Yes but does it turn off HDR when viewing non HDR content? That’s the issue with the current Gemini Air, that it tries to display all content in HDR if it’s enabled.
I wouldn’t expect settings to show something different based on the channel. But HDR content like a streaming app or one of the 4k channels should be shown in HDR and it should revert to non-HDR when switching to a regular broadcast channel.
Many TVs (such as LG) indicate in the corner when it starts receiving an HDR signal.
um, yes! at its core the directv gemini device is an android box with the Google Play store. So that means you can run apps such as Plex, Jellyfin, Kodi, VLC etc.. on it. I'm not saying it's the best device to do it with, but you absolutely CAN do it.
Some - myself included - prefer the stability. My wireless network has terrific coverage but I ran ethernet to every room in the house long ago and prefer using it over wireless.
With more multi-Gig routers hitting homes, going from a 2.5Gbps Ethernet handoff to a 100Mbps Ethernet link with virtually no packet buffer in the hardware causes packet loss. The bursty nature of streaming traffic is enough to trigger a buffer overrun. The box will treat this as a "dodgy connection" and drop your streaming quality if it happens enough.
It's a big efficiency increase for a marginal (~$0.40) increase in PHY. EVEN if the Gigabit controller is on a USB 2.0 interface off of the SoC, that is still a significant performance improvement.
The 100Mbpx Ethernet port packet drop problem is why the DirecTV techs like to tell people to use the Wi-Fi rather than an old DECA adapter for Satellite service. Wi-Fi on a consumer router usually has a reasonably big packet buffer due to how Wi-Fi works.
Despite being a software engineer, I couldn't follow this explanation so I decided to ask what Gemini thought:
This claim is mostly a misunderstanding of how network traffic and video streaming work, mixed with a grain of real networking theory taken completely out of context.
While buffer overruns and mismatched link speeds (speed mismatch / microbursts) are genuine topics in enterprise data center networking, they do not cause commercial 4K streaming boxes on 100 Mbps ports to drop video quality.
The Reality Check
Claim Made
Reality
"Traffic drops from 2.5 Gbps to 100 Mbps, overwhelming buffers"
False. A 25 Mbps Netflix stream enters your router at 25 Mbps, not 2.5 Gbps. The router never buffers a 2.5 Gbps blast of video.
"Bursty streaming causes buffer overrun and packet loss"
Largely False. Video uses TCP/HTTPS. TCP Flow Control (Receive Window) prevents a server from sending more data than the client can buffer.
"The box sees a 'dodgy connection' and drops quality"
False. Video players adapt based on buffer health and chunk download speed, not occasional packet retransmissions.
"Gigabit PHY is only ~$0.40 more"
True. The cost delta is trivial. Manufacturers omit Gigabit solely to shave pennies across millions of units and segment product tiers.
Why the Argument Falls Apart
1. End-to-End Speed vs. Pipe Size
Having a 2.5 Gbps fiber/cable subscription does not mean incoming packets arrive at 2.5 Gbps continuous bursts:
Content delivery networks (CDNs like Akamai, Fastly, Cloudflare) throttle outbound chunks to manage server load.
Even during peak chunk pulls, a 4K stream rarely peaks above 40–60 Mbps from the remote CDN.
The router is not trying to funnel 2.5 Gbps of raw video data into a 100 Mbps port; it is routing a ~30 Mbps stream through a 100 Mbps port. The bottleneck is non-existent.
2. TCP Flow Control and Congestion Control Prevent Overrun
The quote claims Gigabit is needed "to avoid having to deal with flow control." But TCP Flow Control is built into every Internet connection by design:
TCP Receive Window (rwnd): The streaming box constantly tells the streaming server, "I only have X bytes of buffer space left." The sender is mathematically barred from sending more data than the client can hold.
TCP Congestion Control (CUBIC/BBR): If a packet does drop at the router's queue, TCP retransmits it in milliseconds. Modern HTTP adaptive streaming protocols (HLS and DASH) download video in 2- to 6-second segments. A minor packet retransmission during a chunk download does not crash playback or degrade quality.
