Basis is a player, not a provider. It hosts and sells no channels, movies or series, and needs an Xtream Codes login or an M3U playlist from a service you already pay for.
The two models are not the same device
| Device | Year | Chip | RAM | Storage | System |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chromecast with Google TV (HD)The tightest memory budget of any Google TV device Google has shipped. | 2022 | Amlogic S805X2 | 1.5 GB | 8 GB | Google TV, Android 12 |
| Chromecast with Google TV (4K)Storage fills faster than memory does, which is its own reason to care about install size. | 2020 | Amlogic S905D3 | 2 GB | 8 GB | Google TV, Android 12 |
| Google TV Streamer (4K)The comfortable end of the range. | 2024 | MediaTek MT8696 | 4 GB | 32 GB | Google TV, Android 14 |
Specifications as published by each manufacturer, read 2026-08-10.
The 2022 HD model shipped with 1.5 GB of RAM, half a gigabyte less than the 4K model it sat beside, on a slower Amlogic S805X2 with Cortex A35 cores. It is a perfectly good 1080p streamer and it is the Google TV device most likely to struggle with a big IPTV catalog, because catalog handling is a memory problem before it is a processor one.
Both dongles also ship 8 GB of storage, of which noticeably less is usable after the system takes its share. That matters here in a way it does not on a phone: a player that caches a large catalog to disk is doing the right thing for memory, and it still has to fit.
Three constraints, and what to do about each
Memory, on the HD model especially
The reason IPTV apps stall on these dongles is the catalog, not the video. A provider hands over tens of thousands of rows and a guide with hundreds of thousands of programmes, and any player that decodes all of it into memory before drawing a list is spending the device's headroom on data you are not looking at.
Basis never holds the whole catalog at once. It streams in, lives on disk and is read back in pages. From tests committed in the app's repository:
Storage, on both
- The Basis installer is about 27.5 MB. The catalog database it builds afterwards is the part that grows, and it grows with the size of your provider rather than with the app.
- If the dongle is already near full, clear space before a first connect rather than during it. Google TV gets unhappy at very low free space in ways that have nothing to do with any particular app.
- Only one provider is active at a time in Basis, and switching clears the previous provider's catalog rather than keeping both on disk. On an 8 GB device that is a feature rather than a limitation.
The remote, which is the constraint nobody lists
Memory and storage decide whether the dongle stays responsive. The remote decides whether you ever find anything, and the Chromecast remote is a small one: no number pad, no keyboard, and an on-screen grid you drive one press at a time. A provider with tens of thousands of titles filed into categories it named itself is a hard thing to search with that in your hand, which is why the advice further down this page has always been to reach for your phone.
Basis AI is built for that reach. You type a sentence, a film you half remember or the sort of thing you are in the mood for, and it works out what you meant and finds the matches in your own catalog rather than on the internet. The sentence is the only thing that leaves the device: the catalog is matched where it already sits. It is search rather than a recommendation engine, so it learns nothing about you and offers nothing you did not ask for.
Where it runs, stated plainly: Basis AI is a Pro feature in the phone and tablet interface. The Google TV interface on the dongle has the ordinary keyword search box. Given that you were probably going to pick the phone up rather than type on that remote, that is less of a compromise here than it would be on a device with a real keyboard, but it is not the same as having it on the dongle.
Installing on Google TV
Basis is a direct download rather than a Play Store listing, so this is a sideload. Google TV makes it straightforward: install Downloader from the Play Store on the device, allow installs from unknown sources for that app, then open www.basisiptv.com/downloads inside it and take the Android build. The full walkthrough has the settings paths and the playlist step.
There is no separate TV build to hunt for. It is one installer for phone, tablet and TV, and Basis picks a remote driven interface at runtime when it starts on a television.
Before you decide
- Basis cannot replay a programme that already aired out of your provider's archive. It reads those fields and plays nothing from them.
- There is no recording and no parental control.
- Casting to the dongle from a phone is a different thing to running the app on it. Basis supports Chromecast on the free tier, so both routes are open to you.
- Typing a playlist URL on the Google TV remote is unpleasant. Use the Google TV app on your phone as a keyboard.
Questions people ask
Does Basis run on the 1.5 GB HD Chromecast?
It is built for tighter budgets than that. The catalog paths were written for boxes reporting a 96 MB per app heap cap, which is below what this device allows. The free tier means you can confirm it on your own dongle in five minutes rather than take our word for it.
Is Basis on the Google Play Store?
Not today. It is a direct download, which on Google TV means sideloading through Downloader or a similar app.
Will 8 GB of storage be enough?
For the app, comfortably. For the catalog it builds, that depends on the size of your provider. Only one provider is active at a time and switching clears the old one, so it does not accumulate.
Can I cast to it instead of installing on it?
Yes. Chromecast support is on the free tier. Running the app on the device gives you the guide and the remote driven interface, casting gives you playback from the phone.
Can I search by describing what I want instead of typing on the remote?
On the phone and tablet, yes. That is Basis AI: you type a sentence and it finds the movies and series in your own catalog that match, rather than making you walk a category tree with the dongle's remote. It searches what your provider gave you and not the internet, the sentence is the only thing that leaves the device, and it recommends nothing you did not ask for. It is a Pro feature, and the Google TV interface on the dongle itself has the ordinary keyword search box today.
Does the Google TV Streamer work too?
Yes, and with 4 GB of RAM and 32 GB of storage it is the comfortable end of the range. Everything on this page applies, with more headroom.
Do I need an IPTV subscription?
Yes. Basis ships with no server addresses and no credentials and has nothing to show you without an Xtream Codes login or an M3U playlist of your own.