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 16884]

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 2015]

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 2015]

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 2015]

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 16884]

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 2015]

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 20 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?

[yocker 2015]

8 hours ago, wmichael3 said:

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.

 

It is a good device but one thing to note in case it matters, it doesn't support lossless passthrough.

 

 

8 hours ago, wmichael3 said:

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

At the fear of derailing this thread.
All TVs are spying like the LG, look up Samba for Sony as an example. LG are just the ones that got reported on it for now.

[MediaIntelNUC 66]

Hi there!

I have a Shield that i have run Emby Client for years, and as @yockerpointed out the lossless passthrough is a great feature if you have somekind of AV-setup with 7.1 etc..(wich i have) but there is one disanvantage when it comes to the Shield in my opinion and that is AV1 and the fact that the Shield CPU cant handle them when it comes to playing files.

My WIN11 server had a CPU with integrated graphics so i had to get a Intel Arc 310 in order to transcode these for the Shield to be able to play it, or you could encode them in Win or what not if you have the time and patience.

I do agree with @wmichael3and the assesment of the Google Streamer and as he also pointed out is that customization via ADB-debug to replace the launcher with something other than the awful Google TV, aswell as debloat it. Myself i use Primal launcher on my Shield and did the same when i tried the Google Streamer and its my go to launcher.

/N

 

 

 

[yocker 2015]

1 hour ago, MediaIntelNUC said:

I have a Shield that i have run Emby Client for years, and as @yockerpointed out the lossless passthrough is a great feature if you have somekind of AV-setup with 7.1 etc..(wich i have) but there is one disanvantage when it comes to the Shield in my opinion and that is AV1 and the fact that the Shield CPU cant handle them when it comes to playing files.

I in general advice people to stay away from AV1, the support for it among devices is sketchy at best.