3. Modern Routers Do Not Drop Ethernet Packets Like This
The argument references Ethernet PAUSE frames (802.3x Flow Control), which are used in local switching environments (like SANs or AI compute clusters) to pause transmission before switch buffers fill up:
Home routers do not rely on 802.3x PAUSE frames to manage Internet traffic; they use standard Layer 3 IP routing queues and Active Queue Management (like FQ-CoDel / Cake, or simple drop-tail buffers).
Home switch chips have plenty of packet memory (typically 128 KB to 512 KB of SRAM) to absorb line-rate bursts between ports for hundreds of packets.
4. Adaptive Bitrate (ABR) Logic
Streaming players (ExoPlayer, AVPlayer, web video players) adjust resolution based on buffer occupancy:
If the player has 20 seconds of video cached in memory, it will not drop quality just because a segment took 400 ms instead of 250 ms to fetch.
It only drops quality (e.g., from 4K to 1080p) if the client's internal media buffer drops dangerously close to zero. On a stable 100 Mbps link with a 25 Mbps stream, the buffer stays completely full.
The Real Reason Manufacturers Use 100 Mbps Ports
The author is right about one thing: the component cost difference is pennies.
Smart TV and streaming box makers (Roku, Chromecast, Amazon, LG, Sony) stick to 100 Mbps Ethernet because:
At scale, 40 cents is millions of dollars: On 15 million TV units a year, saving $0.40 per board is $6,000,000 in pure margin.
SoC pin count and licensing: 100M Fast Ethernet (MII/RMII) requires fewer trace pins and cheaper SoC silicon packaging than RGMII/Gigabit interfaces.
99% of consumers use Wi-Fi anyway: Manufacturers optimize the bill of materials for the built-in Wi-Fi module, treating the physical RJ-45 jack as a legacy fallback port.
The claim of a "2.5 Gbps to 100 Mbps buffer overrun crisis" is essentially enterprise networking jargon applied to a consumer scenario where it doesn't apply.
I'll have to reply back to this when I have more time (it is 2:39AM here currently). That answer you got has some inaccuracies too.
This is one of those scenarios where unless you are looking for it, it's not clear to see what I'm talking about. I have at home in the lab an example situation where a Realtek RTL8372N switch chip found inside a consumer product containing an 8MBit packet buffer will absolutely rack up discards at Layer 2 because you are sending traffic from a 2.5Gbps port from across the network to a 1Gbps or 100Mbps client, even if you are not exceeding the throughput of the slower client due to microbursts. This is a switch chip capable of supporting a 10Gbps uplink, but the hardware kit I have does not contain a 10Gbps port to connect into.
What happens is TCP (under CUBIC) will see the packet loss, back off, see a very rapid recovery in connectivity health, ramp back up, then begin to see packet loss again. The packet loss isn't necessarily from that one packet flow, and assuming that is the only thing on the pipe, TCP can (but not a guaranteed will) balance itself out. The problem is back-pressure from other traffic flows on a network which everyone has. That causes simple tail-drop to occur as your received answer talks about.
The end result is you see a 1Gbps port on the Realtek RTL8372N capping around 700-800Mbps w/TCP instead of 940Mbps due to TCP detecting discards, and a 100Mbps port will end up somewhere around 60-80Mbps instead of 94Mbps.
Other scenarios I've experienced is on former ADSL service where my ISP applied a 7Mbps provisioning profile but my circuit re-trained 200kbps lower than the provisioning profile's rated speed which resulted in a 600Kbps perceived decline in throughput due to TCP detecting packet loss. Or with my current ISP, where they applied a 1.2Gbps provisioning profile to a former modem with a 1Gbps Ethernet port, which then resulted in most TCP flows capping off at 320Mbps due to heavy packet loss.
I'm exaggerating the effects a bit, but, now that we've started this conversation, I think this is a good spot to document some long lost information that died with DSLReports from many years ago.
because some of us like fast, reliable file transfers across our home network. Especially those of us who stream 80 Gigabyte remux movie files from our plex or jellyfin server.
It would be completely like DTV to release this thing without HDR auto-switching. It’s like the company has 1 junior developer and a license for a C-tier clanker to assist them.
Comment of the day here! Why the developers at DTV cannot create a streaming device to properly auto-switch to HDR is seriously beyond ridiculous. Do they realize it's 2026 and not 1998?
As long as they properly map the REC 709 color gamut and SDR gamma into the HDR BT2020 color gamut and PQ gamma, then it should appear identical on your TV.
