Hi, i have a noob question.
Want to buy a new player for my TV.
Source : Synology server
Player : 5.1DTS playback and 4k.
Sound needs to passtrough to my marantz AV receiver.
Any (cheap) options.
Thanks!
nvidia shield
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If you want passthrough for TrueHD, TrueHD + Atmos, dts-HD MA, & dts:X then you have one choice, an Nvidia Shield. It is the only off the shelf streaming box that supports passthrough of those audio formats.
If you do not need those audio formats then you can consider other devices such as Apple TV, Roku, and Amazon Fire Sticks.
Ideally, the streaming device will connect directly to your receiver via HDMI.
Streaming Box ā HDMI ā Receiver ā HDMI ā TV
If the streaming box is connected to your TV, both your TV and receiver must support HDMI-eARC for lossless audio passthrough to work. HDMI-ARC is bandwidth limited and cannot support passthrough of lossless audio (other than PCM 2.0).
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Iāve been working with Nvidia on the Shield .
I have a Shield Pro 2019.
It is quickly becoming, and in some ways now is, a āBest in Classā device.
It is a DirectPlay client for PMS. (It does all the heavy lifting).
It can handle HDR -> SDR tone mapping by itself.
It does all the proper passthrough to my Onkyo (RZ) receiver.
As a test, I gave it 2160p UHD 59.94 Hz video (Gemini Man) and it played it flawlessly on a 1080p SDR display. Plex sent the file as DirectPlay. It did all the work.
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Thatās a weird use case, to have HDR files and an (expensive) Shield Pro and an SDR TV. But itās super impressive that the Shield Pro can do that.
Can the Shield & Shield Pro do conversion for audio? Say - AAC 5.1 ā DD/DTS?
How are they with subtitles? Iām happy with my Roku 99% of the time, but I switch to the Apple TV when I want VOBSUB or PGS subtitles without server transcoding. (I havenāt bothered trying SSA/ASS.)
If I donāt care about gaming and donāt want to run PMS on the Shield itself, why would I choose a Shield vs. a Shield Pro?
TIA!
The Televisions are fully 2160p HEVC HDR capable so thereās no need for the Shield Pro on them.
The 1080p in the bedroom is a bit smaller and older (47") so the Shield Pro solves that problem. It doubles as a test platform for what I do here at Plex .
My Onkyo will accept the AC-3 5.1 natively so itās a passthrough.
There is no up-convert from AC-3 . The receiverās ASIC will emulate as best it can but it canāt recreate the actual lost data.
As for Shield 2019 vs Shield Pro 2019 , that comes down to how you want to use it.
I have the Pro because of the testing I do. My server is on a big QNAP TVS-1282 (with major enhancements done)
If youāre going to run it as purely a player device, I think the non-PRO will still give the same capabilities but recommend checking that on the Nvidia site to confirm.
What you want the most is the latest Shield Experience firmware and the processor in the 2019. Those two, in tandem, make it the strong player it is.
I have an AppleTV 5th Gen (ATV 4K) and the Shield is clearly out-classing it as a player. The bulk of that is the app. There are alternative players on tvOS (Infuse) which work extremely well for the rendering (HDR->SDR and 2160p -> 1080p) which have native Plex integration.
Comparing the ATV 4K w/ Infuse vs the Shield Pro 2019 w/ Plex app, the Shield wins because they provide audio passthrough where Apple only supports LPCM 7.1. They sound the same but if you want that indicator light on your receiver, Shield is the answer.
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How does it handle subtitles? Does the server still have to transcode or does the Shield client do it?
Sorry I missed subtitles.
The Shield handles the subtitles itself.
As far as PMS is concerned, itās a DirectPlay device. The Shield does ALL the Heavy Lifting. Thatās a huge benefit for the smaller NAS platforms.
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Thatās all pretty compelling. TY.
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But does it make Uncanny Valley 60fps Baby Will Smith look any more natural?
Serious question - there were some folks with 4K H.264 Level 5.1 files that were really disappointed the Chromecast Ultra couldnāt play them. (A whole saga with Google advertising support for it, then correcting the documentation, multiple times). Have you ever tried a 4K H.264 5.1 stream?
Avoid the 2019 Nvidia Shield Tube TV at all cost. Get the Pro.
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How do you get the info overlay to appear when using the new player?
I donāt see it on my Shield
ah, all that gives me is osd, not the tech info, guess itās not available on the older Shields.
Is that only on the Shield app? Iām on a Fire Stick 4K and Iād like the display back on the main screen as well (one of the features of the old player that is not the same on the new one).
I only have a Shield. I donāt have the Amazon device so cannot speak to what should be on the Amazon but suspect the Stick, like the Shield Tube, are minimal due to their limited nature.
I have Shield Experience 8.2.0 (32.6.430.2)
Alright, thanks. I didnāt think the Amazon app and the Shield app were that far apart.
Itās certainly not a āhorsepowerā issue. Weāre just talking about info display here after all.
I think itās more of the device itself.
The Fire Stick 4K retails for some $35 USD on Amazon
The Shield Pro 2019 for $198.
Some of you guys have some very weird ideas about how much processing power it takes to draw a UI element.
And as I said, Iām talking about a feature that already existed in the old player. Yes, it didnāt have all the detailed playback info you list:
But it made it very easy to confirm if something was trascoding or not.
You have to navigate into a menu now to get info:
All those playback stats you have on the Shield are just stream and decoder details any playback device can spit out. Youāre not going to convince me the Fire Stick, especially one that can handle 4K content, is not capable of listing this text on the main screen. 
