Category: Consumer Electronic Devices

Android TV players – You get what you pay for

Consumer Electronic Devices

It’s now 2021, and your large smartTV bought in 2017 is not becoming unbearably slow and lacks most of the current content. When you want to watch HBO Max or Disney Plus on your huge, but now becoming obsolete smartTV, you only have a few alternatives: Hook your laptop to it, which is cumbersome Get a set top box from a decent PayTV operator, such as Vodafone TV Spend 200€ on an Apple TV 4K Look for a cheap AndroidTV player The thing with AndroidTV media players is that there’s one for all price ranges. However, we all know: there …

USB Power Delivery (for Set top Boxes) - A dream so close and yet, so far away

Consumer Electronic DevicesLeave a comment

I’ve designed this diagram  on the eve of the approval of the USB Power Delivery standard. It drew on the EU’s Common External Power Supply’s motto: one power supply to rule them all. It took us 7 whole years, and we’re not there yet, but we’re now so close. Well, it’s also a bit weird, but I’ve worked on Set Top Boxes for most of my professional life, and my whole goal has always been the same: get rid of set top boxes. Now, it’s tremendously obvious for everyone that I’ve thus far failed. Yes, there have been some attempts …

Codec wars – Apple drops the hammer on VP9, chooses H.265 and takes a decision for the industry

Consumer Electronic DevicesLeave a comment

It seems funny, but this year’s Apple’s WWDC was one of the most import yet, but not due to something said during the 2017’s Keynote. Instead, this low profile presentation will have far reaching implications over the next 8 to 10 years on the video delivery industry, from Google to Netflix. As Apple decided to use H.265 and WebVTT, the whole industry will be forced to follow suit. The story started back in May 2010 when Google acquired On2 technologies, and specifically all the related IP to the VP8 video codec. Google was not happy with having to rely on …

USB3 Gigabit Ethernet adapters on MacOS: Orico Vs KY-688

Consumer Electronic Devices / MacOS / sysadminLeave a comment

Edit: This is the first half of a 2 part port regarding USB3 ethernet adaptors running on MacOS. The second part looks at actual performance. There aren’t a lot of good reasons why one would care about getting an USB3 Gigabit Ethernet adapter, and all start with “I need an extra wired gigabit connection”. And this may not be as weird as it seems as most MacBooks lack a single embedded wired gigabit interface. As an alternative you get the Thunderbolt adapter (in it’s native Thunderbolt port, or using the new USB-C connectors), USB3 adapter or 802.11 WiFi connection. Current state …

Netac P500 UHS-I U3 128GB Micro SD card

Consumer Electronic Devices / SD Cards BenchmarkLeave a comment

On our previous MicroSD shootout, Netac’s offering was deemed as the best MicroSD card for smartphones and compact cameras due to it’s low cost per MiB and very decent read performance. However, write performance was underwhelming, landing on the middle of the pack. It was with great surprise an high capacity, high performance MicroSD card from Netac landed on my desk: the Netac P500 Smart Card UHS-I U3 128GB MicroSD card (brands need to try to shorten the MicroSD product names, this is getting ridiculous….). This card corresponds to the fastest and highest capacity offer from Netac, supporting UHS-1 U3 speed …

HDR wars, battle 2: UHD Alliance Vs Ultra HD Forum – Maybe some sanity arrives at the TV Industry

Consumer Electronic Devices / MediaLeave a comment

There are currently two industry groups fight for market standardisation what regards to HDR: UHD Alliance and Ultra HD Forum. Every time this happens is usually due to a fight over consumer awareness on something that doesn’t make sense. We’ve already seen what UHD Alliance brings (or doesn’t….), but know there is a new group trying to make your mind: Ultra HD Forum. A lot has happened for last couple of years in the TV industry due to fuss around Ultra HD, always surrounded by confusion, mishaps and all around caos and damnation. How we got here Starting with the availability of …

iPhone 6s video decoding capabilities – Sometimes Apple underrates it’s products

Consumer Electronic Devices / Media / Video encodingLeave a comment

Although I’ve been an Apple heavy user for a number of years now, it always bugs me when companies misrepresent their products, event if the misrepresentation is a underrating of the actual product. For me, specifications must be as accurate as possible, no matter if it comes from Apple, and understating it’s video decoding capabilities it not on my list of expected weird things, but it does seem to happen.

MicroSD UHS-1 32GB cards shootout – Comparing MicroSD cards from a number of different perspectives

Consumer Electronic Devices / SD Cards BenchmarkLeave a comment

After having reviewed a number of different microSD cards, the next step could only be compare then over a number of perspectives, each of them making sense to a significant number of users. Now, I believe it is quite obvious for everyone that there isn’t probably a best microSD card but it really depends on which parameters, or ratios between parameters are relevant for each one. Each of them will then represent an important benchmark by itself, so let’s detail each of them: Read Performance – The basic SD card benchmark, and targeted by most manufacturers. Although overlooked in some reviews, …

Netac P500 Smart Card 32GB microSD

Consumer Electronic Devices / SD Cards BenchmarkLeave a comment

Manufacturer Leapro Brand P500 Smart Card Announced Capacity 32 GiB Formatted  Capacity 29.53 GiB UHS Class 1 SD Bus UHS104 Price AliExpress – €7.34 Netac is a chinese company most known in Asia by its USB drives ever since the early 2000’s, but on the SD card market a virtually unknown name. On our desk there’s Netac branded microSD, officially named as P500 Smart Card, yes “Smart Card”. Why on earth would it be called “Smart Card” is something that completely baffles us. If you still can’t believe, check the package photo. Fortunately, on the newly manufactured products the label seems to …

Transcend Premium 400x 32GB microSD card review (TS32GUSDCU1)

Consumer Electronic Devices / SD Cards BenchmarkLeave a comment

Manufacturer Jiaelec Corp Brand Transcend Premium 400x Announced Capacity 32 GiB Formatted  Capacity 30,01 GiB UHS Class 1 SD Bus UHS104 Price Amazon.com – Only TS32GUSDU1PE available. Avoid! Amazon.co.uk – £8.91 AliExpress – €10.45 Again, 32GB are not the same everywhere. Sometimes it’s bigger. Transcend is one of the tradicional SD card players ever since the transition between MMC and SD, always marked by a performance conscience, although not as known as SanDisk. As our baseline SD card review demonstrates it has been a sure option when performance is relevant, however, more often than not companies just lean back on past hard …

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