What's the best 4k IPTV box? Wanted to future proof.
by
shadowt1tan
Blue-Thunder
There is no such thing as future proof in this game. Honestly, there is going to be no future proofing as most streams are going to stay at h264 as moving to h265/av1 is going to be too cost prohibitive. A basic mag will do all you want. Being profitable as a provider means cutting as much corners as possible. To do that, they cut down on bitrate by keeping audio as stereo, and usually having streams at 720 1.5-2mb. Some providers have started touting 1080p streams at 4-5mbit, but you're still only getting a squashed stereo sound, maybe 128k, probably more around 96k.
A shield is stupidly powerful. It's like getting an F1 car as your grocery getter when all you need is a station wagon, ie a mag. If you want, you can get yourself a porsche, ie a Dreamlink T1+, or a BuzzTv (just an S905, not really that impressive software wise either)
So unless HEVC/AV1 encoding suddenly becomes orders of magnitude cheaper, where we can see the same performance as we do with h264 encoders currently, a mag or a dreamlink is all you really need. Even with the new HEDT chips coming out from Intel and AMD I don't see anything drastic changing the encoding scene. You need dedicated hardware to reach current H264 encode speeds with HEVC/AV1 and that hardware is expensive, which is one thing providers don't want to do. Maybe when x299 comes out we may see if the new quicksync can compete, but odds are it won't be able to compare to a 4p server doing H264.
I hope I didn't go over your head too much.
dperez87
Nvidia Shield
Cmdrfrog
Beelink GT1 Android box ($34.99 Ebay) very fast S912 CPU, 4k support, Kodi
ziir20
but trust me this reciever is better than dm t1 absolutely!
There is no such thing as future proof in this game. Honestly, there is going to be no future proofing as most streams are going to stay at h264 as moving to h265/av1 is going to be too cost prohibitive. A basic mag will do all you want. Being profitable as a provider means cutting as much corners as possible. To do that, they cut down on bitrate by keeping audio as stereo, and usually having streams at 720 1.5-2mb. Some providers have started touting 1080p streams at 4-5mbit, but you're still only getting a squashed stereo sound, maybe 128k, probably more around 96k.
A shield is stupidly powerful. It's like getting an F1 car as your grocery getter when all you need is a station wagon, ie a mag. If you want, you can get yourself a porsche, ie a Dreamlink T1+, or a BuzzTv (just an S905, not really that impressive software wise either)
So unless HEVC/AV1 encoding suddenly becomes orders of magnitude cheaper, where we can see the same performance as we do with h264 encoders currently, a mag or a dreamlink is all you really need. Even with the new HEDT chips coming out from Intel and AMD I don't see anything drastic changing the encoding scene. You need dedicated hardware to reach current H264 encode speeds with HEVC/AV1 and that hardware is expensive, which is one thing providers don't want to do. Maybe when x299 comes out we may see if the new quicksync can compete, but odds are it won't be able to compare to a 4p server doing H264.
I hope I didn't go over your head too much.