Bye Bye Sky - NZ Streaming Boxes

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DickDastardly

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#204777 17-Oct-2016 13:01

Hi Fellow Geekzone-ists,

Random sponsored advert on Facebook showed this company...

Bye Bye Sky NZ

So this seems to be a streaming box which somehow hooks various streaming sites worldwide.

Has anyone experience of these? The seem to be only capable of streaming live streams but no catch up functionality like iplayer? Is this right? How do you go about playing material in other regions? Are there geo-location issues as per Netflix?

On the face of it these boxes provide many channels in HD, so could be a good option for those jacking in Sky.

I would like to know a little more about them before I swap from my next intended purchase of an Apple TV4...

Any owners or users here?

I don't want no sugar in it - thank you very much

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#1652305 17-Oct-2016 13:05

Another one of these streaming boxes has appeared!

The little things make the biggest difference.

robjg63

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#1652320 17-Oct-2016 13:32

Its just an android box you can hook up to your TV. There are heaps of them on the chinese websites. That one is not cheap!

You can install bbc iplayer,ITV or any other app from the google play store - provided its available for that hardware/chip combo.

To access any sites outside of your region you need a geo unblocker like unotelly,Dns4me etc.

I bought a couple of cheapie android boxes a year ago (the beelink x2 from gear best .com (cant type the sitename as GZ blocks it) - something like $40 NZD @ with free postage - sorry - I see they are charging $0.18 for freight!) and actually found that while they work ok, they are a bit of a pain. Most android apps expect a touch screen and are built for that sort of navigation. You can and probably would want to hook up a mouse to a box like this.

If you have an android phone you can work out how to switch google play store regions and see what apps you can install from around the world. You can sign up for a free trial of dns4me for example to open up the content.

I have an amazon fire TV on my main TV. It runs amazons own locked down version of android and you can only install apps from amazons store - but they all work pretty well and work well with the Fire TV remote - so its much nicer to use. By tweaking your amazon country you can set it to the USA by default and download apps for the american market, them set it to the UK and download BBC iplayer, ITV, channel 4 etc - so its possible to have quite a lot of apps installed at once from different regions - you need to google how to do that.

They are all probably pretty similar to the appleTV though - Does it let you install apps from different zones and allow you to have them all installed concurrently? I seem to recall when I had the apple tv 2 if you switched your region the play store would wipe all apps but the current region you set it to - so you couldnt have (for example) BBC and HBO installed at the same time. It looks like that's fixed now http://www.eyeondemand.com/2016/01/28/apple-tv-4-hands-on-for-smart-dns-users/

So if you like apple tv then just have a read up before buying and make sure you can get the apps you want and subscribe to a geo unblocker. Its probably your best bet.

Nothing is impossible for the man who doesn't have to do it himself - A. H. Weiler

Resnick

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#1652374 17-Oct-2016 15:08

I suspect that many of the channels are accessed through somewhat nefarious Kodi (xbmc) addons with links to custom playlists (the sky sport channels for example). These are constantly breaking as the links get taken down frequently.

Additionally, you probably won't be able to get HD Netflix due to drm requirements.

Coil

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#1652376 17-Oct-2016 15:12

I saw this guy lurking around facebook trying to sell those Baofeng radios for $120 like his site. Its not like they are $10 on aliexpress....

Good luck scanning those digital frequencies bro!

SATTV

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#1652379 17-Oct-2016 15:22

TimA:

I saw this guy lurking around facebook trying to sell those Baofeng radios for $120 like his site. Its not like they are $10 on aliexpress....

Good luck scanning those digital frequencies bro!

I believe only the main centres are digital, I have not had the scanner out for a number of years.

Hopefully he has disabled the transmitter on these to prevent accidental interference.

John

I know enough to be dangerous

ajw

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#1652382 17-Oct-2016 15:23

Bought my box from Aliexpress and happy with the quality and Kodi is preinstalled for under $NZ60.

https://www.aliexpress.com/store/product/Android-Tv-Box-2GB-8GB-Built-in-2-4G-5G-WiFi-Amlogic-S905-KODI-16-0

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xpd

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#1652389 17-Oct-2016 16:06

SATTV:

TimA:

https://byebyesky.com/products/nz-custom-programmed-police-scanner

I saw this guy lurking around facebook trying to sell those Baofeng radios for $120 like his site. Its not like they are $10 on aliexpress....

Good luck scanning those digital frequencies bro!

I believe only the main centres are digital, I have not had the scanner out for a number of years.

Hopefully he has disabled the transmitter on these to prevent accidental interference.

John

Is it a transceiver though ? He dosent mention if it can transmit or not.

Miss my old scanner before Auckland police etc went digital....

XPD / Gavin

LinkTree

scuwp

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#1652406 17-Oct-2016 16:41

Seen these touted on FB for $150 from a couple of individuals. People are snapping them up by the dozens. My initial conclusion was they are probably running Kodi/add-ons or similar. Feedback from customers seems to be overwhelmingly positive. See how long that lasts....

Lazy is such an ugly word, I prefer to call it selective participation

dafman

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#1652413 17-Oct-2016 17:04

ajw:

Bought my box from Aliexpress and happy with the quality and Kodi is preinstalled for under $NZ60.

https://www.aliexpress.com/store/product/Android-Tv-Box-2GB-8GB-Built-in-2-4G-5G-WiFi-Amlogic-S905-KODI-16-0

In addition to android TV, looks like this a media player as well? Correct? Would it be a replacement for my aging WDTV Live media player?

joeksemail

78 posts

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#1652495 17-Oct-2016 20:17

Has anyone actually used this specific product?

richms

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#1652508 17-Oct-2016 20:39

It is just a generic box which will have all the dodgey kodi addons. He is also using the kodi logo and name on the site which the actual kodi people have issues with.

Waaaay overpriced for the box. Perhaps if the seller offers support for a long time for updating things etc but I dont think that will happen. Many of these boxes for sale on trademe and they dont seem to care about people selling things to access pirate streams, but dare to sell something with a foregn plug or a dvd without a sticker and they are all over you.

Richard rich.ms

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Move to New Zealand's best fibre broadband service (affiliate link). Free setup code: R587125ERQ6VE. Note that to use Quic Broadband you must be comfortable with configuring your own router.

Apsattv

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#1652609 18-Oct-2016 01:51

A very overpriced offering.

For anyone buying an android stb , the older cheaper ones tend to be on older o.s 4.4 or lower. The newer Kodi version 17 needs os. 5.1 minimum..

Also the low end cheapys, mostly of them don't support 5 GHZ wifi or 1 GBIT ethernet

DickDastardly

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#1653020 18-Oct-2016 15:49

Thanks for the responses fella's

Reading your comments, I'm thinking, Nah, your alright, I think ill stick with the ATV4, Apple stuff works seamlessly with my set up and there isn't enough here for me to change...

I don't want no sugar in it - thank you very much

Kiwifruta

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#1653076 18-Oct-2016 17:09

robjg63:

I have an amazon fire TV on my main TV. It runs amazons own locked down version of android and you can only install apps from amazons store

You can side load apps from your android devices to your FireTV very simply by using this app

robjg63

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#1653104 18-Oct-2016 18:23

Kiwifruta:
robjg63:

I have an amazon fire TV on my main TV. It runs amazons own locked down version of android and you can only install apps from amazons store

You can side load apps from your android devices to your FireTV very simply by using this app

I tried doing something like that when there was no ITV or channel4 UK app available.
I found for the most part the apps didn't seem to work very well.
Might check that particular tool out though. Pretty happy with the official apps now though.

Nothing is impossible for the man who doesn't have to do it himself - A. H. Weiler

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