Do you remember when terrestrial and sky were the only two options available for television viewing? Terrestrial had an option of no more than five channels and on the other hand, sky seemed too expensive. In recent years, we have witnessed incredible technology advancement in Television. Today, we have Smart TV, PlayStation, internet connected XBox and Hulu to mention but a few. Nowadays, all you need is a TV, HDMI input and a media streamer and you will be able to watch lots of content.
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Let us take a look at the some of the best media streamers 2016 in the market.
Google Chromecast
Google Chromecast has grabbed lots of attention for its beguiling body shape. Google first came with the stick form media streaming player. Chromecast has a small USB port and also a HDMI port, all you have to do is to plug in your TV. However, to power the Chromecast, you have you to connect it to the USB port with a cable provided or connect it to an external output.
The Chromecast has no interface of its own and simply streams content from PC or a smartphone to your TV. Chromecast is compatible almost with every Android, Apple IPad and iPhone too. If you are looking for a sleek device to take to a friend’s house or for a meeting to project something to a TV screen from your phone or laptop, go for Chromecast. The most amazing feature of Chromecast is that with just a click of a button it can mirror anything from the Chromecast browser tab to the TV. The Chrome browser even supports apps and games.
Roku 4
Roku 4 has over 2500 streaming channels and you can choose from the biggest selection of streaming entertainment from movies, sports, news, TV shows, adult and children programming. Roku 4 offers brilliant picture quality for 4k ultra HD TVs with 4X resolution of full HD and streaming technology. It has an upscaling of 720p for HD TVs and 1080p.
Roku 4 offers advanced processing for smooth streaming at higher resolutions, plus unique new features like a lost remote finder. It delivers an award-winning interface and high-quality upscaling for HD content.
NVIDIA SHIELD Pro – 4K
NVIDIA Shield Pro – 4K offers full entertainment on a single device. You will be able to enjoy your favorite movies and songs at the touch of a button. You can access your favorite apps lie Netflix, Youtube, Huli, Sling TV, Disney, CBS, Showtime, NBA, Pandora and Kodi.
Enjoy the most advanced gaming of any streaming media player. You can also play the next gen android games only available on Shield or stream from popular PC games. NVIDIA Shield Pro – 4K has unbeatable performance – 3x faster than Apple TV, 4x faster than Fire TV, and 10x faster than Roku 4. SHIELD Pro includes the SHIELD controller, and an HDMI cable.
Google Nexus Player
The basic difference between Chromecast and Google Nexus is that Nexus has an interface and can work on its own. It is a traditional digital player like Roku, Fire TV and Apple TV. Nexus Player has an independent channel and has a button where you can actually click to look what content it has to offer. Presently, Nexus offers HuluPlus, YouTube, Huffington Post, Bloomberg, Vevo, Pandora among others.What sets Nexus Player different from other streamers is that you can actually mirror Google Play on your TV and surf it on your TV.This is a terrific feature especially for people who are into Google play.
Another awesome feature of Nexus Player is its game content. Google has built a power-packed 1.8 GHz intel Atom processor in Nexus Player which is enough to handle and support commendable amount of intensive graphic games. To have more intricate and advanced games, Google Nexus Player offers a separate Game Pad on sale.
Apple TV
I can easily vote Apple TV as my favorite digital media player. It has the simplest and friendliest user interface among all the major digital players. People who are comfortable with iOS can easily grasp the large icons arranged in a grid style. People who are not adept with smartphones can easily learn the techniques of Apple TV. Some of the main channels that Apple TV has include Netflix, Hulu, HBO Go and YouTube.
AppleTV bonds amazingly well with Apple’s ecosystem and has the AirPlay feature which allows you to stream media from any device. This feature works perfectly every time it is used, but only Mac and iOS devices support Airplay. It is one of the best digital media player, no doubt out in the market but wait before you buy. Apple TV hasn’t been updated for about an year, so chances are high that it can be replaced with another model anytime soon.
Roku Streaming Stick
Roku 3 is the most popular media digital player. The most sparkling feature of Roku 3 is its content. While Apple TV has 40+, Roku 3 has over thousand channels to choose from. The company has made a special built in chamber whereby users can store in their favorite channels in Roku’s home screen.
Other major digital players do not have a much access to UK channels, but Roku 3 offers you BBC iplayer, Now TV, Demand 5 and Sky Sports. Apart from that you get Netflix, Amazon Instant Video, TMZ, Flixter and the list continues. Both Android and iOS apps can be controlled to stream videos in Roku 3. (Checkout our review on the Roku streaming sticks Here!)
Amazon Fire TV
This is the most impressive digital media player in the market. It has got the power-packed qualcom snapdragon 8064 SOC and has got 1.74 GHz Qualcomm krait 300. On one hand it offers as a game support and on the other hand it has the super cool feature of pre buffering. If you choose to see a film, you can smoothly stream it via Amazon Fire TV by just clicking play button.
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Another killer feature that Amazon included is ‘voice search’ in its remote control. So, instead of typing your channel name you can just make a voice command. The Fire TV runs Amazon’s Android based Fire OS, Mojito and Kindle Fire HDX games and apps can be easily transferred to Fire TV.
That’s it! We have listed the top runners in the market for digital media streamers. All are good in their specific features and performance. Which one is your favorite best media streamers of 2016?