Leatest TiVo Stream 4K Review
What is the TiVo Stream 4K?
Let’s talk about Tivo Stream 4K Review . Now, this is not the Tivo you used. Tivo was significant 20 years or more ago with its DVRs. But that’s a departure from that, because Tivo, honestly, is a DVR thing – it’s a shell from its predecessor, and Tivo Stream 4K may have a chance to regain some relevance.
So, how did he do it? Let’s find out. We’re going to talk about this, but first, what’s that? Like I said, this is a 4K streaming device: Tivo Stream 4K Review. It’s like a good version of Rock or Fire TV. It’s like an Apple TV device. This is a comparison I’m going to go back to in a while, but it works on Android TVs like the Nvidia Shield.
what’s going on guys cta prime back here again today we’re going to be taking a look at the TiVo Stream 4K Review now this was actually released about four months ago and I thought about doing a review on it then it fell off my radar and recently I was at my local Walmart and I saw a stack of about a hundred of these things and they’re going for 50 bucks
so I figured I’d go ahead and pick one up and we’d take a look at it now basically what this is a tivo branded android tv you don’t have to pay any subscription for tivo or anything like that it’s running android tv based on android 9 and as you can see it’s another one of the dongle style android TVs we have micro USB here for power and to my surprise, there’s actually a USB type-c port here it doesn’t do power in but you can attach different accessories to it like external storage.
what is inside of the TiVo Stream 4K Review box
image source:www.Amazon.com
so inside of the box you’re obviously going to get the tivo stream 4k dongle itself you’re also going to get a remote here it’s a tivo branded remote with a Netflix button and it can control your tv.
but I’m more of a fan of the new Google Chromecast remote I just like the look and feel of this thing but the new tivo remote itself does work fine with the tivo stream 4k we’re also going to get our power supply one amp five volts and our micro USB cable to power unit up plus we got a little tiny user manual with not much information.
so yeah I think the biggest surprise to this thing was that inclusion of USB type c on the side is just going to make it a lot easier to add extra storage or USB controllers and things like that because after all these little dongles don’t come with much storage now as for the specs it’s running android tv based on android 9.
the CPU is the logic s905y2 which actually has the same specs as the new Chromecast with google tv built in the GPU is the mali g31 we have two gigabytes of ram eight gigabytes of internal storage plus we can use that USB type c to add more down the road if you need to it does 4k 60fps hdr Dolby vision hdr10 and hlg.
now I’m going to tell you right off the bat if you’re looking for a good android tv device or an android tv dongle and you want to spend around 50 bucks. I would go with the new google chrome cast with google tv.
| Size 77mm x 53mm x 16mm | Ports HDMI 2.0a, Micro USB2.0, USB-C |
| Processor AMLOGIC S905Y2 | Audio Support Dolby Digital/Digital Plus, Dolby Atmos, DTS |
| RAM 2GB DDR4 | 4K Support Yes, with a compatible Ultra HD TV. All services may not be available in 4K/HDR. |
| Storage eMMC 8GB (with expandable USB-C port) | Content Formats Supported Audio: MEPG, AAC, HE-ACC, OGG, OGA, FLAC, ALAC, Ape, M4A, RM, MPEG-1 layer1/2, MPEG-2 Layer II, Dolby Digital/Digital Plus, Dolby Atmos, DTS, WMA, WMA Pro (WMV optional) Video: *.mkv, *.wmv,*.mpg,* .mpeg,*.dat, * avi,* .mov,* .iso,* .mp4,* .rm,* ,jpg,* .bmp,* gif etc… |
| Wi-Fi Connectivity 802.11 b/g/n/ac 2.45/5G MIMO 2T2R Wi-Fi | Output Resolution Supported 4K@60fps, 1080p/i, 720p |
| Bluetooth Bluetooth 4.2 | System Requirements High-definition television with available high-speed HDMI input, high-speed internet connection via Wi-Fi |
| Voice Support Yes, with the Google Assistant voice remote | TV Compatibility Compatible with 4K ultra high-definition TVs with HDMI capable of 2160p at 24/25/30/50/60 Hz and HDCP 2.2 or high-definition TVs with HDMI capable of 1080p or 720p at 50/60 Hz. |
| IR Device Control The TiVo Stream remote can control the TiVo Stream 4K and certain functions (such as power and volume) on a wide range of compatible IR-enabled devices, including TVs, soundbars and A/V receivers. | Regional Support Certain services may not be available outside the U.S. |
Product information
I personally think it’s a superior product but these on black Friday are going to go way down at your local Walmart and that’s one of the big reasons I picked it up now so we could take a look at it if this was sitting at 20 to 30 dollars and it will be around black Friday 2020 I would definitely jump on something like this but as it sits right now the Chromecast is the same price as the tivo 4k stream and I would choose the Chromecast over this every single day but I still want to see how it performs so let’s go ahead and jump right into it.
