expiredjimsgrandma posted Oct 10, 2023 07:11 AM
Item 1 of 2
Item 1 of 2
expiredjimsgrandma posted Oct 10, 2023 07:11 AM
NVIDIA SHIELD Android TV Pro Streaming Media Player; 4K HDR movies, live sports, Dolby Vision-Atmos, AI-enhanced upscaling, GeForce NOW cloud gaming, Google Assistant Bui - $169.99
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Good luck trying to find another player that has this quality of upscaling, USB Storage, DTS support, advanced cec controls, back lit remote, etc.
If you dont want/need those advanced features, I'd recommend a ccwgtv. Apple TV seems handicapped with certain audio codecs and no interactive netflix.
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Good luck trying to find another player that has this quality of upscaling, USB Storage, DTS support, advanced cec controls, back lit remote, etc.
If you dont want/need those advanced features, I'd recommend a ccwgtv. Apple TV seems handicapped with certain audio codecs and no interactive netflix.
There are a few that does similar, guess what, they are also priced similar.
If you need a pure passthrough experience, shield is the easiest. So Home theater enthusiasts need this. If you don't listen through a receiver, then yeah I would also just go for a $20 fire stick.
I have one at each of our three TV locations. But as others have noted, these shouldn't still be $150 to $200. For what it's worth, the resale value seems to hold up well as used devices typically go for $125 to $150. If you're lucky, $100.
First, my initial impressions with the ai upscaling is that it's pretty bad. I've been watching a 1080p show, and I've been noticing a bunch of static appearing in the image. Finally went and looked at the files on my computer, and can't see anywhere near the signs of it in the original. Dropped the shield to play 1080p and it basically went away. Changed the upscaling to basic, and it also went away. Now, I'll admit that the problem was mainly in darker scenes that you could tell were borderline on the original too, but it was making it significantly worse.
Second issue I've had is that with dolby vision enabled, I keep getting drop-outs on the video. From searching, seems to be not all that uncommon. I could have marginal cables maybe? I haven't tried replacing those yet, but probably will. Turn dv off, and everything works fine. Course, that was the reason I'd swapped in the 2019 for the one I'd had there.
So I'm kinda mixed on it. It's still a very good device, and if you value a good quality audio system, I'm not sure there's another great option out there that lets you do pass through audio to your avr from things like plex. Not sure if the amazon devices have ever gotten there. But it's also definitely lacking in some things these days - like the ability to play youtube with hdr. I'd really like to see them come out with an updated version that handles some of the few shortcomings it has, which would put it back on top.
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I will say the Shield runs Plex Server great until it doesn't. Then you have a problem. Maybe once every 12-16 months the Plex Server chokes and I will reinstall it and rebuild my library. It's probably repairable but not very easily. It's quick and easy enough to do a clean install anyway.
The new Android TV v11 updates have been a disaster, particularly for audio pass-through but also the newly introduced intrusive advertisements and telemetry.
Google has taken over the Nvidia Shield in a big way.
The latest Shield I set up, I rolled the OS back to v8.23 and installed a custom launcher (FLauncher - open source) to avoid the banner ads. It works --perfectly-- for every codec. This takes some work the first time. It took me 2+ hours on power shell / command prompt to 1. roll back OS to v8 and 2. make FLauncher the default launcher. The last time I spent that much time typing in command prompt was when my router bricked after an update. I could probably do it in less than an hour now that I've had that experience.
If you are watching local files from NAS, network, attached USB drive.. the Shield is unbeatable. Of course it also works fine with the usual Android TV apps. I still don't see how firestick or apple tv are actual competition if you use local files. If all one does is stream services, then of course, get a roku/firestick or similar.
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