Best supported/capable Plex player still Nvidia Shield?

Plex Players Streaming Devices
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Hi all,

About 3-4 years ago I did my research and came to the conclusion Nvidia Shield was the best device I could get to support full audio and ease and integrating other streaming services. I got the 500 GB model and hosted Plex server on my mac mini.

Well the unit crapped out today, so I’m now wondering if Nvidia Shield/TV is still the best option 4 years later. Not super excited about getting the same product that lasted less than 4 years, but it also did work very well for the time I did have it working. I kept the server hosted on the mac mini because at the time it was more capable of decoding multiple streams than the Nvidia was able to do.

Any new competitors out there? Seems like at least a year ago there wasn’t: New Mediacenter Setup, best player for best video 4k dolby vision and best audio dolby atmos

Thanks!

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I’m still very interested in this too, what’s the top end products people are using!?

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yes shield is still the best/only option for dolby truehd/atmos and dolby vision support in plex.

it still isn’t perfect, and its recommended by most users to avoid the tube model (I do not speak for plex the company).

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Thanks @TeknoJunky! How does it fare as a server and decoding multiple streams? Any other considerations?

Would be nice to get rid of my aging mac mini but I remember there being issues with using it as a server before.

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I’m here looking at the same thing; I’ve been reading the forums for a while and I’m still not sure what the answer is but I have learned some stuff…

“Best” is subjective. That is lesson #1.
I was all set on the Shield Pro but, it’s the most expensive of the bunch and I don’t need all the audio capabilities, just great 4K, reliable video. I’m happy with the sound from the TV speakers. What I did discover is the Shield (tube) had issues with the Plex app consuming memory. I haven’t discovered if that is a fixed issue by now as the posts were from mid-2020.

Player capability is time-bound. That is lesson #2.
With the hardware devices constantly evolving and the Plex app on each also evolving, the capability and therefore, the second layer of subjectivity, is ‘what is the right device for my needs, right now?’ followed by ‘Will that device still meet my needs in a year?’.

Media format has as much to do with the overall experience as lessons 1 & 2 together. Lesson #3
Even with the right device and the right app version, media format is going to have a big part to play in my overall satisfaction.

I don’t have the answer you are looking for and I’m in much the same place you are.
Example:
I already have a TrueNAS instance of PMS running on a Dell T620. I don’t spend much time reformatting media, I just tell Radarr or Sonarr to grab the title and what comes down, comes down. So far, I’ve only used 720p quality but I want to get into 1080p and 4K content which my old original Chromecasts don’t seem to like and the Plex app on my TCL Roku TV doesn’t like it either. Therefore, I’m looking for what ‘best’ device to plug into the TV HDMI port that will stream the widest variety of formats. That is significantly different than what ‘best’ device others are looking for.

I’ll follow along on your thread here and see what turns up.

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the tube has only 2 gig of ram, while the pro has 3 gig.

2 gig does not leave much for android + plex + buffer for trying to stream high bit rate 4k content. While I’m sure plex (and nvidia) will continue to try to optimize as best possible, no one can change the fact that 2 < 3.

I have both a 2017 pro/500gig and a 2019 tube.

the tube is great for anything that does involve 4k bluray remuxes (ie your makemkv rips).

I use the older 2017 pro when I want to watch any of those.

I don’t have DV, nor do I really care about it, DV is a whole other mess.

this thread @ Plex, 4k, transcoding, and you has info and links to other relevant 4k topics.

Read the whole thread if you want a variety of info and opinions.

edit:

as far as shield as a server, that is something different than shield as a player.

the shield is essentially a phone/tablet cpu + a powerful gpu.

if your use case is a smaller library with 1-3 users, and an external usb drive, the shield may work perfectly fine for your use case.

however the shield will always be limited by the low powered cpu and limited ram and limited onboard storage.

you can move plex/plexdata to an external drive, but that still doesn’t help the cpu/ram limits.

more info about shield server @

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That article answered all of my questions about using Shield as a server – thank you. Seems like it would work just fine for me as long as my media library only contains H.264/265 and MPEG2 formats.

Would you know any way to scan my library to display this? I can’t imagine checking each file individually –

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unfortunately I don’t think there is an easy way to do that with plex, but there certainly could be other applications out there that can that I am not aware of.

there is a 3rd party script that might help, ‘export tools’ that can export to excel or other formats and might let you sort/filter by codec.

also, those above 264/265/mpeg2 only apply to TRANSCODING on the shield

if your client/player can play other formats (direct play), then you should be fine.

if you already have a shield, it is easy to set up a test server (you can have multiple servers connected to your plex account) and see how it performs before attempting to do any permanent switch.

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Also Tautulli, tautulli.com.

Tautulli can export a CSV file for a given library with video/audio codec info and many other fields. There are different export levels with different amounts of info.

Very similar to Export Tools.

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Just wanted to post an update… nvidia sent me a brand new Shield Pro even though mine was out of warranty and it works great as a server and client combined. I’ve had no issues at all and will be retiring my mac mini that was previously serving as the plex server.

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