so setup was pretty easy with this but there is one catch that I didn’t see coming obviously you do have to sign in to your Google account in order to access the google play store but you also have to create a tivo account and you can’t do it on this device itself you actually have to move
over to a pc or a phone to do this, you don’t have to put any credit card information or anything like that but you do have to create a tivo account it was definitely something that I tried to avoid there’s no key code that I could come up with to skip that access screen.
so in order to even use this device you will have to create a tivo account and that’s going to be a big letdown for a lot of people so I’m in there I’m using the device it’s running android tv it’s actually based on android nine.
so we don’t have the newest version here we got two gigs of ram we have that logic CPU and the reason I’m filming the screen with the camera is that this is my 4k display and I really want to see how this performs with 4k video playback from plex youtube and even Netflix I’m going to make sure I’m set to 4k here from the settings and I’m at 4k 60 you can go all the way down to 720p 24 hertz if you really wanted to but we definitely want to test at 4k 60.
so as for your app selection since it’s running android tv we do have access to the google play store and just keep in mind this is the android tv version of the google play store so not all of the games and apps that you’re used to playing on your phone will be available here but all of the most popular streaming apps are here Disney plus Hulu amazon prime Netflix plex all that good stuff can be downloaded now one thing that I noticed on the main menu is this tivo stream app it doesn’t require any payment or anything like that and at first I was a bit upset that it was here.
but then I started looking into it and what this does is it populates all of the popular movies from the different apps that I have installed and it kind of just gives me a list and suggestions on what to watch and it also shows you if it’s available on more than one app.
so let’s say you only have Netflix and you don’t have Hulu some of the stuff is available on both of those streaming services it gives you a little icon at the top of the movie so you know what it’s available on and if you own that streaming service you can click on it and it’ll launch that movie from that service.
so after using the tivo stream service for a little while I started getting used to it and I think it will come in handy for a lot of people so we’ve got all these streamingservices available but we really need to see how they perform.
so we’re going to go with youtube upfront I’m going to test out one of my go-to videos this is 4k60fps I do have stats for nerds on and overall I’ve actually had a really good experience with youtube on this device.
I’ll just show you that we’re at 4k and on the initial load in you will get a few drops framing this is normal on some higher-end devices but as we play through it’s not going to drop anymore and it’s super steady so youtube video playback on this device.
really isn’t going to be an issue let’s skip ahead a little bit and just show you how fast it buffers out and by the way, I am connected to my ac wi-fi network got a pretty good connection here
and just to give you an idea of how Netflix performs we’ll go with one of my favorite shows
and this isn’t in 4k but it’ll just give you an idea of how fast everything loads up.
