Two years after the original unifi Plus Box (UPB) was launched to consumers, it appears that TM is prepping up to unveil its successor very soon. Rumours regarding the new unifi TV set top box have appeared as early as Q4 last year but only recently that we have stumbled upon the box ourselves.
Back in October 2021, Lowyat.NET Forum user amirul hafizz posted what seems to be a cover of an internal presentation for the 2nd Generation UPB. It is not known why there is the word “hybrid” attached to its name but based on a post by unifi Community user Loh123 last month, the new box can deliver IPTV contents via a dedicated VLAN.
The dedicated VLAN capability exists in the old HyppTV set top boxes but is missing from the existing UPB. Loh123 also claimed that the new UPB which may launch within this month will also mark the addition of Disney+ Hotstar and Netflix to the list of unifi TV’s streaming partners.
Just a few days after Loh123’s unifi Community forum post went online and subsequently deleted, by sheer luck we saw the new 2nd generation box in action when we visited the TMpoint at Menara TM in Bangsar.
As you can see from the label underneath the box, the new model is made by Skyworth Digital who also manufactured the original unifi Plus Box. This particular device which has model number HP43A is a 4K-capable OTT box that uses Reference Design Kit (RDK) software platform as its foundation according to the company’s website.
The specs sheet for the box stated that it is powered by a quad-core Cortex-A53 chip alongside 2GB DDR4 RAM and up to 16GB eMMC-based internal storage. It also comes with support for dual-band 802.11ac and Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) 4.2 while its HDMI 2.1 port conforms to the HDCP 2.2 standard.
In terms of digital rights management (DRM), the box can support Google’s Widevine L1 and Microsoft PlayReady 3000. Additionally, it also supports H.265 HEVC and VP9 videos codecs with an output of up to 4K resolution at 60fps.
Not to forget, it is also capable of supporting major HDR standards including Dolby Vision, HDR10, and HLG. As you may be able to guess, this box is also able to support Dolby Atmos’ contents.
The website also noted that Amazon Prime, Disney+, and Netflix have been integrated with the box. That being said though, the latter two streaming services were not present inside the box at TMpoint during our visit.
Due to time constraints and the fact that less than 10 customers are allowed to be within the TMpoint area at a time, we don’t get to explore the box during our encounter and were not able to obtain further information regarding it from the staff. However, an anonymous tipster has sent us several pictures of the retail packaging for the box which strongly hints that TM is ready to roll it out to customers real soon.
If you take a closer look at the bottom part of the packaging, you will notice that the HP43A model number was also written on it. We take it as a confirmation that the box we saw at TMpoint was indeed the new 2nd Gen UPB.
Hence, we have begun reaching out to TM to gain more information regarding the new UPB and we will keep you posted as soon as we received further details from the company.
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