Why do android tv box give 20% worse picture and sound compared to original reproduction?

by Salomon81

I was watching mkv movies, usually H264 via USB drive on my old Philips 37PFL4606 model without a problem. Because it doesn't have support for H265 I decided to buy Mecool M8S PRO W 2GB RAM 16GB ROM android tv box. I was dissapointed because no matter what I do, it gives me delays every few minutes.

The main difference is that whenever I watch the same movie over TV box or directly via TV I notice difference in picture and sound quality.

​

Picture is always sharp, while on tv box, it is smooth rather than sharp.

Sound is perfect. Bass, deepness of all sounds and everything. TV box has more high tones and almost no bass, but overall volume is anoying, since it is very loud but no actual deepness and strongness.

​

I can compare movies over TV BOX same as "used" while TV has "new". Well I would be happy to know if this is everywhere? For example I converted some youtube mp4 movies and put the on USB flash drive. When I tested them on TV, everything is perfect, over TV box 20% worse. Same issues as mentioned.

Do you notice the same difference with your TV Box? Is that normal? I've trind bunch of setting optimisation with no success.

​

Humanius

That box is not an AndroidTV box, but rather and Anroid-based TV-box.
There is a bit of a difference between the two, and this sub is about the former. So it might be tough to get help around here.

If I had to make a guess, you could maybe check the resolution settings? It sounds like maybe the box is set to 720p while the TV is 1080p? I'd have no idea where you'd be checking this though, since I'm not familiar with the specifics of the skin put on the OS by the manufacturer.

OssotSromo

I'd be disappointed with that piece of shit too.

phrostbyt

return the box and get a shield instead

rypharris

OPs box most likely doesn't even support widevine. Device must support widevine L1 to get playback in HD.

PalebloodSky

20% worse? Where did you get this bullshit metric?

shadywhere

If I understand what you are describing, it is that the TV has some optimizations which are performed on it that are not performed on the Android box.

For example, SONY TVs have motion smoothing, where video is interpolated to achieve a 60 fps effect.

Most movies are recorded in 24 FPS. A TV with motion smoothing would interpolate that to 60 fps, and use other post-processing effects to make the image look sharper, improve dark areas, etc. Most video players on Android by contrast only offer anti-aliasing (e.g. a blurring effect) to smooth out jagged pixels for lower-resolution streams.

Seems that your TV has improved post-processing over various Android apps. This likely is not going to change, at least for some time.

sotirisbos

Your TV's HDMI probably doesn't support 4:4:4