Hi there guys. So I couldn't decide which box to get. Each camp have passionate fans. I came from a Formuler z7+ which has been great but just getting a bit long in the tooth.

I picked up both the Formuler GTV and the Shield Pro and put them side by side to compare. I run them the new model TCL Roku 5-series qled set.

I'm a big fan of Mytvonline and have been since it came out. My old z7+ has as you know Mol1. It works great and is extremely stable and feature rich. I really wanted to try Mytvonline 2. So that's what started me on this test.

I have been looking and asking around for a feature set comparison between MOL1 and MOL2. I really couldn't find much info on changes. I will get to that later.

GTV Setup right out of the box. Ethernet connectivity not detected. Had to do a quick search to find that the boxes ship with static ip setting enabled. So you have to skip setup get to settings switch to dhcp and all good to go. not that big of a deal but for more novice users could be frustrating. PQ looks dark and washed out at the same time with the Formuler GTV on factory settings. I have to search the formuler forums to figure out Android Settings > Device Preferences > Display > SDR to HDR > OFF. This made a big improvement.

Setup on the GTV went well after, google account setup is manual, again not a big deal.

The interfaces themselves with Android tv are 98% Identical.

Setup Mytvonline 2 and got to play with it. I'm sure I'm probably missing things but for the most part but after using MOL1 for years and moving to MOL2. It just seems like a reskin and nothing more. I'm not seeing any features that are much different. Performance is identical between a freshly reset z7+ and fresh GTV other than the old mol1 looking dated and mol2 looking better. The only performance difference I see if live programming time shift. If you wanted to rewind live content on mol1 it would get a little janky and clunky, overshooting ff or rw. MOL2 handles this MUCH better and with the gtv remote when you hit back you can bump 10sec at a time or modify the time. It works fast and seamlessly. Again. Other than that? No difference in performance anywhere else in each version.

Other apps on the GTV. We all know about the Netflix situation so I tried Amazon Prime video with good source content that I know looks great. The Grand tour Season 4 Seamen special.

My built in roku plays this content in full HDR and looks amazing, lots of eye candy. I then switched inputs and played the same content on the Formuler GTV. NO HDR and the content looked washed out. Again, this is after switching Android Settings > Device Preferences > Display > SDR to HDR > OFF. Switch back to Roku and the Shield pro with the same content and both look amazing again.

Iptv PQ on the shield is a notch better than the GTV.

AI upscaling - It all depends on the source content. Newer 1080 streams, older sd content from the 80s, 90s I tested. You have to play with it, which is easy simply hitting the settings button on the shield remote to go back and forth or test using the demo option. To see a real different hit pause and move the slider left and right. Some content ai upscaling looks amazing. Sometimes it makes the picture look much worse, again ymmv but its a great feature that can really be impressive to say the least.

Shield setup. Right out of the box it was extremely smooth. sign in via a code and your phone and your account copies over along with smart lock accounts, this automatically logs you into netflix, etc. no fuss no muss. no remote pairing, connectivity, etc all solid. It pulled down system and remote updates and was all set.

Shield has a lot more simple and advanced system settings than the formuler GTV. (1 thing I like with the GTV is holding down power gives you a shutdown and screenshot menu, I think the screenshot feature could come in handy.)

Performance - Shield hands down.

Remotes - Subjective. The GTV remote is like a Cadillac compared to my old z7+ remote. It feels very high quality and very hefty. (I'm willing to bet they put a weight in there.) The button feel however is kind of all over the place. For instance some buttons are harder to press, some easier. On the nav pad up and down feel ok but left and right feel much harder to press and rubbery. The position of the back button on the gtv remote seems to be placed in an odd spot and cramps my thumb. again all subjective and differences in manufacturing. etc. ymmv. The GTV remote has tons of buttons like a cable-sat remote. you have your number buttons, your color buttons, reassignables, etc. After thinking about it I never used most of them.

The Shield pro remote is simple but is taking a while to get used to. But it feels great in hand and under your thumb. The Find your remote feature already came in handy and every remote should have this feature.

