I have a Shield now. I’ve had it a couple years and would not have bought a lower model, but I don’t recall the option of a Shield vs a Shield Pro at the time.
My issue with the Shield is that it will not pass through an audio only flac 5.1 file. flac 2.0 will pass through just fine but Plex always transcodes flac 5.1 to AAC 5.1. When you tell it to force pass-through, it won’t play (via wired ethernet), just silence. When I use Plex via the web-browser on my laptop (wireless) it does pass through flac 5.1 without transcoding.
So if someone can tell me for certain that a new Shield Pro will passthrough flac 5.1 I will be completely happy to shell out $200. I’m sure the HTPC will cost more, and a purpose built streamer is a much better answer.
Thanks for any help.
