epayson85 72 Posted January 4, 2016 Posted January 4, 2016 I am currently using a firetv stick in a seasonal room in my house. I love it but I have noticed the emby menus are sometimes slow especially when scrolling through a lot of my movies. When it comes to playing anything it works pretty much perfectly. The question is if I want to replace the htpc in my bedroom what should I use? Do the other boxes show slow loading of images scrolling through movies or can I get better results? I also have hardwired cat6 in my bedroom but honestly the TV downstairs has 5ghz ac router access with great signal strength so that shouldn't make much of a difference.
Heuer 76 Posted January 4, 2016 Posted January 4, 2016 i have been using an AMLogic Mbox for the last year or so but, for reasons I have not got to the bottom of, it now freezes video on Emby playback although sound continues without problem. All I can say is it used to work until the latest Emby server/EATV versions and still plays flawlessly as a DNLA media player from Emby. Without having a second box to test I can't say for sure that this one is not faulty so in the interests of domestic peace I bought a Nvidia Shield TV and it is absolutely superb. Stunning quality in both video and audio EATV playback with immediate response from the remote, no lag and instant population of the screen with art and folders. Hardly surprising given the processor is hugely over specified for a media player. The optional Bluetooth TV remote is a joy to use and it will also work from a Harmony IR remote or supplied game controller. Highly recommended and you could easily replace a HTPC with one. The Emby team ought to lobby Nvidia to include EATV as part of the standard build (Plex and Kodi are there) but downloading from the Play store is easy. At last there is a quality and exquisitely designed Android TV box available running Lollipop (Marshmallow is due shortly) and Nvidia have just released V2 of their firmware adding user requested functionality. They also want to continue building on the platform so the future looks bright. A phenomenal showcase for Emby TV!
epayson85 72 Posted January 4, 2016 Author Posted January 4, 2016 I know that the shield is a beast but I'm just not willing to spend that much on a media player. It is only slightly less than the micro-ATX PC I built for the bedroom that I am looking to replace. A computer can be built for $250 so it just doesn't makes sense to me. Plus I don't plan on doing any gaming with this so no need for that controller. I'm hoping to stay in the sub $100 range.
ThermoDust 12 Posted January 4, 2016 Posted January 4, 2016 Depends on what you want most. I have the Nvidia Shield. It is very nice and I have never noticed any issue with video playback or GUI lag. The NVIDIA Grid is a nice feature that makes it so you can play AAA games and they run well, plus normal Android TV games. The game controller is well made. As for content my only problem with the shield is the lack of some app. One major for you might be Amazon Prime Video, it doesn't exist. Plus Android vs Amazon gui is a major change. Until recently I would of said the Android TV gui is better but I just used Amazon for the last week and I now couldn't say which is better as both have their good and bad. Plus from what I know Amazon just made a gaming version. If you do not plan on playing games and are an avid user of Amazon Prime then I would recommend going with the Amazon Fire TV. FYI - Amazons newest one plays 4k TV.
epayson85 72 Posted January 4, 2016 Author Posted January 4, 2016 ThermoDust have you had an experience using the regular firetv and not the stick? You said you have used amazong for the last week so I am hoping that was with the firetv and even better the newer one. Did you get a chance to try emby on it? How was browsing movies and so forth through it? I can say with the stick if I go to all movies or scroll through a genre then it lags slightly while scrolling. Also movie posters are sometimes slow to load or just keep showing the same posters over and over until I stop scrolling then it loads the correct ones. I am guessing its just the limitations of the stick.
ebr 16169 Posted January 4, 2016 Posted January 4, 2016 The stick is way under-powered vs. any of the other devices so you should see better performance with any of them. The key decision point is Amazon content. If you want that, get the Fire.
ThermoDust 12 Posted January 4, 2016 Posted January 4, 2016 epayson85, I was using the Fire TV, however it wasn't the new one. There was no lag at all when watching TV or browsing the menu options after a while. I assume the reason it took so long for the menus to become stable was due to the internet speed where I was staying, slow as dialup. As for playback it works well, used it before I gave it away when moving to the Nvidia Shield.
epayson85 72 Posted January 7, 2016 Author Posted January 7, 2016 Ok so started using new firetv last night and wow what a difference. The App is so responsive and everything loads super fast. Also love the direct play of most of my files / the ability to use subtitles. 1
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