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Rating of the top 10 best set-top boxes for digital television according to KP

1. Apple TV 4K

This mul­ti­me­dia set-top box with great fea­tures will suit not only Apple fans, but also oth­er users. It con­nects to a TV or oth­er device via an HDMI inter­face. The device can work not only with widescreen options, but also with stan­dard def­i­n­i­tion TVs.

Apple TV 4K is the fifth gen­er­a­tion set-top box. With it, you can con­ve­nient­ly play con­tent from iTunes, dupli­cate the screen of a Mac­Book and oth­er iOS devices, launch appli­ca­tions from the App Store and go to the web­site of the desired TV chan­nel to start broad­cast­ing a TV sig­nal online.

Pros and cons

Great fea­tures, easy to use remote con­trol

Dif­fi­cul­ties with dis­play­ing 4K con­tent

2. Nvidia Shield TV

Nvidia Shield TV runs Android TV. The set-top box is per­fect for watch­ing TV in 4K res­o­lu­tion with HDR sup­port, as well as movies from stor­age media.

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In addi­tion, the device is designed for those who like to play on the big screen. All thanks to NVIDIA GameStream gam­ing ser­vice and GeForce Now mode.

Over­all, this is one of the most mul­ti-task­ing devices on the mar­ket: it can be used as a media play­er for local files, a set-top box for OTT ser­vices, and a game con­sole.

Pros and cons

3. Xiaomi Mi Box International Version

Anoth­er option run­ning Android TV. It also allows you to con­nect to YouTube, Google Play Movies, Net­flix, iVi and oth­er ser­vices, install game appli­ca­tions and lis­ten to music. In short, every­thing that a smart­phone can do is only on the big screen.

The mod­el sup­ports 3D video play­back and 2160p 4K UHD for­mat. And with the help of the Wi-Fi mod­ule, it is eas­i­ly inte­grat­ed into the home Inter­net space. The set-top box is run­ning the Android 6.0 oper­at­ing sys­tem, and the data pro­cess­ing speed is pro­vid­ed by the AMLog­ic S905X proces­sor and 2 GB of RAM.

Pros and cons

4 Galaxy Innovation Phoenix

A sol­id com­bined HD receiv­er, which is cur­rent­ly capa­ble of receiv­ing almost all broad­cast­ing stan­dards. The device is based on a dual-core proces­sor ALi3516, which can work with DDR3 RAM.

GI Phoenix plays TV chan­nels in both nor­mal qual­i­ty and Full HD high def­i­n­i­tion. It per­fect­ly receives ter­res­tri­al and cable TV chan­nels of dig­i­tal tele­vi­sion and, in the pres­ence of an exter­nal dri­ve, records and plays media files in a vari­ety of for­mats. And when con­nect­ed to the net­work, you have access to the weath­er fore­cast, read­ing the news, watch­ing videos on Youtube, as well as movies and pro­grams from var­i­ous ser­vices.

Pros and cons

5.Harper HDT2-1512

The bud­get option sur­pris­es with the sup­port of HDTV stan­dards — high-def­i­n­i­tion tele­vi­sion. In addi­tion, the HDT2-1512 has a TimeShift func­tion that allows you to pause the live broad­cast to con­tin­ue watch­ing at a con­ve­nient time.

The receiv­er also works as a media play­er, play­ing audio and video con­tent, as well as images from exter­nal media. There are also basic fea­tures — record­ing pro­grams on a timer and parental con­trol.

Pros and cons

6. Dune HD Duo 4K

Dune HD Duo 4K is the ide­al media play­er for play­ing not only TV but also your home video and audio col­lec­tion.

The VXP-pow­ered video proces­sor deliv­ers pro­fes­sion­al stu­dio-lev­el video pro­cess­ing, while the pow­er­ful ESS SABRE32 Ref­er­ence deliv­ers high-qual­i­ty ana­log audio out­puts. In addi­tion, the device uses the MVC codec, which allows you to play 3D video. In gen­er­al, a mod­el for real fans of qual­i­ty.

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Pros and cons

7. Skyway Play

Sky­way Play is a great assis­tant for any TV, from “grand­moth­er’s” to mod­ern 4K res­o­lu­tion. This is an Android box with 8GB stor­age and 1GB RAM. A quad-core proces­sor from Hisil­i­con is respon­si­ble for all com­put­ing process­es.

