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A Buyers Guide To The Best Box

put it this way they want something to go wrong and it will and wont read those questions of help with the same issues posted and will ask for help!

cant say we told you so!
 
Not sure on what these issues are? I have 3 boxes in my house and have set up another 5ish so far for family and friends... I've had no issues whatsoever. The missus finds it virtually identical to use as the Sky gui so it's win all the way. I am interested in what the Edison can do over the zgemma as I'm about to get another box soon..?
 
Hi guys can anyone help me.
Was about to buy the H2S then saw the H52S for abot £15 more. What do you get for the extra money?
 
At this moment in time you will not see any difference in operation. The newer model contains the new H265 video codec, unfortunately there's not much content to be streamed in this newer version, so as far as watching TV goes there is no difference in the two different models.
 
Article below was written a few years ago.

The next-generation High Efficiency Video codec (HEVC), H.265, has hit a major public milestone thanks to the work of the developer MultiCoreWare. MCW is launching a new commercial open-source venture around x265, and the source code for its x265 encoder is now available. Right now, the project is very much in early days — pre-alpha level code — but the x265 encoder is already impressively parallelized and supports all of the major instruction sets including AVX/AVX2 and FMA3/FMA4.

We’ve talked about H.265 and next-generation video encoding technologies several times in the past 12 months, but this is the first time we’ve had the chance to sit down with a next-generation encoder (albeit a pre-alpha version) to examine both performance and video quality. We’ve put together a comparison of both video quality and stream encode sizes versus H.264, as well as a quick look at performance across Sandy Bridge-E, Ivy Bridge, and Haswell.

The benefits of H.265

H.264 has been a huge success. It’s a flexible codec standard that’s used by streaming services, satellite providers, and for Blu-ray discs. It’s scaled remarkably well since it was first proposed and is capable of handling 3D, 48-60 fps encodes, and even*4K. The Blu-ray disc standard doesn’t currently include provisions for some of these technologies, but the H.264 codec itself is capable of handling them.

The problem with H.264, however, is that while it*can*handle these types of encodes, it can’t do so while simultaneously keeping file sizes low.*A new standard is necessary*to push file/stream sizes back down while driving next-generation adoption, and that’s where H.265 comes in. It’s designed to utilize substantially less bandwidth thanks to advanced encoding techniques and a more sophisticated encode/decode model.

Unlike H.264, which can extend to cover 4K television but*wasn’t designed with the feature in mind, H.265 was built to match the capabilities of future screens and includes*support for 10-bit color*and high frame rates. This is early days — support and capability of the current alpha are limited to 8-bit color and YUV output, but we still wanted to take the alpha technology out for a spin. Armed with a freshly compiled version and some test clips, we set out to see what we could build.

First up — file sizes. What we’re comparing here is actually the size of the elementary video stream. Note that these are video streams only — audio isn’t encoded in either instance. Encode sizes were defined by the quantizer setting, with lower q-values equaling a higher quality (and larger file size). The base encoded file is 500 frames of a 1.5GB, YUV 4:2:0 file at 50 fps. The elementary stream file size is used for comparison here because it represents what’s transmitted to the decoder to create the final output. We’re working with elementary streams because, at this stage of the project (pre-alpha), the decoded video file always comes back at 1.5GB, regardless of the stream quality used to create it.


This gives a good basic idea of what sorts of benefits H.265 can offer compared to H.264. While it’s not hitting 50% bandwidth savings in most cases, it’s close — quantizer 24 is 57% the size, q=30 is 59%, and q=40 is just 47%. Granted, at a quantizer of 40, the final output is wretched — but it’s wretched at less than half the bandwidth.
 
dangerous said:
Article below was written a few years ago.

The next-generation High Efficiency Video codec (HEVC), H.265, has hit a major public milestone thanks to the work of the developer MultiCoreWare. MCW is launching a new commercial open-source venture around x265, and the source code for its x265 encoder is now available. Right now, the project is very much in early days — pre-alpha level code — but the x265 encoder is already impressively parallelized and supports all of the major instruction sets including AVX/AVX2 and FMA3/FMA4.

We’ve talked about H.265 and next-generation video encoding technologies several times in the past 12 months, but this is the first time we’ve had the chance to sit down with a next-generation encoder (albeit a pre-alpha version) to examine both performance and video quality. We’ve put together a comparison of both video quality and stream encode sizes versus H.264, as well as a quick look at performance across Sandy Bridge-E, Ivy Bridge, and Haswell.

The benefits of H.265

H.264 has been a huge success. It’s a flexible codec standard that’s used by streaming services, satellite providers, and for Blu-ray discs. It’s scaled remarkably well since it was first proposed and is capable of handling 3D, 48-60 fps encodes, and even*4K. The Blu-ray disc standard doesn’t currently include provisions for some of these technologies, but the H.264 codec itself is capable of handling them.

The problem with H.264, however, is that while it*can*handle these types of encodes, it can’t do so while simultaneously keeping file sizes low.*A new standard is necessary*to push file/stream sizes back down while driving next-generation adoption, and that’s where H.265 comes in. It’s designed to utilize substantially less bandwidth thanks to advanced encoding techniques and a more sophisticated encode/decode model.

