TV Android Boxes

[phil p]

Hi,

Just doing some research into these as I'm about to get some fibre broadband as I believe these boxes need decent download speeds.

Does anyone else have one and can recommend a decent make?

Been looking at the Nvidea Shield, which is a bit pricey, but by what I can see it's about the best out there.

Any other makes/models to have a think about?

Cheers
Phil

 

[RogerS]

Phil, you don't need fibre to watch TV unless you want to watch 4G and only Netflix broadcast that as far as I know at the moment. The other thing to consider as well is just how much are you going to use it and how much monthly bandwidth does your ISP give you. 4G will chew through that before you can say 'Ad break'!

HD will get by with a 5Mbps download speed quite happily.

The next question you need to ask yourself is just exactly what do you want to watch? iPlayer? The catch-up services from the other three channels (ITV, Channel 4 group and Channel 5) ? Note that not all programmes on these are available as catch-up. Do you want to watch films streamed from Sky (Now) or Netflix? Have you looked at their catalogues? Pretty abysmal choice as far as this household is concerned TBH.

Or the films from Amazon Prime...but then you need their box rather than a generic Android box as far as I am aware.

Do you want to watch YouTube? Not all boxes support that.

Have you thought about getting a YouView PVR from the likes of Humax? I bought a secondhand one for £50 and it's pretty damn good. Picture quality is excellent and you can access the catch-up services from the main broadcasters, Now and Netflix. The only thing it won't do and which I would welcome is YouTube although entering data is pretty slow. I looked briefly at getting a secondhand Apple TV but as that only has HDMI output no good to us. i could get an HDMI > RGB SCART adapter but TBH it's probably not worth it.

That's another thing to consider..what is the user interface like. Without a proper keyboard you are down to two options as far as I am aware.

1) All the letters and numbers on the screen. You use the cursor control on the remote keypad to go >>>> select then down down down <<<< which soon gets to be a real PITA

2) You use the numeric keys on the remote and hit the button as many times as needed. For example, hit 1 three times to get C. Again, not ideal.

 

[Wuffles]

I think you meant 4K not 4G (just to clear that up) and I believe the OP is talking about "naughty" Android boxes that stream things that perhaps shouldn't be streamed, not Netflix and the other legit methods.

 

[RogerS]

I think you meant 4K not 4G (just to clear that up) ....

Being bombarded by EE telling me how wonderful 4G is. We're lucky to get 3G !

 

[Wuffles]

I think you meant 4K not 4G (just to clear that up) ....

Being bombarded by EE telling me how wonderful 4G is. We're lucky to get 3G !

Same here. Have you experienced 4G? Sometimes when I drive to town I get it and it blows me away.

 

[mseries]

My laptops, SMART TV, NowTV box all stream content perfectly on my regular non fibre broadband which is no faster than 13Mb/s. I'd be surprised if an Android based device really needed fibre

 

[Wuffles]

My laptops, SMART TV, NowTV box all stream content perfectly on my regular non fibre broadband which is no faster than 13Mb/s. I'd be surprised if an Android based device really needed fibre

"Rural" broadband speeds are frequently below 5 meg, not sure where the OP lives exactly, but I wouldn't try and stream anything more than a Pooh stick on less than 5 meg.

We upgraded to Infinity and the rural offering is approximately 13 meg if we're lucky.

 

[Nelsun]

The Shield devices are not cheap but I think they are mainly aimed at folk wanting to play the fancier games. I have the original Nexus Player which will run you £80. Living in the sticks I get ~ 5Mbps download which suffices for iPlayer (unless everyone and their dog are doing likewise).

Getting live TV is a faff though. I have to use an app ("TV Player" IIRC) which gets the main channels but there's no DVR capability. It has other uses which, as I don't really ever watch live TV, are nice:

1) It works as a Chromecast thing so you can find something on your phone and tippity-tap watch it on the TV. This only works with apps that support Chromecast devices of course (YouTube and iPlayer do as do plenty others).
2) This is specific to some phones but, when something doesn't support Chromecast I can just mirror my phone screen straight to the TV.
3) Plex. This is a media server program you run on a PC of some sort and install the app on the player. It indexes all your media and dishes it out to just about any device you can name anywhere with a net connection.

All in all it's great for our needs. The lack of live TV functionality does irk given the operating system it uses has "TV" in the effing name though!

 

[mseries]

My laptops, SMART TV, NowTV box all stream content perfectly on my regular non fibre broadband which is no faster than 13Mb/s. I'd be surprised if an Android based device really needed fibre

"Rural" broadband speeds are frequently below 5 meg, not sure where the OP lives exactly, but I wouldn't try and stream anything more than a Pooh stick on less than 5 meg.

We upgraded to Infinity and the rural offering is approximately 13 meg if we're lucky.

Sure there will be a minimum speed requirement and if fibre is your way of getting this....

 

[Wuffles]

My laptops, SMART TV, NowTV box all stream content perfectly on my regular non fibre broadband which is no faster than 13Mb/s. I'd be surprised if an Android based device really needed fibre

"Rural" broadband speeds are frequently below 5 meg, not sure where the OP lives exactly, but I wouldn't try and stream anything more than a Pooh stick on less than 5 meg.

We upgraded to Infinity and the rural offering is approximately 13 meg if we're lucky.

Sure there will be a minimum speed requirement and if fibre is your way of getting this....

You've lost me, you sort of drifted off there with some dots

 

[mseries]

For streaming TV there will be a minimum speed requirement such as 5Mb/s. I can get this using regular non fibre broadband. You can't so you'll need fibre to attain this speed. I don't. My point is that for streaming services, fibre isn't a requirement but a certain speed is.

 

[Wuffles]

For streaming TV there will be a minimum speed requirement such as 5Mb/s. I can get this using regular non fibre broadband. You can't so you'll need fibre to attain this speed. I don't. My point is that for streaming services, fibre isn't a requirement but a certain speed is.

Lol. Ok, that's a given, but ok.

 

[gwr]

I have a T8 android box and it's great does everything I want,
After a little search I found lot of good reviews on an Amiko A3
It has provisions to connect a hard drive too.