Don't know which is the best forum to ask this but anyway I would like to know if anyone that uses a hardware player such as a FireTV, Roku, or AppleTV device has found a way to block the appearance of skip buttons near the beginning of videos, and ratings overlays at the start of videos and overlays of various kinds (especially the shrinking boxes) over the credits.

My hope would be that it would be something simple like blocking access to particular IP addresses that serve up that stuff but even if that is possible, finding the IP addresses to block would be the part I would not know how to do. Those buttons and overlays are not part of the original video but I have no idea how they are applied to the video before it reaches the HDMI output on the player, and of course the companies won't tell you how to turn that stuff off even though you are paying them good money for their service.

So I am asking, does anyone know how to remove that stuff? And if, by chance, it can be done by blocking IP addresses, do you happen to know which ones to block?