Bluetooth
Bluetooth is a technology used to connect various devices wirelessly directly. In media centers and TV receivers, it can be used to broadcast sound to wireless headphones and acoustics, to work with wireless mice and keyboards, to use a smartphone / tablet as a remote control, etc.; specific functionality should be specified separately. Also note that the supported version of Bluetooth can be specified here. The newest and most advanced is
Bluetooth 5.0, but here is a more detailed description of the different versions:
- Bluetooth v4.0. The version in which the "Bluetooth Low Energy" (LE) format was first introduced — in addition to regular Bluetooth (version 2.1 functionality) and the high-speed HE standard for transferring large amounts of information (introduced in version 3.0). Bluetooth LE allows you to significantly reduce power consumption when transmitting small data packets, such as request-responses about connection activity in idle mode. For the media centers and TV receivers themselves, this is not particularly important, but for portable equipment (especially miniature ones, where battery capacity is very limited), such functionality will be useful.
- Bluetooth v 4.1. Development and improvement of Bluetooth 4.0. One of the key improvements was the optimization of collaboration with 4G LTE communication modules so that Bluetooth and LTE do not interfere with each other. In addition, this ve...rsion has the ability to simultaneously use a Bluetooth device in several roles — for example, to remotely control an external device while simultaneously streaming music to headphones.
- Bluetooth v4.2. Further, after 4.1, the development of the Bluetooth standard. It did not introduce fundamental updates, but received a number of improvements regarding reliability and noise immunity, as well as improved compatibility with the Internet of Things.
- Bluetooth v5.0. Version introduced in 2016. One of the most notable updates was the introduction of two new modes of operation for Bluetooth LE — with an increase in speed by reducing the range and with an increase in range by reducing the speed. In addition, a number of improvements have been introduced regarding simultaneous work with numerous connected devices, as well as work with the components of the Internet of Things.
Optical output
A variation of the SP/DIF audio interface that uses a TOSLINK fibre optic cable. Like the coaxial connector,
the optical output uses a digital data transfer format and can work with multi-channel audio. At the same time, optical fibre requires rather delicate handling, but it is absolutely insensitive to electrical interference.
CPU
The model of the CPU installed in the media player.
This information is mainly of reference value: the processor is selected in such a way as to provide certain practical characteristics (maximum resolution, support for certain standards, embedded applications, etc.). So when choosing, you should focus primarily on these specifications. However, if you wish, knowing the processor model, you can find detailed data on it and evaluate the capabilities of the media centre to work with resource-consuming applications. This can be useful, in particular, if you choose an Android model (see above) and plan to use additional software intensively — the set of applications for this OS is very extensive, and some of them are quite demanding on system resources.
Also note that CPU data is often specified for advertising purposes — to emphasize that the device has a fairly advanced chip from a well-known brand. Among the most common brands of such processors are
Allwinner,
Amlogic,
Rockchip,
Realtek.
CPU frequency
The clock speed of the CPU installed in the media centre.
On the technical side, the higher this indicator, the faster the processor works and the higher, accordingly, the overall system performance. At the same time, the CPU performance depends, in addition to the frequency itself, on a number of factors — architecture, number of cores, special design features, etc.; and the actual speed of the entire system is affected by performance of components other than the processor. In addition, manufacturers usually select processors in such a way that their computing power is guaranteed to be enough for all the features claimed for a media centre. Therefore, in this case, the CPU frequency is more of a reference parameter (and partly an advertising indicator that demonstrates the advanced specifications of the device), rather than practically significant for buyer.
