New Freeview SmartVU streaming device: Chromecast, 4K HDR, Android TV

Forums › Freeview (DVB-T/DVB-S) › New Freeview SmartVU streaming device: Chromecast, 4K HDR, Android TV

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#2145643 15-Dec-2018 07:58

Can you manually set the display resolution and Hz? Many devices force 1080p which stuffs up some old TVs which are this device's target market.

You'd want 50Hz for Freeview but Youtube and Netflix would often benefit from 60Hz so does or can it change automatically?

Disappointing it requires a Google account.

sdavisnz

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#2145647 15-Dec-2018 08:09

bfginger: Can you manually set the display resolution and Hz? Many devices force 1080p which stuffs up some old TVs which are this device's target market.

You'd want 50Hz for Freeview but Youtube and Netflix would often benefit from 60Hz so does or can it change automatically?

Disappointing it requires a Google account.

Q1 answer, I have a android stb that you can change the resolution but not sure about smartvu I would assume yes. , freeview is set at 25fps/hz, other apps set to 50fps/hz

Q2 answer, why would you not want a Google account, it let's you see your YouTube subscriptions, Google play store login for downloading and updating apps. If you want to make a burner Google account for the TV that's fine. But get off your high horse about using a Google account.

Voice gives context

xtrabyte

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#2145681 15-Dec-2018 10:45

Great and an amazingly small device. A feature my son and i had great fun discovering is the microphone in the remote for voice commands. We first thought the microphone was in the device and had a good laugh when we discovered it was in the remote!!

sbiddle

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#2145996 16-Dec-2018 09:32

I've got one here now playing with it. My overall impression is mixed - this product has lots of potential but you can tell it's essentially 1st gen solution to market.

The most annoying flaw with the app is that you can't select a program to watch from the full EPG - you can see what's on then have to go back to live TV and change to the channel you want.

I've installed TVirl which allows you to load in a 3rd party m3u8 playlist and access that directly. There are aspects to both that are good, so hopefully Dish TV and Freeview can look to refine the app and add extra functionality to it.

sdavisnz

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#2145999 16-Dec-2018 09:53

How's the performance? Is it snappy?

Voice gives context

sbiddle

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#2146010 16-Dec-2018 10:00

sdavisnz: How's the performance? Is it snappy?

Yip no issues with speed or performance.

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Apsattv

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#2146075 16-Dec-2018 12:16

Asked them this on Facebook

"So do I have this right? Freeview has contracted DISHTV to produce their Official Freeview APP for Android devices? Or, that Dishtv has produced their own Android APP for their own device that is Restricted to whatever Freeview tells them to do with it?"

reply came back as

"Information from Freeview's website: "Freeview: Selected Channels available to stream. Connection to broadband and a working TV antenna is required to access the full suite of features available on this device. Freeview terms apply." Please see here: https://www.freeviewnz.tv/stream-freeview/ for information about the dongle you can also checkout https://smartvu.co.nz/ as well."

LOL talk about avoiding an answer that is relevent to what was asked..

rugrat

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#2146093 16-Dec-2018 12:46

Apsattv, I don’t understand what you are asking, maybe they’re the same so gave a scripted general answer.

It looks like roughly you’re asking who made the applic, and who decides what restrictions on it?

Benoire

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#2146102 16-Dec-2018 13:09

He was asking was this funded by freeview and developed by dish OR an app by Dish that was not funded by Freeview but freeview can decide on the restrictions due to the use of their streams... I suspect it was the former.

eracode

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#2146103 16-Dec-2018 13:17

Apsattv:
Asked them this on Facebook

"So do I have this right? Freeview has contracted DISHTV to produce their Official Freeview APP for Android devices? Or, that Dishtv has produced their own Android APP for their own device that is Restricted to whatever Freeview tells them to do with it?"

reply came back as

"Information from Freeview's website: "Freeview: Selected Channels available to stream. Connection to broadband and a working TV antenna is required to access the full suite of features available on this device. Freeview terms apply." Please see here: https://www.freeviewnz.tv/stream-freeview/ for information about the dongle you can also checkout https://smartvu.co.nz/ as well."

