I tried to find an answer to this but I was not successful. I have plex client running on my lg b6 model. It works fine.
I was looking into the nvidia shield pro because people say that it is one of the, if not the best device for running plex client because it can basically direct play anything. I always thought that it was the TV that limits what can be direct played. How come more things can be direct played with the shield between the server and the TV.
I mean if the tv don’t support a certain format, will the nvidia shield make it support it? I do understand the part about Atmos passthrough to the receiver but my focus here is more on the video format.
I mean it should not matter if I use the native smartTV plex app or the shield right or can someone clarify this for me please.
The Plex app can play whatever the device can play (decode). The issue with some TVs is that they can’t decode certain codecs (more of an issue with audio than video though).
However, the TVs can play these codecs if they are decoded by another device (like the Shield for video and an AVR for audio). An example is that my Sony TV can display DV, but not decode it, so it needs the Shield to do so.
The biggest reason it’s the best though, is that it’s typically more powerful than your TVs processor. My native TV app struggles with 4k 60fps video sometimes, but the Shield Pro plays it great. I prefer it’s AI upscaling to my TVs upscaling as well.
The reason your Sony struggles with 4K has nothing to do with it’s processor but the limitation of it’s Ethernet port 100Mbps. So if using a Shield which is connected to TV via HDMI 2 cable it eliminates the bottleneck for the high bitrate 4K title.
Good point about the bandwidth limits of TV ethernet ports, but I don’t play high bitrate 4k. The ones I’ve played averaged 8-15Mbps and max out around 40Mbps. It has no issue playing 24fps 4k, just 60fps. I assume this is for to the extra processing power needed to decode/display 60fps (HEVC) video.
I got the shield for refresh rate switching, AI upscaling, and 4k HDR (and now DV) playback. Refresh rate switching is the biggest advantage of the shield vs TV apps and I forgot to mention it in my original post.
