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There are various ways are available to watch online content on your TV. Most of the media streamers will permit you to configure your TV through online or any local media streaming services. Some of the best media streaming gadgets are Amazon Fire TV, Android TV, Apple TV, Google Cast, and Roku. All of these platforms have on-screen menu systems and dedicated remotes except Google Cast. So, you can watch whatever you want without a mobile device to control everything. The Google Cast should rely on a PC, smartphone, or tablet, with Cast-compatible apps to stream the media contents. Now let us see the list of best streaming gadgets of 2018 on below.

List of Best Streaming Gadgets of 2018

1. Amazon Fire TV
2. Roku
3. Google Cast
4. Android TV
5. Apple TV

Amazon Fire TV

Amazon’s Fire TV is one of the most popular and well known media streaming gadgets platform. It mainly focused on Amazon Prime media along with Amazon Instant Video and Amazon Prime Music built prominently into the menu system. There are variety of content services are available through the Fire TV as individual apps such as YouTube, Netflix, Hulu Plus, etc. The main advantage of this Fire TV is having all Prime content right at fingertips.

Roku

Roku calls the services and apps available on its devices Channels, and currently offers thousands of choices in the Roku Channel Store. The Amazon Instant Video, Hulu Plus, Netflix, Sling TV, and Twitch are some of the big streaming media names, niche apps and services for movies, sports, weather, news, and international content.

Google Cast

The Google Cast is physically a complicated media streaming platform. You can take a Chrome Cast and plug it into a power source and then plug it into your TV or sound system, and finally you can control everything by using your mobile device. There are no remotes, no on-screen interfaces, and no app stores are available to navigate. You can connect your Chrome Cast to your home network and then stream whatever you’re watching on your smartphone or tablet.

Android TV

The Android TV is basically an Android-based media streamer menu system which is completely different from the new version of Android that is used in Amazon’s Fire TV products. It provides more powerful and feature-rich interface than Apple TV or Roku. Its app store is very tiny compared with Google’s conventional Android app store and also the Apple TV, Fire TV, and Roku stores.

Apple TV

The Apple has been very slow to update its Apple TV media streamer, but it’s finally brought up with the Apple TV 4K. The latest Apple TV offers 4K video with HDR10 and Dolby Vision. Still, the app selection is little bit compared with the Roku device and it tends to expand the certain on-demand and subscription services that compete with the Apple such as Spotify that is against Apple Music. However, the Apple TV is always having a rich feature and also very capable to handle.

Android TV box is normally looks like a small set-top box which is the size of an Apple TV that could runs on Google’s Android operating system or a re-skinned version of it. It is a very flexible device that allows you to stream content to your TV over the internet or from local storage on the device. All these Android TV boxes are come in various source but some of them market themselves as Kodi devices.

List of Best Android TV Box

1. Amazon Fire TV
2. Nvidia Shield TV
3. Amazon Fire TV Stick
4. GEM Box
5. WeTek Core

Amazon Fire TV

Amazon’s Fire TV is one of the most popular and well known Android TV Box and it may not look like an Android device at first glance. Later, the Amazon’s custom interface beats Google’s operating system. Because it runs on Android, you can easily install Kodi on Amazon Fire TV and side load any other apps you may want to run. You can also see older and cheaper models of Amazon Fire TV on eBay or via any other retailers.

Nvidia Shield TV

Nvidia Shield TV is yet another best Android TV device among the best Android TV box on the market due to its flexibility and features. The Nvidia Shield TV has trying to cram while reducing the device’s size that bundling in a remote and overhauling its Bluetooth gaming controller in the process. One time, it is the king of the Android TV box has now become the only device worth looking at if you want games, streaming and ultimate Android flexibility.

Amazon Fire TV Stick

Still, you are looking for an Android TV box solution, the new Amazon Fire TV Stick is the perfect answer. The working method of the Amazon Fire TV Stick is almost similar to the Amazon Fire TV and the little HDMI dongle can be loaded up with Kodi and then plugged into the back of your TV. Now, you can stream the media content whatever you want without a black box sitting under your display. With portability, however, come functionality sacrifices. When we comparing it to the Fire TV, the Amazon Fire TV Stick lacks expandable storage and only comes with 1GB of RAM.

GEM Box

GEM Box is perfect for those who want to play light Android games on a TV or stream PC titles to the big screen. It’s also very popular due to its low-cost and compact streaming Android TV box. Not only does it come with Aptoide – an alternative to Google Play – but it also fully supports Kodi and its various builds, so it’s easy to install and access Kodi content is a breeze. It’s only real downside is its somewhat fiddly app interface, as not all Android apps play nice with the GEM Box controller. This is easily solved if you fancy splashing an extra £30 on the optional remote – but you should be fine.

WeTek Core

The WeTek Core device is powered by a 2GHz quad-core processor and this streaming box is very powerful particularly for the price of £96. Again, it needs to be with it supporting 4K playback at all. While it lacks a Live TV tuner, the good news is that it has Kodi pre-installed, so you shouldn’t have any trouble if you just want to plug it in and get watching straight away. Also keep an eye out for the WeTek Core 2, which we’ve heard will be on its merry little way sometime in 2017.

