Marrying free-to-air and pay television with the best of the internet, Telstra's new Ultra HD streaming set-top box is a serious contender in the battle for HDMI 1 in your lounge room.

The Telstra TV 2 stands out from the competition because, unlike the original Telstra TV, you can watch live free-to-air broadcasts thanks to an RF aerial input and single HD MPEG4 digital tuner. This harks back to Telstra's long-abandoned T-Box, except that the new Telstra TV 2 can't record television or even pause and rewind live broadcasts.

Alongside that aerial input on the back you'll find HDMI for connecting to your television, so this set-top box is no help in bringing an old analogue television into the digital age. There's also Ethernet for connecting to your broadband modem, along with built-in 802.11ac Wi-Fi.

Telstra throws in the new Telstra TV 2 for free with its broadband bundles worth $99 or more – meaning many Australians will score one whether they want it or not. Otherwise you can buy this box outright for $192 but you need to be a Telstra broadband or mobile customer to activate it.

As a bonus, Bigpond Movies content is unmetered if you're using Telstra Bigpond home broadband. As with previous Telstra boxes, the idea is to make the thought of switching to another ISP less attractive when the NBN brings competition to your door.

Worthy rivals

Of course if you're weighing up an outright purchase there are plenty of alternatives to consider.

Our love affair with broadcast television is waning and if you don't care for free-to-air then you might weigh up this streaming video box against the Apple TV or Google Chromecast. Then there's the Amazon Fire TV which is likely to arrive when Amazon finally unleashes its full retail assault on Australia. All three offer Ultra HD options.

If you do care about free-to-air then the Telstra TV 2 should be weighed up against the Fetch Mini or Mighty, along with rival Personal Video Recorders from the likes of Humax. Keep in mind we'll also see an Android-based streaming box from Foxtel very soon which should include a free-to-air tuner.

Online streaming

Like its predecessor, the Telstra TV 2 is a locked-down Roku box – letting you enjoy the simplicity of the Roku interface but not the depth of the Roku app store. To be fair that's not likely to bother your average punter, as this box offers more than enough to keep your typical home entertained.

For some homes the big attraction is the Foxtel Now app, which gets its own dedicated button on the remote. Foxtel Now is still relatively rare on streaming devices although Foxtel is preparing to launch its own box. Telstra sweetens the deal by throwing in a three-month trial.

The Foxtel Now app features an iQ3-style interface letting you watch live channels and catch up, in SD and HD, from Foxtel's non-contract subscription service. The HD catch up quality falls ever so slightly short of Netflix looking at movies like Rogue One.

Unlike the Foxtel iQ3, you can't record live Foxtel channels, there's no "Look Back" reverse EPG and you can't use "Start Over" to jump back to the beginning of a program if you tune in late. You can however rewind a Foxtel streaming channel up to 30 minutes, even if you haven't been watching that channel.

Meanwhile rival Fetch TV also offers streaming pay TV options which include some Foxtel channels, but not premium content like live AFL or new-release HBO blockbusters such as Game of Thrones. Like Apple's iTunes Store and Google Play, Fetch TV can't sell you new episodes of Game of Thrones until Foxtel has finished screening the entire season.

In other homes the Telstra TV 2's main attraction will be access to Netflix, which also gets its own button on the remote, along with Stan (co-owned by Fairfax Media). The box takes advantage of the HEVC video format to deliver crisp Ultra HD resolution at 15 Mbps with High Dynamic Range (along with 24fps if you enable 'auto-adjust display refresh rate').

Remember, you still need to pay for monthly subscriptions to the services you want to watch. Amazon Prime Video doesn't get a look-in but you'll find other streaming services like YouTube, AFL, NRL, Netball, NBA, 7 Tennis, Fox Sports and Hayu.

To round things out you've got access to Telstra's Bigpond Movies store for rentals and purchases in SD or HD, along with free catch up TV from all five of Australia's free-to-air broadcasters.

You can also use the catch up apps to watch live streaming of the broadcast channels — but frustratingly only from ABC and Seven. The picture quality is surprisingly good, although it's obviously at the mercy of your broadband connection and the networks' tendency to blackout some programs. This could make the Telstra TV 2 a handy option for those corners of your home where you can't reach an aerial socket, assuming the other broadcasters come to the party.

Local streaming

It's slim pickings in the app store, you won't find local streaming stalwarts like Plex but you will find Roku Media Player. It plays photos, music and video from a USB stick or from local DLNA servers running on your computer or Network Attached Storage drive.

