Dreambox Confusion – Satellite receiver or Android TV

Over the last few weeks I have had a number of people asking about Dreamboxes.

A few people have been thinking a Dreambox is an Android system.

Where in fact Dreambox is a registered trademark for Dreambox satellite receivers.

Confusion is caused by someone in Spain selling android boxes with Kodi for UK TV as Dreambox Spain (or dreambox es or Dreambox TV)

A Dreambox is a make of satellite receiver that receives is TV signals via a satellite dish.
A Dreambox can be used to watch subscription free and Pay tv Channels (with the correct viewing card)

A Dreambox is also popular as it was one of the origianl satellite receivers to be used for “cardshare”.
Cardshare allows you to connect to a server via the internet which then provides the Dreambox with the “unlock” codes to decrypt pay TV satellite channels, without your own viewing card.

A Dreambox satellite receiver is not to be confused with an Android Internet TV box that is being sold in Spain under the name DreamboxTV.

The DreamboxTV is an Android “smart” TV box, that uses software called Kodi (previously XBMC – which stands for “EXtreme Buffering and Missing Content” 🙂 ), to link to TV streams on the internet.

Similar names, but different methods of watching TV.

In most cases, Kodi can be loaded onto a laptop, PC or tablet, rather than buying the Android box. One of the downsides of the Android Kodi based TV system is that their feeds are usually from free public servers, which can become overloaded, meaning a drop in picture quality.

Example of the poor and low picture quality on an Android based Kodi system

Ideally a paid IPTV service, using a MAG254 based system will offer better reliability and better picture quality.