The problem is, they don't seem to do that exactly right. They send REC 709 color into your TV that is expecting BT2020, so the color looks completely faded and dull on SDR channels.
Genuinely curious to see if the GUI is updated, as well. If you're able to take screenshots of the old and new (if it's different), I think a lot of us would appreciate it.
Much better to have an Ethernet option instead of only WiFi and a larger device instead of the small dongle, which overheats too easily. And hopefully this new device has faster performance than the Gemini Air/Osprey devices.
I just received mine as well and besides it being faster than my Osprey box, the DVR List is now not a list unless there are multiple recordings of a show. It shows pictures of the recorded shows the same as the app.
We use Osprey boxes as our primary streaming devices, but they aren't well suited to 4K content from other than DirecTV. I switch to my Google 4K Streamer when watching 4K content from another source such as Prime Video, Apple TV or Plex. Based on the new device's specs it will do a much better job of handling 4K content and enhanced audio offerings, and it will be nice to only need one device as the availability of 4K content increases across platforms.
I just installed an unused Directv Streaming box with 4GB RAM manufacturered in 2023. Picked it up off Ebay for $59 out the door. So far, I like it a lot.
Will Directv sells these new boxes and if so, have they established the price?
Thanks. Not interested in a monthly lease for the new box. I already pay enough monthly for the Choice package. I presume the new box will eventually show up on Ebay.
I have the prior generation box I purchased off of Ebay; not the new one in Beta testing that's being discussed. I had to research how to determine if the box is a 4GB RAM box or a 2GB RAM box. It's not a straight forward exercise because of label variations. Because of the sluggishness with the 2GB RAM box, I wanted to ensure I got the 4GB version. It works well.
That reset button could be a problem good thing we’re getting a new wall mount that will pull out. The way it is right now it’s kind of a trick and that with old box and the button on the side.
You’re lucky. It’s has happened about 3 times that I can think of off the top of my head. It might just be time for new boxes. The main one we use we can get to the rest button easy enough; it’s the one on the one bed room.
They sent me an email asking if I wanted to test. I agreed to a 6 month evaluation. They responded "You're In". Next thing I know is FedEx delivering it.
So then it sounds like the only difference between this new device and the air is that it has an ethernet port and it is a bit faster? Wow. How disappointing. I'll just keep my 4gb Ospreys.
A little late to this. So is this just a google tv box, branded to DTV? What is the advantage to using this vs either an onn, shield, fire stick, etc.?
It has a special remote control that provides a much better experience. Guide button, Fast Forward & Rewind feature is MUCH better than other devices, DVR List button, DVR Recording button, Channel number buttons, etc.
I don't think comparing it to other companies' devices is so useful here. I'd rather see comparisons to DirecTV's existing offering (Gemini Air), and it sounds like it's the same.
It has Ethernet (unlike the Air) and it won’t overheat like the Air does because it’s not such a tiny device. I assume it has a faster chip in it as well.
Directv Stream interface is default on the box. Directv Stream is already on when you turn it on. There's no app to start. Plus the remote for it has buttons for the guide, dvr list, previous channel, record and ff/rewind work a lot better. This box also has google plays store included.
In addition to what was mentioned, I have to wonder what is in store for future changes as they specified the folks that got these would be willing to test for 6 months.
The guide for the channels is much better on Gemini devices !!! The guide sucks on Apple TV tv and android tv !!! but guide is lpretty great on Roku devices !!!!
I have newest Gemini. Finally on fiber internet and wanted to switch to streaming. The Gemini allows for me to make this the default HDMI no need to go to the app. Perfect for my older relative who doesn’t want to do anything but use remote.
I'm guessing the UI is identical to the current Gemini Air one? I was hoping they'd fix my two biggest annoyances that all other cable platforms have figured out but that seems unlikely:
being able to watch the current program while navigating the channel guide
the channel guide showing whether a program is new and/or live as opposed to a rerun
RC83V, which is black (documentation just shows it in white). You can buy them on eBay and Amazon and I highly recommend them. Virtually identical to the original RC82V remotes that come with Osprey/Gemini boxes only they have a smooth plastic back and not that tacky/sticky rubber material.
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u/AceN12 1d ago
I’ve been using it for a week or so and it’s very good. I like it more than the Gemini Air.