Nvidia Shield not available for sale - alternatives?

[Mister Steve 31]

The Nvidia Shield 2019 pro is out of stock everywhere and Nvidia announced a price increase to $300 if or when it becomes available again. Bad news either way.

What is an alternative device that runs Android TV, interfaces via HDMI, and supports side-loading and OS customizations like the Shield? It does not need to be as "beefy" as a Shield. 

Thanks

[marriedman 115]

Good lord... $300 bucks for 8 year old hardware? That's insane. At that price I would just get a NUC.

[ebr 16883]

53 minutes ago, marriedman said:

At that price I would just get a NUC

Not the same experience at all...

There are a number of other Android boxes these days that should come close to the Shield.  You might want to check out the Hardware forum.

[yocker 2011]

4 hours ago, marriedman said:

Good lord... $300 bucks for 8 year old hardware? That's insane. At that price I would just get a NUC.

The Shield can still not be beat. The age doesn't matter as it powerful enough to view movies without problems.
If you want to game on it then yeah.. That will be a problem.

[justinrh 292]

Zidoo is supposed to be grandiose. 

[marriedman 115]

6 hours ago, yocker said:

The Shield can still not be beat. The age doesn't matter as it powerful enough to view movies without problems.

Guess I am just the odd man out, I gave mine away to my neice because I just wasn't impressed with it.

[Mister Steve 31]

Does anyone have a suggestion on a device that

• runs Android TV
• interfaces via HDMI
• Supports side-loading and custom launchers. Aside from Emby I use SmartTube Next and a few other utils
• Costs less than $200

It does not need to be as "beefy" as a Shield. This device will drive a kitchen area TV.

[yocker 2011]

6 hours ago, marriedman said:

Guess I am just the odd man out, I gave mine away to my neice because I just wasn't impressed with it.

Passthrough of lossless formats and 7.1 is hard to find in streaming boxes.

[marriedman 115]

That's why I recommended the NUC. My NUC13 could do it. That and a 10 foot UI was pretty awesome. Before the RAM crisis you could get one for a song too.

[yocker 2011]

1 hour ago, marriedman said:

That's why I recommended the NUC. My NUC13 could do it. That and a 10 foot UI was pretty awesome. Before the RAM crisis you could get one for a song too.

I don't disagree with you but from my experience Dolby Vision is a pain to get working on PCs (specially if using Windows).
The Shield for me is just a much simpler product that does and have all i need.

For my bedroom TV i just use a cheap raspberry pi i got thrown my way.

[ebr 16883]

12 hours ago, Mister Steve said:

It does not need to be as "beefy" as a Shield. This device will drive a kitchen area TV

In that case, you could just get a Google Streamer.

[Mister Steve 31]

12 minutes ago, yocker said:

For my bedroom TV i just use a cheap raspberry pi i got thrown my way.

Hey yocker, I can deal with a Raspberry pi. What os, software, and remote control are you using? 

[Mister Steve 31]

11 minutes ago, ebr said:

In that case, you could just get a Google Streamer.

Thanks, I'll look into it. I thought Google was locking down all of their devices to disallow side loads though. 

[yocker 2011]

12 minutes ago, Mister Steve said:

Hey yocker, I can deal with a Raspberry pi. What os, software, and remote control are you using? 

LibreELEC from the Raspberry PI installer.
The Pi i use is a small RaspBerry Pi 3, it's fine for the old 1080p TV in my bedroom. I havn't tested it with anything 4K so i can't comment on it being good enough for that.

Edit: Also note that i don't think Dolby Vision is possible on the Raspberry Pi in case that's important to you.

Edited 7 hours ago by yocker

[wmichael3 9]

I use ProjectIvy on the Google Streamer and it works great to dump all of the ads and give you a custom UI. It is a really good launcher for Google TV.

Streamer negatives:

• When wired via ethernet via an unmanaged switch, it will periodically drop off your network and need to be unplugged/plugged. This can be mitigated by using a USB to ethernet adapter. It is caused by aggressive power saving for ethernet - it is a Google Streamer bug. If you plug it directly into your router I believe you won't have this problem.
• Can panic and reboot on Direct Play interlaced streams after fast-forwarding/rewinding. Interlaced streams come from ATSC 1.0 OTA signals. (CBS, NBC, PBS.....) This can be mitigated by a FFMPEG substitution in Diagnostic Options that forces transcoding and deinterlacing. No problem with progressive streams from any source. This is a Google Streamer bug.
• The Streamer cannot decode ripped passthrough Atmos via Emby (if you are ripping Blu-Ray with Atmos). Best you can achieve is 7.1.  Streaming Atmos is fine. I believe the Shield can do this.
• ADB Debug (used for interfacing with Home Assistant) in general, will only work via WiFi. There is a workaround for ethernet if you again, don't use the built in ethernet port but use a USB-C based ethernet port. For example, using the power adapter for the Chromecast 4K that has an ethernet port. There is a side-loaded Auto-ADB app that does mean you don't have to activate ADB Debug on every boot. This really only applies to Home Assistant geeks using the FireMote card - this gives you a full remote control UI in Home Assistant.

Positives:

• Pretty snappy with 4K. It doesn't scream, but I think it is fine.
• Supports Dolby Vision & Atmos on all streaming apps that support them and ripped Dolby Vision also works great via Emby. Also supports HDR10.
• Full sideloading is supported.
• Inexpensive.
• Regularly updated, for better or worse.
• Still works with a Harmony Hub.

My own big TV setup is Google Streamer -> HDMI -> Denon x4800H -> HDMI -> LG C4. I block the TV from the internet, because.....LG.

Hope this helps.

 

[justinrh 292]

8 hours ago, marriedman said:

My NUC13 could do it. That and a 10 foot UI was pretty awesome.

Who's UI?  Did you have Google TV on it?