Unlike H.264, which can extend to cover 4K television but*wasn’t designed with the feature in mind, H.265 was built to match the capabilities of future screens and includes*support for 10-bit color*and high frame rates. This is early days — support and capability of the current alpha are limited to 8-bit color and YUV output, but we still wanted to take the alpha technology out for a spin. Armed with a freshly compiled version and some test clips, we set out to see what we could build.

First up — file sizes. What we’re comparing here is actually the size of the elementary video stream. Note that these are video streams only — audio isn’t encoded in either instance. Encode sizes were defined by the quantizer setting, with lower q-values equaling a higher quality (and larger file size). The base encoded file is 500 frames of a 1.5GB, YUV 4:2:0 file at 50 fps. The elementary stream file size is used for comparison here because it represents what’s transmitted to the decoder to create the final output. We’re working with elementary streams because, at this stage of the project (pre-alpha), the decoded video file always comes back at 1.5GB, regardless of the stream quality used to create it.


This gives a good basic idea of what sorts of benefits H.265 can offer compared to H.264. While it’s not hitting 50% bandwidth savings in most cases, it’s close — quantizer 24 is 57% the size, q=30 is 59%, and q=40 is just 47%. Granted, at a quantizer of 40, the final output is wretched — but it’s wretched at less than half the bandwidth.
Click to expand...


Did I mention I was a noob
Im not a total technophobe so managed to get the gist of it and your first reply said all I needed to know. Many thanks
Guess I can go with the H2S and save some pennies.
As for flashing it, Im a bit confused with how that works.I read that openvix doesnt auto update on the H2S so what would be the best alternative for auto updating and do skins come with the flash or is that a seperate addition? Is that what a bouquet is? I wanted the sly skin for simple transition from what I have now for the missus and mini missus. Less grief for me
 
Use openATV, it comes with plenty of skins to choose from, you just download a few try them and delete the ones you dont like
 
dangerous said:
Use openATV, it comes with plenty of skins to choose from, you just download a few try them and delete the ones you dont like
Click to expand...

Cheers bud, very helpful, much appreciated.
Another quickie. Does multi room require multi clines or does one line operate all boxes on the same network?
 
Confused ..just looking for best image Combo Box ..

Hi Guys,

First post ...have been using an old Skybox F5 ... moving to Virg cable and was looking at Good combo Box... slightly confused ...

Combo Boxes go from some £80 to £400 ...with multi tuners etc..

I am only after Image quality ...with single Cable and single satellite Tuner (particularly standard def image on new Sasmung LED tv is not great with skybox f5 )

narrowed down to Zgemma and Edison possibly ...

My question .....is there a difference in image on the Big Brand and more expensive boxes or am i gonna get same with Zgemma ...(also is image better than Skybox f5s )

Any suggestions in the £100 range appreciated ....unless better image on slightly more expensive Box ..
Thanks all !
 
This looks interesting for £99

Edision OS MINI+ Plus 1x DVB-S2/T2/C H.265 HEVC

EDISION OS MINI+ HAS A BRAND NEW TYPE OF SINGLE TUNER. IT CAN BE USED FOR EITHER DVB-S/S2, DVB-T/T2 OR DVB-C. CONNECT BOTH SATELLITE AND TERRESTRIAL FEEDS OR BOTH SATELLITE AND CABLE FEEDS. TUNER CAN BE SET TO DVB-S2 BUT DUE TO THE TUNER TYPE ITS POSSIBLE TO SCAN BOTH SIGNAL TYPES (via AutobouquetsMaker, Terrestrial Scan or Satellite scan). IT'S THEN POSSIBLE TO SWITCH BETWEEN SATELLITE AND TERRESTRIAL/ CABLE CHANNELS THROUGH CHANNEL LIST WITHOUT CHANGING TUNER SETTINGS.

Enigma 2 support from OE-Alliance teams OpenViX and OpenATV. Also official support from OpenPLi.
 
Did see something on abm github a while ago for a workaround for duel tuner support. Still not sure how it would work as you can only plug one feed in at a time. Unless you need to keep changing the cable.
 
It seems to say that you have both feeds connected and it automatically switches? Surely you can't record one and watch the other though?
 
:highfive:Thanks !!! Willo ...didnt realize Edison had those features.... good to know though ..

Do u think image will be much netter than the old skybox ... I know has fast processor ....but not sure if that equates to better picture... ?
 
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I couldn't say, I've never had a skybox. I'm happy with the picture on my Edision, Mutant, Zgemma and ET8500's lol
 
Than final thought ...Zgemma and Edison ...which one for image as other than EPG, I dont need much else....Many Thanks for your kind input ...
 
There's absolutely loads of backup images for the Zgemma but OpenViX support Edision which is why I went for an Edision OS mini (and Mutant and Xtrend).
 
Well I was nearly buying the vu solo se when the missus said she didn't want a box that records,so I am after something that takes a n line is hd & is backed by openvix & is good quality.
 
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