Not So Smart Yet Smart

In this world of smart gadgets you need to keep updating your self. Be it your phone , tablet, watch or television you want every thing smart. But when it comes to Tv’s you can’t keep changing them every time. Because they are not upgradeable and if they are like samsung need a evolution kit for 17,000 inr, Tizen os by samsung , LG web os & Android os (onida and videocon).  A huge number of people have CRT  or LCD type tv’s but some have moved to LED HD Ready tv’s or HD smart tv’s. HD ready support 720 p resolution and hd tv support 1080 p resolution.   

 Below are the con’s of the following:-

Evolution kit

1 Bit fiddly to fit.

2 No screen mirroring feature.

3 Old technology of 2013.

4 Requires only samsung smart tv (certain models) only.

Tizen os 

1 Has limited number of apps.

2 TIzen os based tv’s are expencive.

3 N built in storage.

LG Web OS

1 Though being a stable and slick os it’s setup menus are clumsily implemented.

2 Expensive (starts from 65900 inr).

3 No built in storage .

Panasonic Life Screen

1 38000 inr
2 no storage
3 limited apps
4 always needs internet to use any app.

Android OS TV

1 Cheap 27000 inr from onida.

2 has 1 gb of ram with 4 gb storage.

3 Uses arm a7 cortex quad core processer.

4 Android KitKat.

With changing times our tv’s should change but at what cost is the question here. How much do you think you can atain for your old tv set , may be 1500 inr or 2000 inr on olx or quickr. But wait there is a solution to make your old boring CRT or LCD smart. How is no more a question as solution to this is a smart tv box that does it all right from streaming to casting . I did try couple of devices like chrome cast , ez cast, roku stick , mkv stick, iball splendo, 8m smart box and rconnect smart box.

With each having it’s own whims and fancies like :-

Chrome cast 

1 Needs either pc or mobile to cast from youtube.

2 Though  lighter on pocket 2999 inr.

EZcast

1 Needs either pc or mobile to cast from youtube.

2 Available at all pc harcware stores.

3 Cost is 1200 inr.

Roku stick

1 Has remote controller.

2 just like chrome cast in behvour but goes one step further.

3 @ 4000 inr.

8M smart movie box

1 Has minimum bandwidth usage.

2 Runs android (version not known).

3 800 Mhz processer .

4 No storage defined.

4 Costing 3599 inr with 6 Mts warrenty

5 @ reliance digital only.

Rconnect smart box

1 1 Ghz single core processer.

2 no warrenty , steep price of 4999 inr with just 4 gb storage

3 Android jellybeen.

MKV stick

1 No warrenty,

2 storage of 4gb.

3 1 gb ram and 1 GHZ processor.

4 @4000 inr available locally at Fort or Manish Market.

Iball Splendo 

11,3 Ghz quad core baytrail processor

2 32 gb of storage .

3 2 gb DDR 3 ram.

4 No auto sync or os recovery

5 Only works on 1080 resolution.

6 @9999 Inr.

Unboxed device has 1 rca cable , 1 hdmi cable, 1 device and 1 airmouse with receiver + 1 user manual (though not so detail).

The back side has 1 set of 3 rca ports for old tv's and hdmi for new ones with 2 usb and 1 powerport . It also has an on off switch with antenna for wifi (to use as a router).

bottom has wall mounts and model and serial info with sides of this device being plane but front has small led to let you know that device is turned on.

But when it came to IREVO Smart tv Box I could notice vast difference. It runs on 1.4 Ghz arm processer, 8Gb of storage, 1Gb DDR 3 Ram with wifi router. It runs Android KitKat under the hood with Metro interface. It opens doors for video on demand, Live poadcasting & cloud broadcasting.

User Interface

When connected to my videocon 24” tv it performed fairly well . There was no lag in the software and operations Were smooth and navigating on user interface was a breeze. At speed of 2Mbps from mtnl router it did give me fair well broadcast of videos  from youtube. As they were quite clear in quality and audio. When I changed the resolution from 720 p to 1080p it still gave me a good quality output. Though the courser kept going heighwire  on day one as I am used to keyboard and mouse . But on day two all went well  as I learnt how to navigate.

Getting videos brocasted from my galaxy note 4 was not so easy but later it did work when I used it in dlna mode. Couldn’t try teleplay as iRevo Play cast app was not available on playstore.

Over all experince of browsing net by my novice wife was a breeze. She liked the broadcast quality as she could pause and resume the same serial or movie from where she left. I too watched my favourate video from my phone using dlna.

When my neighbor who had an crt tv used the same device, he to went gaga about it. But I cant show you the picture as power went off . Besides being rugged it also handled my try band from mtnl well as it has a built in router.

Tried and throughlly on Dell 54.61 cm (21.5) Touch Monitor (S2240T) at a friends house in neighbourhood using supplied hdmi cable and guess what no air mouse as my hands are better . Typing and navigation was a breez. Now I feel gone are the days when i used to use a settop box  specially in rains where it would conk off reception with a message Error 400 which ment no reception due to cloudy weather. this box can run 24/7 without  such issues and doesnt cost a bomb. Even my old keyboard and mouse on usb hub worked well .

