Smart TV or TV-Box - what to entrust your leisure time

Smart, modern TVs are called all manufacturers that have a built-in computer and operating system. Samsung has Tizen, LG has webOS, Xiaomi, Philips, TCL and others have Android TV. As planned by manufacturers, smart TVs tend to play video content from any source. And, of course, to give out a picture in the best quality. To do this, the corresponding matrices are installed in the TVs and there is an electronic filling.

 

Only all this does not work quite smoothly. As a rule, in 99% of cases, the power of the electronics is not enough to process and output a signal in 4K format, for example. Not to mention video or audio codecs that require licenses. And here TV-Box comes to the rescue. The set-top box, even from the lowest price segment, turns out to be many times more powerful than the electronics on TVs.

 

Smart TV or TV-Box - the choice is clear

 

Regardless of the brand and model range, but taking into account the size of the diagonal, you will have to buy both a TV and a set-top box. Moreover, when choosing a TV, the emphasis is only on the quality of the matrix and HDR support. A TV-Box is selected according to the budget and ease of management.

There are ardent opponents of set-top boxes who claim that most smart TVs perfectly output 4K content from Youtube or a flash drive. Yes, they take it out. But, either with friezes, or without sound (relevant for a flash drive). Freezes are frame skips. When the processor does not have time to process the signal completely and loses about 10-25% of frames. On the screen, this is indicated by a twitching of the picture.

 

Alternatively, reducing the resolution of the content will help get rid of the shortcomings associated with the quality of 4K video. For example, up to FullHD format. But then a natural question arises - what is the point of buying a 4K TV. Oh yes. There are fewer and fewer offers with old matrices on the market. That is, 4K is already the standard. It's just not possible to watch video in quality. Vicious circle. This is where TV-Box comes to the rescue.

 

How to choose the right TV box

 

Everything is simple here, as with mobile technology. High platform performance is for games. You can connect joysticks to the console and play your favorite toys on the TV, and not on the PC or console. Set-top boxes are produced based on the Android operating system. Accordingly, the games will work from Google Play. The exception is TV-Box nVidia. It can work with Android, Windows, Sony and Xbox games. But you will have to create an account and purchase the necessary games on the nVidia server.

When choosing a set-top box for a TV, the emphasis is on:

 

• Availability of all popular video and audio codecs. This is to ensure that video from any source is played back. Especially from torrents. There are many videos with DTS sound or compressed with strange codecs.
• Compliance with the standards of wired and wireless interfaces for TV. In particular, HDMI, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. It often happens that a smart TV supports HDMI1, and on the set-top box, the output is version 1.4. The result is the inability to work HDR 10+.
• Ease of setup and management. The prefix is ​​beautiful, powerful, and the menu is incomprehensible. This often happens. And it is found only at the first connection. The problem can be fixed by installing an alternative firmware. But why waste time on this if you can initially buy a smart set-top box for a TV.

 

Apple TV - is it worth buying a set-top box of this brand

 

The Apple TV-Box runs on tvOS. Chip operating system in ease of management. Plus, the prefix itself is quite productive. But it is better to give preference to owners of Apple smartphones or tablets. For Android users, owning an Apple TV-Box is going to be hell. Since the set-top box uses only licensed services.

The high power of the platform can be added to the advantages of apple consoles. TV-Box is suitable for watching 4K videos and playing games. Naturally, all games are downloaded and installed from the Apple store. But the choice is good, even despite the payment.

 

Which brands to look for when choosing a TV-Box

 

The most important selection criterion is the brand. Dozens of manufacturers present their products on the market. Each brand has 3 classes of devices - budget, adaptive, premium. And the differences are not only in price, but also in the electronic filling.

 

Well-proven solutions: Xiaomi, VONTAR, X96 Max +, Mecool, UGOOS, NVIDIA, TOX1. There is also a cool Beelink brand. But he left the console market, switching to a mini-PC. So, these mini-PCs are also suitable for connecting to TVs. True, there is no reason to buy them purely for watching videos. Expensive.

Set-top boxes from brands such as: Tanix TX65, Magicsee N5, T95, A95X, X88, HK1, H10 cannot be bought. They do not meet the stated specifications.

 

And one more thing - the remote control for the console. The kit rarely comes with suitable remote controls. It is better to buy them separately. There are solutions with a gyroscope, voice control, backlight. Price from 5 to 15 US dollars. These are pennies compared to the ease of management. Already 2 years of leadership in the market behind the console G20S PRO.

What parameters to look at when choosing a TV-Box

 

• Processor. Responsible for performance, both in games and in video signal processing. Everything is simple here, the more cores and the higher their frequency, the better. But. Overheating may occur. Especially in cases where the set-top box is attached to the TV. Accordingly, you need to look for a TV-Box with good passive cooling. For the cool brands mentioned above, everything works smoothly, like clockwork.
• RAM. The norm is 2 GB. There are consoles with 4 gigabytes. The volume does not affect the quality of the video. It affects the performance in games more.
• Persistent memory. 16, 32, 64, 128 GB. Needed purely for programs or games. Content is played over the network or from an external storage device. Therefore, you can not chase the amount of ROM.
• Network interfaces. Wired - 100 Mbps or 1 Gigabit. More is better. Especially for playing 4K movies over a wired network. Wireless - Wi-Fi4 and 5 GHz. Better than 5 GHz, at least Wi-Fi 5. The presence of the 2.4 standard is welcome if the router is in another room - the signal is more stable, but the network bandwidth is lower.

• Wired interfaces. HDMI, USB, SpDiF or 3.5mm audio. HDMI has already been dealt with above, the standard must be at least version 2.0a. USB ports must be both version 2.0 and version 3.0. Since there are external drives that are incompatible with the interface. Audio outputs are needed in cases where it is planned to connect a receiver, amplifier or active speakers to the set-top box to output sound. In other cases, the sound is transmitted via HDMI cable to the TV.
• Form Factor. This is the attachment type. It happens desktop and in Stick format. The second option is available in the form of a flash drive. Installed in HDMI port. To watch the video is enough, you can forget about the rest of the functionality.