I mean we’re right into it and I think they did it playback is really smooth I have tested
some 4k content from Netflix and I haven’t run into any issues if you approach la libella. you don’t even see anything.
so yeah I mean these streaming services are going to work just fine 720 1080 and even 4k if you want to go with Hulu Netflix amazon prime HBO you got youtube Netflix and tons of others that you can download from the google play store including Disney plus and that’s really what this thing was made for and I really expected it to work fine with all of those apps.
but I still wanted to test some 4k video playback with plex we’re going to be doing some high bitrate stuff 4k 60fps so first up we’ll go with this one 4k 60fps 78 megabits per second now this doesn’t have ethernet built-in.
so you do need a decent router for this to work correctly and these videos we’re taking a look at right now are actually streaming from one of my good friend’s servers set these up as kind of demo videos for me and for the most part I’ve had really good luck with my ac wi-fi connection but every once in a while with these high bit rate 4k 60 videos I do notice some buffering
.
we’re gonna try to make that happen now so we’ll move over to a different one this in 4k 60fps 75 megabits per second and I tested this one a little earlier took a lot longer to load and I did run into some buffering issues now this could all be fixed over ethernet but unfortunately, this doesn’t have ethernet built-in so it’s working really smooth here everything’s looking great
and it’s probably gonna play fine now that I’m filming the screen here
nope there we go so yeah I mean this doesn’t really have to do with the CPU and GPU that they have in this little unit this really has to do with the network
so overall for video playback out of this little device I’m actually pretty impressed I was expecting a lot less out of this device given that it’s a tivo branded android tv but with everything that I’ve tested so far except for those super high bit rate videos from plex.
I’ve had really good luck with Netflix Hulu amazon prime HBO and even Disney plus 720 1080 and 4k work just fine so we’ve got video playback out of the way it does a decent job at that but what about native android gaming.
I know some people want to pick these up and play a few games here and there and from the google play store there is a lot of games that you can download and play on something like this but let’s see how it really performs.
so first up we have real racing 3 and for these games, I just plugged into my game capture so we could get a better look at it I am connected with an Xbox one controller and performance. isn’t great with this this is a 3d game it’s actually a very well-optimized game and I’ve had good luck on lower-end devices running this.
but as you can see it is really really choppy on this device and to be fair about this is not marketed as a gaming device at all it’s marketed as a video playback device but I was actually expecting a little better performance at least out of this game because it’s been on the market for a while and it’s very highly optimized for lower-end devices next up we have Minecraft pocket edition and I just went ahead and side loaded this.
because it’s not available on the android tv store I did go into the settings and turn off fancy graphics I’ve also turned the chunks down and as you can see there’s lots of pop in now this is the beta version.
so I do have the fps listed it’s around 41 fps when we’re sitting on the ground but when we get up in the sky it’ll drop down to around 19. in my opinion it’s really not that playable.
so as you saw the 3d games aren’t working great but the 2d stuff is perfectly playable on here if you want to do things like a crossroad or even some lower-end stuff like turbo disc mount it should work just fine.
I know a lot of my regular viewers are waiting for some emulation and I did throw some in this video first up we have n64 using move pin 64 fz from the google play store like I mentioned. I’m using an Xbox one controller and to my surprise performance isn’t that bad I mean to tell you the truth this is actually pretty good now I don’t expect this to run every n64 game at full speed but for the easier to run stuff like.
This one here you want to do some Mario some banjo and even some Zelda you can
definitely get by using a device like this moving over to Dreamcast using the redream emulator.
I’m at the lowest resolution which comes like that out of the box and I do have
frameskip on this is the original soul Calibur as you can see the fps is up in the top righ hand corner and it’s playable the emulation performance of the tivo stream is definitely on par with the new Google Chromecast with google tv built-in I’ve done a few videos on that
recently.
I was really hoping it would be because after all, we do have the same CPU and the same amount of ram here so the tivo stream 4k does work and it works well for its intended purpose of video playback and not to mention.
we do have some pretty decent emulation performance here also but since this is sitting at the same price as the new Chromecast I would choose the Chromecast over this every single day but like I mentioned if this does go on sale for black Friday or any other holiday event for around 20 to 30 bucks.
I think it would be well worth picking one of these up for a secondary android tv especially at that lower price point but that’s it for this one if you have any questions or you want to see anything else running on the tivo stream just let me know in the comments below.
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