The custom logos, transitions, well mixed audio and high resolution are some main factors that can make the difference between a clearly amateur stream and a professional-quality production. Hopefully, the software you need to create a great looking stream doesn’t have to be expensive and some of the best is free. Now, let us see the list of best streaming software on below.

List of Best Streaming Software/Apps

1. OBS Studio
2. Streamlabs OBS
3. Bebo
4. Nvidia Shadowplay
5. Xsplit Gamecaster

OBS Studio

The OBS Studio is an open source, powerful and flexible. It is easily takes place in our top pick when it comes to free streaming software. The OBS Studio is available for multiple operating systems such as Windows, Mac and Linux, and receives regular updates from an enthusiastic team of contributors. It has some complication to set up. If you want to stream the content, there’s no need to plunge into the more sophisticated capture settings. In addition, it can also directly streams the YouTube, Mixer, Facebook and much more platforms, a wider range than you’ll find in other streaming software. It has more possibility to stream to multiple platforms at once.

Streamlabs OBS

As the name says, the Streamlabs OBS is built on the same foundation as OBS Studio, putting a friendlier face on the powerful streaming software. It offers claims to offer improved performance via automatic optimization, though the difference in our tests was negligible.

The interface present in this software makes it a reasonable choice for first-time streamers, but if you’re already happy using OBS Studio, there is an advantage in switching.

Bebo

The Bebo is yet another best new kid on the streaming block and is still working very well. Both the Bebo and OBS Studio are competes each other and that differentiates itself by its lower system requirements, meaningless impact on in-game performance. It has only few features when compared to OBS Studio. But depending on your requirements, that might count in its favor and its interface is really very pretty and had less intimidating for new users. It also scores points for its support with live chat which is available in -app 24/7.

Nvidia Shadowplay

The Nvidia Shadowplay is also one of the best streaming software which is bundled along with the drivers. It has a main advantage over most streaming software. It encodes in the GPU rather than the CPU which means it has negligible impact on performance. But, it’s far less flexible than the OBS Studio.

Xsplit Gamecaster

It is one of the free streaming software in this round up. The Xsplit Gamecaster is a free and cut-down version of a premium application. Normally, it looks very sleeker and gets benefits from premium support online but several features are locked behind a pay wall. The Gamecaster is a game-specific version of Xsplit Broadcaster along with a more streamlined interface. In addition, it also supports streaming to Twitch, YouTube Live and Facebook Live. It is very simple to use. You just start your game and hit a keyboard shortcut to bring up the overlay and begin streaming.

What is Kodi?

It is one of the most expensive and flexible media streaming tools. It has an amazing selection of add-ons support for lots of devices. The Kodi software is perfectly legal and there are lots of ways to use it at home to manage and enjoy your media collection. If you are having a huge collection of music, movies and photos, Kodi is the tool for you.

You are almost heard of Kodi app and obviously you do not hear the good things about it. The Kodi software is always appeared on headlines due to controversy over the fully-loaded Kodi boxes which make it easy to illegally stream the copyright-protected movies, TV Shows and some other media contents from the internet via third-party plugins.

Kodi is a free and open source media streaming application software. It can be used for streaming Movies, TV Shows, Sports, Music, and much more media contents. It can also support multiple operating systems such as Windows, Linux, Mac, etc.  Users can customize virtually every aspect of Kodi thanks to its open source roots, giving them more freedom to pick and choose not only what to watch, but also how.

It is designed to be hooked up to a TV or a large monitor. But, there is nothing to stop you from running it on a laptop or from any other device. It is also available for multiple platforms. Some platforms will have an easier time running the software than others.

Instantly, the iPhone and iPad users need to make sure their device is jail broken, while Android users need to be running Android 5.0 or higher. These mobile operating systems give users the option of downloading Kodi either by using the App Store or using Google Play and also download Kodi from the official Kodi site.

If your PC has a TV card, Kodi can be used like a DVR. The Kodi software really comes into its own when you jump into the world of add-ons. It has a huge collection of extensions that extend its capabilities by adding support for extra services such as streaming sites, games, lyrics, subtitles, and just about anything else you could possibly want.

Kodi also has got a wide collection of Kodi themes, skins, wallpapers, add-ons and builds.

Check: Best kodi skins

Normally, Kodi runs in full-screen mode which indicates that it’s designed to be used on a dedicated box. Suppose, if you dig into settings you’ll discover a windowed mode too. It is very difficult to find the option on Kodi which means navigating through its improper laid-out menu system, an unwieldy and labyrinthine experience.

If you know how the things work in Kodi and it is much better if you’re using a remote rather than a keyboard and mouse. If you’re in business, you are ready to start streaming media to devices all around your home.

The various add-ons can be overloaded on Kodi and it will take you a while to find the best add-ons to improve your experience. Remember that it shouldn’t take too long to get used to how things work, and it’s worth the effort. It’s certainly well worth investigating the many plugins that give the software’s interface a new look.