LOL talk about avoiding an answer that is relevent to what was asked..

Who is the ‘them’ that you asked - Freeview or Dish?

Sometimes I just sit and think. Other times I just sit.

Apsattv

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#2146105 16-Dec-2018 13:27

Them being Dish TV

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sbiddle

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#2146108 16-Dec-2018 13:41

Benoire:

He was asking was this funded by freeview and developed by dish OR an app by Dish that was not funded by Freeview but freeview can decide on the restrictions due to the use of their streams... I suspect it was the former.

It's a question I'm very keen to know the answer to as well.

I'm aware of a couple of people who have sought legal advice as to the status of using the streams for a commercial project and the status of using your own streams from a FTA OTA source and without going into detail there are some potential legal and copyright issues that were raised.

I'm 100% behind the concept of the device and the solution itself, but do find it interesting what agreement exists and essentially who funded this.

bfginger

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#2146115 16-Dec-2018 14:09

Some other Android based STBs let you manually set resolution. Some like Chromecast have been shipped without this basic functionality.

They shouldn't be effectively requiring people who want Freeview kit to sign up with a third party data and personal information miner in another country because that is what Google is.

sbiddle

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#2146137 16-Dec-2018 14:45

bfginger: They shouldn't be effectively requiring people who want Freeview kit to sign up with a third party data and personal information miner in another country because that is what Google is.

The simple reality is it's going to be incredibly difficult to build something like this without requiring a Google account. Play Store is the most effective way to deliver updates both for the app, and more importantly for Android itself.

richms

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#2146174 16-Dec-2018 17:14

allio:

It's a lot more complicated than that.

Both 1080i-25 and 1080p-25 are 25fps but they're not 25 fields per second. 1080i has an extra field between every frame. Properly deinterlaced 1080i creates a new frame from the extra field and so has significantly more temporal resolution than a 25fps progressive signal. It's not as good as a proper 50fps signal but it's much better than nothing, and in most broadcast TV situations it is effectively as good as a true 50fps signal.

1080p-50 would be best in every situation but is currently impractical due to bandwidth constraints. The practical choice is between 720p-50, 1080i-25 and 1080p-25. They all have comparable numbers of pixels per second (1080i-25 and 1080p-25 have about 10% more than 720p-50) and bandwidth requirements.

None is "best" in every situation.

1080p-25 is optimal for movies. However 1080i-25 is effectively just as good. You still get the increased (almost double) spatial resolution over 720p-50p and don't lose anything from having every second frame being based on a field, because the source material is a low frame rate anyway. 720p-50 throws away half its bandwidth on an unnecessary duplicate frame.

720p-50 is optimal for sports. It has the most possible motion data, which is more important than the increased spatial resolution. 1080i-25 is next best - it has much higher temporal resolution than 1080p-25 but runs the risk of creating annoying artifacts due to the very fast motion sometimes exceeding the data that the extra field provides, causing the deinterlacer to make a mistake. 1080p-25 is far too chuggy for comfortable sports watching.

1080i-25 is probably best for normal TV. You benefit from both an apparent 50fps (much less risk of artifacts than in sports) and higher spatial resolution than 720p-50. 1080p-25 has even better spatial resolution, but the difference is much less noticeable than the chuggy film-like framerate. 720p-50 will always have flawless motion but it'd be rare to find a show where this outweighs the spatial resolution advantage of 1080i-25.

Basically, a lot of the time 1080i-25 gives you the best of both worlds - high temporal resolution AND high spatial resolution. Sometimes it won't be optimal, but it's never the worst. On the other hand both 720p-50 and 1080p-25 will frequently be the least appropriate stream type for a given content.

All this leaves aside the increased requirements of deinterlacing on the decoding device. Given that we're moving to tiny $10 Chinese boxes, rather than hardware with the grunt to do quality deinterlacing, until we've got the capacity for 1080p-50, the best choice for Freeview streams is probably 720p-50. However last I checked they're all 720p-25, which is absolutely rubbish and worse than all OTA options in every respect.

Yuck at all those 25's and 50s in the list. Should be 24 or 60 IMO. Who makes content for those oddball old PAL framerates?

Richard rich.ms

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