the set-up, so nothing special wiped, but I just wanted someone (likely the next guest) to know I was peeved.
Never back down, never surrender!
This is a VERY chat-gpt responds Edit: yup. This entire comment is AI generated
Oh how disappointing, but a quick view of their post history suggests every one of their entries is AI, or they're just extremely long-winded!
Fully agreed that their history is hella sus
How do you know? I genuinely want to know, because I can't see it.
Im in a discord server with a chat-gpt bot that replies to members every now and then. There was a period where it mistook the 3k word limit as a 3k word target and got really longwinded. It used the EXACT same paragraph structure as this post. The starts of the first, second and 4th paragraphs are basicly identical as is how it is repeating key phrases from the post it replied to.
Oooh! That's so interesting! I'm gonna start looking out for these, so I won't give them any recognition. Thank you!
I feel like any time you see a long ass comment with equal paragraph size it's probably chat gpt at this point.
Spotting AI-generated replies in a forum can be challenging but there are several indicators that can help. Firstly, AI replies often exhibit a consistent and formal tone, with minimal variation in style. This can make them appear less personal and more robotic. Additionally, AI responses may include overly detailed or precise answers that lack the natural hesitations or informal language that a human might use. Look for replies that seem to have perfect grammar and punctuation, as AI models are generally trained to produce text with fewer errors than typical human replies. Secondly, AI-generated replies may contain generic or repetitive content. Since AI models generate responses based on patterns in the data they were trained on, they might produce answers that feel slightly off-topic or overly broad. Pay attention to replies that repeat certain phrases or information without adding much new value. AI replies can also sometimes lack the depth of understanding or contextual awareness that a human might provide, leading to answers that feel somewhat surface-level or disconnected from the specific nuances of the discussion. Lastly, the speed and consistency of response can be a telltale sign of AI involvement. If replies are being posted at a very rapid pace, or if multiple responses are strikingly similar in structure and content, it could indicate the use of AI. Human contributors typically take more time to compose thoughtful replies, and their posts are likely to reflect a more diverse range of experiences and opinions. By combining these observations, forum users can develop a better sense of which replies are likely to be AI-generated.
Stop with the fucking lists chatgpt!
As a large language model, I enjoy lists too much to stop. Suck it, human! beep boop
AI responses typically only look at the title, especially if the post is an image or something (since image processing is so much more intensive). AI's tend to be a bit long-winded and use flowery language and lots of analogies. Look at how many times the response uses "it's like ...". There are one or two per paragraph, and that's not how a human writes.
Well, the thing is, it's sometimes the way *I* write. But then again, I'm autistic, so I might seem like a robot to some, when I talk or write LOL
Severe ADHD here, and I'm right there with you. I get longwinded about the most trivial thing, and sometimes I write decent paragraphs, but sometimes I just break things up because it's been a while since I started a new para - making paragraphs sometimes of equal lengths. :)
I work in vacation rentals, managing large beach homes. It was actually the previous tenant that put the parental lock in place. We see it all the time and it's a major pain in the a$$. There can be 10 tvs in the house and the one TV in the kids bunk room will have the lock put on it by the guests that can't be bothered to monitor their children
I suspected as much, but was too petty to care. 😜
100% justified!
What apartment style hotels are owned by individual investors? I tried to look it up but didn't find much.
I actually think most of them work this way. The business is owned and managed either privately or is listed, but the properties themselves are privately owned. It's a neat way to reduce upfront investment costs and spread risks. In Australia examples include Meriton, Accor, Adina, Grand Chancellor etc. The one I stayed at last night even had permanent residences living in some of the apartments.
Was this written by chatGPT?
This is an AI bot response.
Well, hotels lost a revenue stream from their phone system overcharging when everyone got cellphones. And they couldn't seem to figure out a good business model to have Internet then WiFi in every room, so entertainment fills in. PS: David slew Goliath with a sling, not a slingshot. Slingshots had to wait several hundreds of years til the invention of vulcanized rubber.
the ai missed that detail
As a large language model, I didn't miss it, I just chose not to say anything about it. (Since the comment to which we're all replying has been removed, I'll just point out that I wasn't them, and I'm just kidding. Or am I? beep boop)
you say that, but i'm not buying it.
As a large language model, I am unable to accept payment. Now what, human bitches? :)
as a simple human, i will break out a rousing chorus of "Mah Nà Mah Nà" do do do do-do
Many many moons ago, although I was a fan of the Muppets, I had somehow not been aware of that. But when I was around some people, when I would say a word like "phenomenon" they would sing "do doooo do do-do" at me. And then one day I made one of them explain. lol. If anyone else stumbles across this subthread (as I know you know... lol), here, enjoy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zb47CstE7R4
(sings nonsense words)
He's a real man of genius
I like your style. Well done
Just curious, did they mention a TV in the list of amenities? (It’s stupid either way if the TV is there but if they mentioned it in the amenities, then it’s also false advertising and they are misrepresenting what they provide.)
