EvoTV, the Android-based streaming TV box from Amkette, has added support for the Times Group’s BoxTV – an online movie and video service.
With the addition of the BoxTV app, EvoTV users can now watch scores of movies available BoxTV, such as Aashiqui.in, in their EvoTV.
EvoTV is arguably India’s most popular independent Internet TV platform. The EvoTV box costs Rs 10,500 for the 1 GB RAM version and Rs 8,500 for the 512 MB version. Both boxes provide 4 GB of storage, come with Wifi and ethernet networking and allow users to access the Internet on their TV.
Based on Android 2.3, they also support Android apps such as Youtube (allowing playback of Youtube videos on the TV), and have a 360-degree remote controls and 1080p playback on HDMI.
EvoTV is one of India’s several online TV box platforms. Other platforms, such as Smart TV from Samsung and Panasonic are mostly built in to the TVs themselves by manufacturers. Unlike other smartboxes like Akai Smart Box (Rs 6,000) and Woxi Smartpod (Rs 8,000), EvoTV (like Apple TV, Rs 8,300) is focusing not just on the box, but also on the service.
It is not clear whether it is possible to install third-party applications on all these boxes (such as those from Google Play.) However, EvoTV said users can download and install the BoxTV app either from the EvoStore or from Google Play.
With the BoxTV tie-up, c”consumers can browse and watch over 10,000 hours of free content across various languages and genres with one click on the big screen,” the companies said.
“The BoxTV app on EvoTV platform provides several special features which allow users a quick access to movies recommended by BoxTV editorial team on the home-screen, one Click access to a large content library with popular movies and TV shows and several multimedia features like play, pause etc though a remote control integration. BoxTV offers a large bouquet of entertainment including blockbuster movies, TV shows, short films and documentaries having unique features such as bandwidth meters, dynamic streaming and video chapters along with an unparalleled metadata and search,” they added.
EvoTV is one of the first few products, globally, to integrate XBMC, an open source software media player and entertainment hub for digital media, enabling direct playback from Android and iOS devices for EvoTV users. The EvoTV remote contains a microphone and the platform allows Skype calls from the living room. Some other boxes don’t support web-cameras, and do not support video calls.