Bluray Player or Android Smart TV Box ?

sandeepkanchi

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Hello all,

i am very much confused between Bluray Player and Android smart tv box. i have a budget of 5000 rupees and i am getting a good deal of bluray player Philips BDP2180/94 with one year india warranty. on the other side my friend is coming from US and i have an opportunity to buy M8 Android smart box which costing me around $70 (4500 rupees)

Please suggest me which one to buy, main purpose is to connect my Onkyo Receiver and i most watch my movies from HDD. i rarely use discs.


Source 1: Philips BDP2180 94 DIVX Plus HD 3D BLU RAY Disc Player With DVD Video Upscaling | eBay

Source 2: Amazon.com: GooBang Doo M8 Fully Loaded KODI Quad Core Android 4.4 Smart Set Top TV Box 3D Blu-ray 4K Streaming Media Player Miracast DLNA Receiver Amlogic S802 AML8726-M8 Cortex A9@ 2GHz 2GB Ram 8GB Rom Mali450 GPU 4K HDMI 2.4G/5G Dual WiFi Ultra HD
 
Based on your requirement, I think you should go for 'Android smart box'. However you are only missing BD disc play if your chose this. Later you can even plan for buying a basic BD player like your source1 to play bluray discs.
 
I own a philips BDP 2180. I must say this little box is quiet powerful. I have it connected to my router. It reads and plays all file formats which are stored on my NAS via LAN port. So as far as playability is concerned it will work. as for as android box, what you would be getting more is the cool interface of xbmc, lots of apps and ability to browse the internet
 
If you can increase your budget a little, get a media player with Android dual boot. Something like Minix X8-H plus, plays all content thrown at it, and the Best XBMC on Android experience ...... but it would be a little over 5000, Give it a shot ...
 
I think it is very natural confusion with many people.
In last three years I slowly built a HT system you can say and I have this:

50 Inch Panasonic Plasma 3D TV.
Denon AVR 1612
Pioneer AJ 5.2 ( two woofers taking input from same output of AVR)
Minix 8h-Plus (Android based TV Box)

I purchased the Minix with the purpose of dumping pics / movies / Songs and certainly for XBMC around an year ago, and thinking that I won't need a BD Player after investing in there.

But slowly with usage I realized that if you don't have a very good source of getting the good BDRip, you are not exploiting (read enjoying) best of the system, because I slowly discovered, a good BDRIP is almost 7-12 GB in size (may be more, and could take 7-10 days for download). and the smaller sizes BDRIP are either compromised on the BitRate or the audio quality, which is the core essence and purpose of building a 5.1 kind of system

I don't know if there is another way to get BDRIPs either RIPPING yourself (which again needs a blue ray drive in some PCs), or downloading it, where it is not guaranteed what quality (bitrate / audio) you are downloading, what kind of compression was used etc etc.

So point I am trying to make is that, I have now started to have a thought that purpose of this kind of system is only fulfilled with a blu ray player.

Thoughts from other experts are welcome, as I am still a novice.

Hello all,

i am very much confused between Bluray Player and Android smart tv box. i have a budget of 5000 rupees and i am getting a good deal of bluray player Philips BDP2180/94 with one year india warranty. on the other side my friend is coming from US and i have an opportunity to buy M8 Android smart box which costing me around $70 (4500 rupees)

Please suggest me which one to buy, main purpose is to connect my Onkyo Receiver and i most watch my movies from HDD. i rarely use discs.


Source 1: Philips BDP2180 94 DIVX Plus HD 3D BLU RAY Disc Player With DVD Video Upscaling | eBay

Source 2: Amazon.com: GooBang Doo M8 Fully Loaded KODI Quad Core Android 4.4 Smart Set Top TV Box 3D Blu-ray 4K Streaming Media Player Miracast DLNA Receiver Amlogic S802 AML8726-M8 Cortex A9@ 2GHz 2GB Ram 8GB Rom Mali450 GPU 4K HDMI 2.4G/5G Dual WiFi Ultra HD
 
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or downloading it, where it is not guaranteed what quality (bitrate / audio) you are downloading, what kind of compression was used etc etc.
Few websites do provide the details of Ripping Method, Audio/Video codecs,Bitrates.Even sample is provided to check.
 
Purchased Philips BDP2180/94 for 4800 rupees and i am very much satisfied. it had connect my 1 tb hdd and loads heavy files (10+gb) bluray instantly. just loving it :) after a long thought the difference was just 500 rupees and for that small amount i didn't wanted to miss the blu ray. even i have made it region free with some codes through remote.
 
Purchased Philips BDP2180/94 for 4800 rupees and i am very much satisfied. it had connect my 1 tb hdd and loads heavy files (10+gb) bluray instantly. just loving it :) after a long thought the difference was just 500 rupees and for that small amount i didn't wanted to miss the blu ray. even i have made it region free with some codes through remote.

Does it do Dolby True-HD and DTS HD-MA bitstream?
 
I want to buy a BDp for my friend.Pioneer is priority ,but BDp170 not available.
Pioneer does it,my Toshiba also.Most of the stuff will be downloaded,so playing off USB better option than playing disc.:)
So wanted to confirm.

why you not considering BD 180, which is available (as mentioned on pioneer website)?
 
I want to buy a BDp for my friend.Pioneer is priority ,but BDp170 not available.
Pioneer does it,my Toshiba also.Most of the stuff will be downloaded,so playing off USB better option than playing disc.:)
So wanted to confirm.
Yes USB is better option anyday.

It's cost effective also.
For example one digital copy of a bluray is of maximum 50gb (size of 3D bluray. Normal copies are smaller). 20 digital copies will need a 1tb HDD.

1. Cost of 20 blurays is approx 18-25k

2. Cost of 1tb HDD is 4500k + Internet connection which varies from 3k-4k per month. In some areas it's even more cheap. Downloading will take two months so approx 7k.

4.5+7k = 11.5k

Way cheaper than blurays and more feasible to use cause blurays might get scratched. Quality is identical to a bluray because it is a direct copy. No mkv, full blown m2ts or ISO files
 
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I was going thru the same dilemma till few weeks ago Now I have decided to go ahead and buy the Minix Neo U1.
 
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