What you need to know about TV boxes

Watch TV channels or movies online

Internet has changed our lifestyle and watching TV channels and movies are some of the benefits offered by high speed internet. You can no longer stick to the schedule offered by the broadcasting station and you can access to other channels in other countries.  A whole array of products offer to keep you entertained but it is tough to select the best product based on your needs. This page aims to simply and demystify the haze.

Conventional methods of watching TV

Broadcasting stations in your country wanted you to buy their cable and charge your monthly or per movie.  This is one of the most convenient and also the highly expensive way of watching movies or TV programs.  In Singapore, Starhub offers 65 channels for a monthly fee of S$26.75 while Singtel offers 90 channels for a monthly fee of S$34.90.  You can watch clear and lossless frame via your huge LED TV.  Why this is expensive?  The reason is blatantly clear.  You cannot watch more than 2 stations simultaneously so why are you paying for 60 over channels.  Most of these program are recycled many times in the month so effectively, you cannot watch what you want and may watch more than you wanted.  Next come our alternative....Mobile Apps.

TV Applications

You can download and watch TV channels via your mobile phone.  The drawbacks are the apps may not be trustworthy (or worst infested with virus/spyware) and the application is not be updated.  If the application can work successfully, you are bound to watch the show through the small 5.5" screen of your mobile device (worst for iPhone users).  The permanent damage to your eyes far outweighs the benefits of catching your favourite TV shows or movies.

TV Box

The best and least expensive way is to watch it via your LED TV with a dedicated TV box.  In short, there are 2 types of different TV boxes.  TV boxes that costs S$50 to S$150 come with no server in the backend and TV boxes that comes with server will cost S$250 or more.  Why servers are important?  They are the guaranteed sources of programs and movies offered by the TV box manufacturers so you do not have to find different sources to install.  If the server is shut down due to local policy, you may lose all the rights to access the server and your TV box will cess to work.  It happened to some TV boxes and consumers are fooled into thinking it is a one-time investment.  When the market is saturated, the manufacturer will convert the TV box into a monthly or yearly subscriptions basis and expect consumers to foot the bill.  This caused many unnecessary stress and unhappiness for consumers.

Conclusions

In short, there is no free lunch in this world and manufacturers are motivated to provide movies and programs based on profit.  Do not be fooled into believing the server will last forever as government policy will change due to the pressure of the film makers as most of these movies are pirated versions from the cinemas.  As long as you do not download these movies, it is legal (at least for the moment) for you to watch what is online just like you watch youtube.  Afterall, the internet does not belong to any country or any organisation.