Android TV performance boost on Philips Android TV

by thelastpickbender

Dear Reddit Community,

I hope you are going well. I have a Philips Android TV (PUS 7502/12) and to be honest I find it as a huge lackluster. The display is briliant by design (native high refresh rate), has nice colors, the double 15w speaker of the TV sounds better than the average, etc. The only problem is, that it's unable to play 4K content and eventually slows down. 4K playback on youtube doesn't work smoothly either and you can see that the TV struggles quite a lot. The internet access is more than great and is enough for satisfying the required bandwidth. Tried Plex.. the in-built video player, even VLC, but no luck. I truly believe it's the fault of the SoC, however I cannot help the fact that it's a 4K TV, so would assume it's able to play 4K content smoothly/without lagging.

In case you have a device from the same era (around 2017-2018), and you found a solution to your clumsy TV manufacturers choice for SoC, what did you do to tweak it?

I'm also thinking of getting an Nvidia Shield TV Pro, since it certainly has the "juice" to handle the content and probably it's easier/cheaper to get an independent box than buying a new TV (which has great display and sound).

Hope my question doesn't violate the topic of this subredit.

Regards,

T.L.P.B

smltd

Hi! Unfortunately your instincts are correct as most Android TV SOCs are underpowered coupled with sometimes buggy HW decoding, yes even on 'expensive' models-- not to mention the eccentricities of the Youtube app itself having to work with a plethora of different hardware. I'm sure it was marketed as a "4K TV" and probably works brilliantly displaying 4K Blu-Ray over HDMI but the processing power needed to efficiently decode 4K content natively didn't find its way over to the TV guts itself.

My suggestion, don't pull your hair out trying to resolve the TVs underwhelming performance and just buy an HDMI solution. If you're really on about it you can check forum.xda-developers.com to see if there are any overclock hacks for you TV model.

From experience, I have a $35 Fire Stick 4K, and have never had any problem playing 4K YouTube, or 4K local content from Kodi and direct copy Blu-Ray ISOs. Go for the Nvidia if you have the spare cash, but the Fire Stick has never let me down.

Glad you enjoy the display, sorry you're having trouble with performance. Good luck!

izhar12

you should buy a android tv stick like Chromecast with google tv.. Dont trust these smart tvs always

tolztekh

For local files MX Player works good with 4K content on my TV. VLC sometimes struggles i guess depends on the codecs used in the video files.

Netflix, Prime, Vimeo 4k content works fine. Maybe the external options is the best solution for you like others said.

asng

I have a 2017 Phillips Android TV (65PUS7303) but use GCWGT with it.

AdamH21

2017 model?

pawdog

You don't even have to go as high as the Shield. Is your TV Dolby Vision? Are you just using the TV for audio? Something like the ONN UHD for $20 will upgrade your experience greatly if you don't need those features. You can just pop over to Walmart today and instantly modernize your experience. All smart TV's from 2017 were dogs not just Phllips.

kylezz

No such issues here on Philips 7303 which is a 2018 model, using Kodi for local 4k videos and Smart Tube Next for YT videos