In my sugestion you should go for this device if you are not wanting to burn a hole in your pocket.  Only disappointment is the user manual as it only has info for remote and not for air mouse or keyboard. Atleast there should have been a page or two consisting keyboard shortcuts. And second big disappointment was that the app required for teleplay was not there on playstore  atleast company shpuld have put the download of it's  apk file on there official website. 

iREVO V/S Smart TV. 

visit company's website on :-

http://in.irevomm.com/compare.html

Below are instructions on how to use DLNA.

DLNA is a very popular term used by all major consumer electronics companies on their products. Everything from media players to televisions to phones are said to be DLNA ready. Based on the talks we’ve had with a lot of people, it’s clear that quite a few people have a basic idea of what DLNA is, but haven’t practically tried it out. It’s because traditional methods have worked in the past and users seem to have grown comfortable to using those tools. Before we actually get into the process of setting up DLNA at your home, here’s a brief introduction to what DLNA is.

What is DLNA?

For those who’ve only seen the logo stamped on their products or have heard about them in product brochures, DLNA is a technology or standard that allows playing of content between devices connected over a network. The whole point of DLNA is to enable devices, no matter what the brand and what the product is, to communicate with each other. 

What devices do I need to use DLNA?

Streaming of media usually takes place between computers, notebooks, tablets, smartphones, TVs and media players. Of all these devices, DLNA compliance is important to hardware, such as TVs and other kind of media playback devices. Of course, televisions that support DLNA will have network capability, too.

Most network capable TVs are DLNA compliant

If you already have a television, make sure that it is network enabled, in the sense that it has an Ethernet port or maybe Wi-Fi capability. If you’re looking to buy a new television, make sure that it supports DLNA and also playback for most popular formats. 

Which devices can stream to each other?

In every DLNA set-up, a device can be set up to be a media player or a media source. So, there are a number of combinations in which you can stream media. For example, you can stream media from a PC to a phone, phone to a PC, PC to a TV, one PC to another PC and so on. DLNA isn’t designed to merely stream media, it can also be used to remotely control devices and push media from one device to another. This means, you can use the phone to list all the media on a PC kept in another room to a TV kept in the living room, for example.

Now, let’s look at how exactly to go about doing this.

What do you need?

Like we said, there are a number of scenarios that you can set-up at your home, but we’ll look at a typical scenario where the user has a television that is or is not network capable,  a PC and a mobile phone.

You’ll of course need a Wi-Fi router that’s connected to your devices. Preferably, connect the TV and desktops using wired connections to keep data transfer speeds as high as possible. Wi-Fi can be a little slow when you stream high-definition content that requires a lot of bandwidth. 

Share stored media on a desktop or a notebook

In almost all cases, you’re likely to use a desktop PC or a notebook to share media. All of the media, be it photos, music or videos are likely to be present in some folders on a computer. We need to first enable file sharing on Windows, for DLNA. We recommend using Windows 7 to do this, but older versions of Windows, such as Vista and Windows XP can also use it. 

Adding media to folders and libraries

Adding media to libraries on Windows 7

The first step is to make sure that your media folders are shared on Windows 7, which has libraries that can be customized to include these folders. To do this, first right-click on a folder, say a folder with photos in it  and click on the Include in library item, then choose the kind of media it is. If it were photos, add it to the Pictures folder. This makes it easier to browse media from other devices. 

Giving access to your devices

Allowing devices access to the media

Once we have our media folders configured, and once we’ve connected our devices to the network, the easiest way to enabling media sharing on your Windows 7 PC or notebook is by pressing the Start button and then typing Media streaming options. Here you’ll see a list of devices that are capable of streaming media. Choose the ones you want to allow. There’s a drop down menu that lets you do that. You can also customize the permissions by only allowing certain devices to play media from that folder. Remember that they won’t appear if they aren’t connected to the network or powered on. 

Setting up media sharing on an Android phone

While TVs are advertised as being DLNA capable, pretty much any Android phone with Wi-Fi capability should be DLNA capable. All you need is an app to work it. There are plenty of free ones in the market. We’ll be using BubbleUPnP for this demonstration purpose. Head over to the Android market and download it for free. 

Streaming media between devices

Here’s when you start making sense of DLNA. If you head over to the Devices tab on the app, you’ll find options to select the renderer and the library. The renderer is the device that will play the videos and the library is from where the videos will play. Here you can choose to play videos from say, your laptop or desktop and choose the television as the renderer. You can choose one of the many combinations available to you, depending on how many devices – source and players you have set-up at your home. 

Setting up DLNA on your phone or tablet

Click on Library and you’ll be able to see the contents of the folder. If you chose your own phone or tablet as the source, then you’ll be able to click on one of the music, video or images on your device and see it on the television. If you chose a remote desktop or laptop as the source, you’ll be able to list all those files, even add files to a playlist and stream them to another device. 

Of course, you still have the option to simply use television to stream media directly from a notebook or a DLNA network storage device. 

Why use DLNA?

DLNA makes it much simpler to use and things are more transparent. There are other advantages as well. On a standard television, you’d have to stop playing a movie and focus on the user interface to find a movie on a remote PC. With DLNA, you can use your phone and queue up media without taking your focus off of the movie being played on the TV. If you don’t have a TV that’s network enabled or DLNA enabled, then you have the option of setting up an HTPC, using software such as XBMC that acts like a DLNA client and lets your phone and other devices communicate with it.