Voice search on the Shield pro works a lot better than the GTV. With the GTV you hit the voice button and the response time seems to be different each time screwing up your voice search a lot. The Shield pro seems to work perfectly every time and as soon as you hit the voice search you speak and get results.

I have been a a huge fan of Mytvonline since it came out. It was a game changer. You just want to sit down and hit an app and get a simple and fast cable-sat box experience that anyone at any technical level and easily use and enjoy vs other setups where you have to go to many steps just to get into content.

This brings us to the experience with the shield running Tivimate. I installed Tivimate on the Z7+, the GTV and the Shield Pro. I could NOT get Tivimate to run on either formuler box without stability issues. Freezing, overshooting menus sometimes, etc. but mostly lots of freezing up to the point of needing a power cycle. Before I got the shield pro I was very skeptical of how tivimate would run on it. But I must say. Shield Pro again very impressed! Tivimate has been running 100% rock solid and extremely fast. It took me a few minutes to get used to the controls using the shield pro remote with tivimate but after that it was smooth sailing.

MOL1-2 Vs Tivimate features. They both have the same basic feature set. But Tivimate has a lot more customization settings and advanced settings and features. Appearance wise Tivimate looks much better and more polished than MOL2.

Tivimate has these small little details that really enance the experience. For instance. Surfing a few channels, start watching another channel. ya know what? I cant decide what to watch. Simply hit the ok button on the shield pro remote and it brings up like the last 8 or so channels you were just on earlier with instant switching back and forth.

Audio out of sync? That's REALLY annoying. simply hit OK and down on the shield remote go to Audio sync and tune in your audio track to match- done.

Using 2 or more sources of content? 1 system goes down on MOL and you have to go to settings-portals and manually connect to your backup source, wait for it to load and get into your list. Tivimate? your sources are all in the same list so you can navigate through multiple portals-channels instantly all ordered by provider in 1 big master list a great treat.

My Gripe with Tivimate? Live timeshifting. with MOL2 (if you have a usb stick or hd mounted) you can just bump the d pad left and go back 10sec, or whatever setting you prefer or rewind all the way back to the beginning of when you launched that channel. For instance. You are watching the news and something crazy happens. Holy Crap R Bud Dwyer just did that on live TV?! Rewind, hit record, exit, yank out your USB stick pop it into your pc pull the file and upload away. so simple and so nice.

Tivimate you can only timeshift on catchup content. You CAN pause content with Tivimate and then go back to live later but you cannot rewind the last 5-25 minutes of programming. I really hope to see this feature come to tivimate soon. It seems so simple if you have storage mounted to be able to timeshift live content.

AFR - AFR is janky to say the least on the Formuler GTV. Channel zapping with afr turned on with the GTV is terrible. you switch channels and if the fps differs, atleast on my tv set it dumps you completly out to your hdmi source no signal found screen until it figures out what to do, then the channel pops back up. The shield zapping with afr on is instant and seamless.

The overall Android tv experience between the 2. The Shield pro just feels much more polished, like a Cadillac with performance unmatched and optimized. I'm sure this all has to do with the Nvidia-Google relationship, Nvidia being such a big player vs a company like Dreamlink-Formuler aka "ChangHong"

"But Mytvonline is the closest you will get to a Cable-Sat box! Nothing else compares its the Experience!" That WAS the case apparently and as a long term Formuler owner I have always agreed with this. But from testing all 3 boxes for the past 3 days now for many many hours back to back I can no longer that that is the case. Tivimate is MORE polished and 100% solid on the shield pro compared to MOL1-2.

Again the only gripe here is live time shifting. To many this isn't a big deal. But live timeshifting is the only feature that tivimate is missing have that would kill mytvonline as it has many more features which mol does not have.

As a user who has has the z7+ since launch and a huge proponent of Formuler/Mytvonline I can easily say today GTV vs Shield pro with Tivimate. Shield pro with tivimate hands down gets the Chicken Dinner Folks, it does everything better. Performance, picture quality, experience, ease of use. Still love MOL however.

Thanks for reading this folks!