Still learning all about IPTV but have a friend who uses a MAG box with his setup and seems to swear by it. Doing some initial research, I really don't understand the advantages to locking yourself to a MAG box. Can someone help me better understand why someone would want to go this route as opposed to the "normal" one? Are there major advantages doing this?
When I first started, mag boxes were the main ones used by everyone. But they don't support m3u subscriptions, so android boxes became more popular.
My sub is still only MAC based and not m3u, so no need to change my box, and mag box offers the best experience for MAC based subs.
If your into foriegn content, especially India, Mags are the way to go because most iptv services that offer m3u dont have a guide for foreign content. The Guides are mostly for English. Most mag services like Ipguys, Express, and Star tv for example have catchup/rewind, a Guide for most of the content and a huge VOD library. Hard to find all 3 of these features in a m3u service. But I wouldn't rush out and buy a magbox. Formuler z8 is a far better box and would give you both mac and m3u options.
As others have mentioned, the mags were designed to give you a cable company like experience... Similar to what you would get if you wanted a real tv subscription.
That same technology has been adopted by a few other companies such as formular (Dreamlink), buzz, and avov. This technology is known as stalker middleware.
If you decide to go with non - stalker based device, you may end up saving some money and some devices are more versatile, but you'll end up laying software on top of the box yourself, such as emulators or other apps just to make it work they way you want it.
Only you can decide if you want something versatile that requires you to manually try to figure things out, or if you want just a basic cable box that works out of the box.
It's just more like a normal cable/satellite TV experience. No opening of apps or anything else like that
I've set my parents up with IPTV and they're happiest with what looks more familiar for them