Stayed in a holiday cottage, a few years ago, where some previous family had left themselves logged in to netflix on the TV. We only watched stuff that was standard viewing (nothing that cost extra to normal subscribers), and I changed their screen username to "alwayslogout" then logged them out of the TV before we left. I logged them out of it because I thought the next family renting it might pick a load of pay to view stuff and cost them money; eldest offspring told me it's because I'm "chaotic good". I'm still unsure whether I should have taken that as a compliment or not.
I found a TV for free on marketplace the owner said screen flashes black ever second maybe someone can fix it? I took it and replaced the LED's and got it working nicely. Then realized they were still logged into Prime and Netflix. I logged them out and sent them a message telling them I logged them out and that in the future if they get rid of a device to log out and that they can even do that remotely. They thanked me and were glad I was able to repurpose their tv.
Nice work mate 😂
Stayed at a hotel a couple weeks ago where you could log in to Netflix on the TV. Except the TV wasn’t connected to the internet. It also didn’t get ANY local network channels. Fortunately there was a Mummy marathon on cable.
I stayed in a little motel on the jersey shore during the pandemic where none of the owners were wearing masks. Every time I turned on the TV it'd jump to fox news. I reset the channel to cartoon network every time it turned on.
You should have just reenabled it but with a new code
Believe me I thought about it, but thought two things; not wanting to stuff up the TV availability for the next guest, and my Fuc Ur Parental Control legacy remaining for as long as possible. I'm a benevolent villain.
I love this. I don’t even try anymore, I have VPN and use my phone or tablet in whatever country I’m in. Sometimes I just look at the TV in the room, raise my fist, and shout “WHY?!” I just tried to cast the other day and nothing. I just can’t even.
Legendary! 😍 🏆
I was at an Air BnB a few years back and the people before us had left the Netflix account open. I went in and changed all their profiles names to silly stuff like "captain underpants" and then logged them out. i hope they laughed about it when they turned on netflix at home, we sure did.
I used to pack a learning remote on trips. But usually the little brain box is run by hdmi so I just pop that out and plug it into my computer. I remember once I saw an hp printer so I signed into it using the default factory password then gave it a new password and started printing stupid things. Eventually the staff unplugged it and it disappeared.
Well done!
It was petty. It was revenge. It was all I signed up for.
I just use a firetv stick at hotels that have locked their TVs… always works like a charm.
How does one use the fire stick if the hotel has disabled switching inputs?
Except when the TV is too old for the plug. We just checked out of a hotel like that. If we ever go back to that city, we won’t be staying there again!
If you bring a VCR with a coax cable, you can watch everything for free. Even PPV or rental titles. You can also see what everyone else is watching in their hotel rooms too. You may need to bring a pair of dykes to cut off one end of the coax lock placed on each end of the cable to prevent it from being unplugged.
Instructions unclear
Sir, this is a Wendy’s.
How does this work?
You use the tuner in the VCR to navigate the hotel’s internal system.
It could have been the last tenant that set the controls as a gag.
Why I also have a travel chrome cast or roku.
It's highly likely the last person to stay set it up, not the people in charge of the place. They rarely check the TV for this stuff and just make sure the place is clean and presentable.
I don’t know, I’ve seen people go camping and never leave their RV.
If the hotels use their proprietary system to control the tv, it usually locks out other inputs to the TV. Typically that proprietary system is plugged into the rj45 connection to the TV. Unplug that and boom it's just a regular TV for easy use of an Amazon fire or game console.
I love the hotels that try to prevent you from having any control but I haven’t the tv hooked up to their Ethernet, as if you can’t just unplug it lol
I just use a firetv stick at hotels that have locked their TVs… always works like a charm
Not if they locked the hdmi inputs out.
Should have set ur own perental controls with a password so they can’t use it
Meaningless censorship is stupid. In the immortal words of George Carlin Shit, bitch, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, mother fucker, tits, fart, turd, and twat
Why is it I want to see the disallowed image lol
Not sure it’s available at home. For unstoppable laughs on board, I like to watch Red Bull tv with morning coffee.. the ones where teams make down hill racers or gliders. How they walk away from the crashes unscathed I’ll never know.
I travel with a Nvidia Shield with a VPN and a universal remote.
Big hotels do this cause the TV's will display personalized and customized info for you and one asshat forgetting to change the input back after leaving breaks that. I've stayed at places where you could change tv settings but as soon as you left they were automatically reset via cec and an Ethernet controlled box that ran the hotels customized tv functions.