The Realtek boxes all produce a better image than any Amlogic. Deeper colour and a more movie like sharpness. It's like the difference between a good BD player and playing a movie using a Blu-Ray drive in a PC.

The 1619DR chipset in particular produces the best image of any Android based (i.e. in last 10 years) media chipset, on a par with HiSilicon and similar to the very old Sigma Designs boxes (Popcorn Hour, original Dunes).

That's the reason why all the high-end Media Player brands use Realtek and not Amlogic.

As to what to buy, Zidoo use Realtek 1619DR and they have the best firmware (excellent media browsing software and few bugs). They also have a busy support forum, responding to customer feedback with a steady stream of updates. Dune also use Realtek 1619DR and, whilst I appreciate some people prefer their software (not Android and for legacy reasons), their media browsing software is inferior and the firmware is less reliable with fewer options. The new Zapittis use Realtek 1619DR and have good media browsing software, but it's up to the customer whether this justifies the extreme pricing.

Excellent information. Thank you Futeko and other users here for the great details. Many of us using HiMedia devices are looking for alternatives and these posts help tremendously in deciding which route to take. Thanks again.

My honest opinion is to stay well clear of Egreat or Eweat. Both offer close to zero ongoing firmware support. Features will be broken and they won't ever get fixed.

Thank you Futeko for your reply. If I were to order a replacement from your stable of products which one would you recommend that would be similar to the Q5 Pro with better support at the moment and perhaps more up to date features. As per my previous post I don't need an internal HD but SD card support would be nice. Thanks very much your support. Cheers.

Hi Dutchie. Yes the scanning band has disappeared for me completely. I've watched 3 movies and been using tivimate for IPTV and haven't noticed the white scanning band anymore. It used to be quite bad when powering up the Q5 Pro as the scanning effect would happen 4-5 times upon every reboot of the box as well. All I did was uninstall the latest update for the google app in the pcrisiti image and set everything to manual so I control all updates.

Is there anyone who has this white band scanning effect? ? ? Very curious how to disable it.

(21-04-2021) IT SEEMS THAT NO ONE HAS THIS ISSUE WITH THE Q10 PRO? ? ?

I'm certain most people do including those with the Q5 Pro like me. It's very frustrating to see that white band appear out of nowhere and then disappear. There's no rhyme or reason for this and I can't figure out when this started as I had it with 2.15 and now with 2.17. Anyway Dutchie53 if I find something I'll post here but nothing I've tried seems to work....perhaps pcristi can shed some light?

Pcrisiti is right. My mother had the same issue and she would unplug the Q5 pro and the TV for 5 minutes. Then she powered on the TV FIRST, sets the correct video input on TV and applies power to the box at which point all is good. She has narrowed down the issue to not having the TV on FIRST and on the correct video INPUT. TV power first, check video input on TV and then power on Q5 Pro. Not bad for an 80 year old grandma to figure out this technology

I have been using update_Q10Pro_(update&themed&Kodi18.2)[v1.2]-HMD-2.1.4 2019-05-31.171152
Can I install this?
I've tried but after seeing the Android logo, it turns into a dead logo.

I installed the Q5 Pro version and it works awesome!!! No complaints BUT to get it to work you have to do the following below exactly or at least in my case I did it this way.

1. Download latest version for your box from here.. http://www.mediafire.com/file/t2d1heh5a5om0rq/update_Q10Pro_%2528unofficial_ATV%255Bv2.15.3%255D%2529-HMD-2.1.5_2019-12-10.113757.zip/file

2. Format USB stick FAT32... NOTE: Not all USB's work as I found out so I had to try 3 different ones until I found one it liked. Seems like 8GB or bigger sticks work well for me...all my 4GB sticks failed despite formatting dozens of times

3. Copy the file to the stick and rename the file to update.zip ...VERY VERY important or it won't work. Double check the filename after you change to make sure it's correct using windows properties

4. Plug USB into available USB port on your device

5. Use paperclip to hold in the reset button and while holding the reset button plug the power into your device and don't let go of the reset button for 5 seconds

6. Sit back and wait about 15 minutes for the whole process to complete

Good Luck

Yes install pcristi CFW Android tv and then install tivimate app. Records live iptv stream perfectly. I believe GSE IPTV app does as well but tivimate is much better and for 6 dollars a year for 5 devices is well worth it.

https://www.futeko.com/newforum/index.php?topic=2219.0