The per­for­mance is enough to play media in almost any for­mat, includ­ing the new Ultra HD with 4K sup­port. With Sky­way Play, you can also watch movies in online cin­e­mas and oth­er ser­vices. And if the stan­dard pack­age is not enough, there are many oth­er ways to con­nect to IPTV and OTT tele­vi­sion, includ­ing in HD for­mat.

Pros and cons

8. Google Chromecast Ultra

The most com­pact media play­er in the col­lec­tion also boasts sup­port for 4K con­tent. It con­nects direct­ly to the TV, but does not have its own inter­face — you need to choose what to watch on your smart­phone or oth­er device.

You can also send videos to Chrome­cast and from your com­put­er or lap­top. And despite being a Google device, it works with iPhones, iPads, Android mobile devices, as well as Macs, Win­dows com­put­ers, and Chrome­books.

Pros and cons

9 Oriel 421

This receiv­er is used to receive cable (DVB‑C) and dig­i­tal (DVB-T2) broad­casts. The dig­i­tal receiv­er works with Wi-Fi, which means that IPTV, YouTube, Megogo, RSS and many oth­er appli­ca­tions will become avail­able to the user.

Using the USB input, the user will be able to watch movies and series from a flash dri­ve or hard dri­ve. And the TimeShift func­tion will allow you to pause the on-air TV show in order to return to view­ing when it is con­ve­nient.

Pros and cons

10.D‑Color DC1302HD

The bud­get receiv­er is intend­ed exclu­sive­ly for view­ing dig­i­tal tele­vi­sion. The device has sup­port for DVB‑T and DVB-T2 stan­dards, and in addi­tion to ana­logues, it has a built-in play­er that can read files from USB Flash dri­ves up to two ter­abytes in size.

Also DC1302HD has sup­port for all pop­u­lar audio and video codecs, as well as the func­tion of record­ing TV pro­grams. The TimeShift func­tion allows the user to pause play­back, and the Dol­by Dig­i­tal chip removes any sound restric­tions for com­fort­able movie view­ing.

Pros and cons

How to choose a set-top box for digital television

Today, there is a huge range of set-top box­es for dig­i­tal tele­vi­sion on the mar­ket. Such devices allow you to expand the capa­bil­i­ties of not only mod­ern widescreen mon­i­tors and plas­mas, but also TVs of an old­er year. “KP” gives advice on choos­ing a pre­fix.

Device brand

The brand plays an impor­tant role when choos­ing a con­sole. Recent­ly, many Chi­nese devices have appeared on the mar­ket, many of which can­not be called high-qual­i­ty. Con­verse­ly, man­u­fac­tur­ers with a name do not often allow them­selves to launch their new mod­els on the mar­ket. There­fore, pay atten­tion to reviews about the mod­el, coun­try of man­u­fac­ture and release date.

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Guarantee

Not all man­u­fac­tur­ers are will­ing to give long-term war­ranties for their devices. Choose those options that offer at least 1–2 years of war­ran­ty ser­vice. And if the com­pa­ny, in prin­ci­ple, does not give guar­an­tees, we can safe­ly talk about the low qual­i­ty of the receiv­er.

Specifications

Experts rec­om­mend pay­ing atten­tion to mod­els that allow you to record video from the screen to remov­able media or a hard dri­ve, set a record­ing delay or stop the show dur­ing a live broad­cast. Thanks to these tech­ni­cal fea­tures, you can record movies and pro­grams that go at an incon­ve­nient time for the user.

Movie lovers should buy a set-top box for receiv­ing dig­i­tal ter­res­tri­al tele­vi­sion with HD sup­port.

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Convenient menu

Here it is impor­tant that the set-top box has not only a con­ve­nient con­trol pan­el, but also a pan­el with the main but­tons on its body. This is insur­ance in case of loss of the remote con­trol, and just an addi­tion­al way to con­trol.

Also note that the menu should not be only in a for­eign lan­guage. A good man­u­fac­tur­er will take care of the issue of how users will deal with the con­trols, so the absence of the Russ­ian lan­guage may indi­cate a poor qual­i­ty of the receiv­er.

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