DVB set top box

Mordz

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Hi. I’m looking for a new DVB box/tuner thing. Bit of background;

55” Samsung d8000
Denon 5.1 amp
Xbox one
Apple TV (not 4K)
Logitech harmony elite enhanced remote

currently I use the Xbox one with a usb dvb tuner as I quite like the interface of the one guide epg and can access prime / Netflix etc quickly with no real loading lag and means everything’s in one place.

the problem I have is that I’m having issues controlling screen time balance of accounts with wife approval/usage confusion and issues... it was hard enough training to use the harmony remote.

at the moment the Xbox auto logs on as my account which has no time restrictions and auto loads the one guide for live tv. When the kids play a game etc they sign is as their own accounts to play which has screen time restrictions. But once they can no longer play they sign out and then watch say YouTube to get around the screen time.

ideally what I want is a set top box or ‘solution’ that just has tv on it, no apps, just a nice slick epg. I don’t really want set the Xbox not to sign in as the wife will say it’s too complicated to get into. I don’t want. to use the built in tuner on the tv as the interface feels dated and laggy.

this way kids are forced to sign into an Xbox account and use there allotted screen time.

I will probably remove the Apple TV as it’s rarely gets used.

I anticipate the most logical suggestion maybe use the tvor replace the tv for one with an improved interface but then I need to restrict access to the apps on that too.

any suggestions would be great.
 
DVB-T2 or DVB-S2 (i.e. terrestrial or satellite)?

I suspect you'd be looking second hand these days for a no-apps tuner box. Perhaps one of the old Humax boxes, although I don't remember which ones were the smooth ones and which aren't.
 
DVB-T2 or DVB-S2 (i.e. terrestrial or satellite)?

I suspect you'd be looking second hand these days for a no-apps tuner box. Perhaps one of the old Humax boxes, although I don't remember which ones were the smooth ones and which aren't.

Terrestrial Freeview. From my own searching did found some android tv boxes with Freeview tuners... I figured with that I could restrict what apps go on it by enforcing a password or something. The interface and epg look good.

with no experience of android or anything product I’m at a bit of a loss
 
Hi back in the days when HD first became available on Freeview the STB that received the highest accolades on this forum was believe it or not the Tesco Technika STBHDIS2010. This STB was made in China and was streets in front of the other Turkish made HD STB that Tesco sold alongside at a slightly lower price. It also outperformed STB's from other suppliers. This is a straightforward Freeview tuner, it did not record as the aforementioned Humax did. I still have one of these and have it set up on an old 24" TV in our guest bedroom. It works admirably and copes with all Freeview updates etc.

You might find one on Ebay or Gumtree.

Edit There is one for sale on EBay at £16.99 without a remote. I have a spare remote from the one my son had at University but then "lost"! . Can send for cost of postage.
 
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Amiko Viper 4K has really good hardware in it and can run multiple operating systems. You can combine DVB-T2 and DVB-S2 tuners into a single EPG and the EPG is very fast to use.

I'd recommend going with OpenVIX over the stock OS which is based off OpenATV.

However the learning curve for OpenVIX is rather high, it can do a lot of things so you can really dial in something you want just right but the amount of options can be overwhelming.

OpenVIX has a variety of skins that can be used with it, I quite like the skin based off confluence a Kodi skin, speaking of which you can even run Kodi on it too as an app.

But again just to reiterate the amount of work in setting this up is not trivial, the way channel management and EPG data is handled is very complex but once you've worked your way through it you can save all the settings and back them up to external USB.
 
Thanks for the suggestions everyone. I’ll take a look at some videos of the suggested and see which I like the look of
 

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