The box also supports streaming from mobile devices, but your options are very limited. You can fling content to the Telstra TV 2 from the YouTube and Netflix apps but not Stan or Foxtel Now. Nor can you access the box via Apple's AirPlay or Google's Chromecast, or use it as a DLNA renderer from apps like 8 Player.

There's also a Telstra TV iOS/Android app for controlling the Telstra TV 2, to accompany the tiny remote control supplied in the box. Neither provide volume control, not even mute, so you always need to keep the television remote at hand.

You can use the Telstra mobile app to find content and play it on your television, but you can't tap into the box's TV tuner to stream live TV to your mobile device so you can watch television in bed (unlike the HDHomeRun). You're also missing out on the ability to stream recordings between devices around your home, as offered by the likes of Fetch TV and Humax.

Free-to-air television

Unlike most set-top boxes, when you turn on the Telstra TV 2 it doesn't jump straight to live broadcasts. Instead you're presented with a Home screen offering a range of broadcast, catch up and subscription options.

To watch free-to-air television you need to scroll down to Live TV or press the dedicated Live TV or TV Guide buttons on the remote. This might foil some people looking for a dead-simple set-top box but realistically it doesn't present too steep a learning curve.

What's more annoying is that it takes a full eight seconds for the Live TV app to launch – which feels an eternity. This takes some of the shine off the user experience, as it would be faster to simply change channels on your television using its built-in tuner. It takes about two seconds to change channels, while jumping out of Live TV and between apps can also be sluggish.

It's shame a little of the onboard storage can't be dedicated to a buffer, so you could at least pause live television for a few minutes like the Fetch TV Mini, if not record shows like the Fetch TV Mighty. The ability to pause live broadcasts really comes in handy when you have young children who won't stay in bed in the evenings.

Electronic Program Guide

Telstra's onscreen Electronic Program Guide is simple and uncluttered, coming from online rather than the broadcast signal so you need to keep the box connected to the internet.

The EPG can be slow to load when you first wake up the box, which slows you down when scrolling through the channels. Unfortunately there's no number pad on the remote control for jumping to a specific channel and you can't create a favourites list or hide those annoying shopping channels which clutter up the guide.

All of this makes the Telstra TV 2 a bit cumbersome as your primary free-to-air viewing device, but the onscreen guide does include a few pleasant surprises. It's not a Reverse EPG, so you can't scroll back in time to find catch up options, but when you're scrolling ahead it offers alternatives to live television.

For example the EPG entry for Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone on Channel Nine on Saturday night included links to the movie in Netflix and Bigpond Movies – which is a godsend because watching a movie on commercial free-to-air television is incredibly frustrating. The EPG also offers catch up options for some television shows.

When it comes to free-to-air picture quality, to me the Telstra TV 2 looks a fraction better than the Fetch TV boxes but it's not something your average viewer would notice. To my eyes the Fetch TV picture has always looked a tad garish and overblown after switching from my old TiVo, particularly when watching live sport.

Cross-platform "Universal" search

This is where the Telstra TV 2 proves its worth for those times when you just want to watch a program and don't care where it comes from.

Search for Brooklyn Nine-Nine and you're told that it screens on SBS Viceland on Wednesday night, but you're also presented the option to purchase recent episodes from season 5 on Bigpond Movies. Click on the dropdown menu and you can also see options to watch previous seasons on Netflix: press play and the first episode starts, rather than just dumping you in the Netflix home screen. You'll also find Stan and Foxtel Now content.

This kind of cross-platform search is becoming more common in Australia, such as on the new Apple TV app, and is a smart way for free-to-air broadcasters to ensure they remain part of the viewing mix in the internet age. It's the kind of thing that Freeview should have focused on rather than messing around with HbbTV.

So what's the verdict?

If you're after an all-rounder then the ability to watch Game of Thrones, House of Cards and Days of our Lives on the one box is very enticing. The slick cross-platform search is the icing on the cake because, however you slice it, watching Australian commercial broadcast television is a painful experience best avoided when possible.

The Telstra TV 2 is a tempting option if you're looking for something that just works, especially a basic box for a secondary television in the bedroom or rumpus room. It's also a tempting recommendation for less-tech-savvy friends and relatives when you're the one who ends up offering emergency over-the-phone tech support.

If free-to-air is your primary interest then you should definitely weigh up this box against the extra features of the Fetch TV Mini. In return you lose premium Foxtel content along with Ultra HD picture quality. Remember, if Foxtel Now is the most enticing aspect of this box then you should hold out just a little longer to see what's coming from Foxtel.