I’ve got Plex running on a beefy i7 Ubuntu server and I’ve got an i3 Windows 10 box with Plex Media Player as the client connected to my main TV through an AVR. This is a pretty good setup, but the i3 is starting to have a few stability problems.
I bought a FireTV as a replacement client at the start of the year, but didn’t do enough research first and found the experience to be lacking. Issues with audio passthrough to the AVR and a noticeable drop in video quality (micro stuttering and the like, even after switching the FireTV to 24p using the developer ‘hacks’). Also the UI is sluggish, and if I don’t quit the client after use, switching to any other app on the FireTV causes poor performance.
I’ve read that the 2017 nVidia Shield makes a great plex client, but I haven’t found any direct comparisons to Plex Media Player on a decent PC.
Before shelling out the money, is there anything that I should watch out for? Is the experience with the shield equal to that from a Windows PC?
Note - I’ll only be using it as a client, the server will remain on the Ubuntu box.
The Shield is a great client if you are primarily concerned with the quality of video and audio. It direct plays almost everything and outputs a really good picture in every configuration I have tried.
However it does have some interface problems with the most glaring being the fact that you cannot directly start a video playing from the poster display with a single keypress. That is even if you have a remote paired with a play button (like the Fire TV remote which you can pair with the Shield) you cannot just press “play” when you have a poster highlighted. But, on the positive side, the play button works fine within a video during playback. So it is not all bad.
I own a Shield as well as four Rokus, a Fire TV, a Raspberry PI (Running PMP) and numerous computers running both PMP and OpenPHT and I use the Rokus more that all the other devices combined. The order I use the devices for Plex, by preference, is:
Roku
Fire TV
Raspberry PI
Shield TV (I often use the Plex for Kodi addon as its interface is better that the native one)
Computers (On these I use OpenPHT more than PMP)
Again there is little to complain about the Shield’s playback abilities my main complaint is the interfaces overall usability.
Note: If your server is powerful enough so transcoding is not a problem and you care little about the “fancy” video and audio formats then the Shield has little advantage. But it is a fun gadget to play with. Old eyes and ears can make the demands on a system quite low.
SPMC with the Plex plugin is IMHO a superior client on the Nvidia Shield. This is because SPMC which uses the Kodi media player is superior in many ways to exoplayer, the underlying media player supplied by the Shield TV that the native Plex client has to rely on (eg Kodi can software decode VC1 without any hiccups, which allows those to be direct-played direct-streamed).
@“Ben and Gemma” said:
Thanks Elijah. As you’ve got both a Shield and an FireTV - how do the two compare?
The kids find the FireTV easy to use - is the Shield equally as easy?
To be totally honest I really do not like the Shield’s interface much so I believe it is much less usable than the Fire for most all usages. However The Shield does do a lot more and supports a lot more codecs if that is important.
If you want something easy for the kids and if your primary usage will be Plex and if your server is powerful enough or you have everything in compatible formats my recommendation is a Roku. In particular a Roku 3 if you can find one or a Roku Ultra is you do not plan to use the advanced audio functions. (The Ultra has a flaw with audio sync and the most advanced audio formats but regular Dolby 2.1 and I think 5.1 is fine. I know 2.1 is good)
But from just a usability viewpoint I really like the Fire better than the Shield. The Shield’s game controller is clumsy if you are not gaming and their remote has taken the “minimalist” idea to almost stupid extremes. I like a remote with just a few buttons but the Shields really has only five with one for the nearly useless voice search and there is a VERY hard to use slider control that I have never been able to make do much useful and there is no play button.
The Shield is a fantastic client playback-wise. It can/will handle anything you throw at it pretty much, do HD audio passthrough etc. BUT, as noted the UI is just OK. Plex could stand to invest some time here. The shield could kill everything else with the right UI here (hell it’s powerful enough to be a half decent PMS).
I picked one of these up yesterday just to see if they’re any good.
Hardware is great! I do love the fact that it can play anything and everything direct with zero transcoding necessary. I also love the fact it passes whatever audio bitstream is present right to my Denon AVR.
Overall though… I don’t know. It might be the fact it’s running Android that makes me uncertain. The Plex app is basic looking but has all the settings options you could ever ask for. However, several apps that are available on Xbox One and Roku, are not available on Android TV.
The voice search is great as long as you’re in core Android. But doesn’t do a damn thing in any of the apps. The remote is very basic… But functional. You don’t have to look at it to know what your pressing which is a good thing.
I would really like to see what Windows 10 would look like on it. Totally possible with the direction that Microsoft is going with the ARM platform.
What the others said, the Shield is great and it has replaced my full blown PMP based HTPC. The only beef I have with it is that it won’t passthrough 1080p content to a 4K screen, e.g. the upscaling is done by the Shield, which has far inferior quality compared to the scalers in modern TVs. The difference is night and day.
I took the plunge and ordered one. Here are a few things to watch out for, particularly if you are in the UK.
The Shield is missing many UK catch up services such as All4, My5, ITVHub, UK TVPlay. These are available on other Android TV devices, so a bit weird. I’m going to keep the FireTV for these for the time being.
So far it’s rebooted twice while playing media, and I’ve been using it for 3 evenings - so not a very stable experience.
You can pair with a Harmony Hub, but I have yet to find a way of making the number keys on the Harmony Companion remote work with the box. This was a pain to get working on the FireTV too, but it did seem possible. Haven’t found a fix for the Shield yet.
When sending passthrough audio to the AVR I occasionally get a hum from the subwoofer. Plex gives a warning about enabling this feature, so I’m guessing its not completely stable yet.
Overall it’s a nice player with a lot of potential - but if you are looking to replace a Windows based HTPC running PMP, I would wait a little while longer.
I’m cautiously excited since this developer is primarily developing for the NVIDIA Shield TV. I will definitely try out this bad boy and report results.
I read your comments as well. Since you are extremely focused on the UI experience, I would love to get your feedback, if you have a chance to test-drive MrMC as well
I still feel the hardware is quite good and I use the server as my Plex audio server but I no longer use the Shield as a client except every once in a while to test and see if there have been improvements.
I do NOT like the interface of either the regular Plex interface or MrMC’s interface. They are different from each other but they are simply too clumsy and non-intuitive for me to use.
Roku has made their interface (currently available on the Preview Roku app) so much better that it is almost painful to use other apps.
My Plex use is now at over 95% Roku because it is, for me, that much better. Most of the remaining Plex usage is on my Fire TV as it is my audio client because it feeds my whole house audio system and it is fully integrated with my Echo devices. I can stop and start my audiobooks on the Fire TV by simply saying play or pause to any of my Echo’s.
The Shield is powerful but it is unpleasant for me to use for Plex so I rarely use it and I do not recommend it unless you really need the power.
And I will add to it - the Shield TV does not have applications for Australia’s most popular catch-up TV - “SBS on demand” and “ABC iview”. It does not have Chrome web browser. It does not have much at all that is useful. You can’t download them from the Google Play store - they will not install on this device.
As far as the Plex client on the Shield is concerned, and what affects me - it will not play ASS subtitles. I like ASS format because you can have whatever color you want, size, font and position. And it works great on the Plex Windows store client. Even the UI of the Plex Windows store player is nicer.
Now, that I will have to have two sets of subtitles, it’s not even possible to select the correct subtitle before you start playing the movie on the Shield Plex. How stupid is that?
Unless people have some specific reason for the Shield - maybe the games, or some exotic media codecs - don’t bother.
I regret the purchase. I am not in a position to forget it and to buy another box. I have to live with it.
No. And I am unlikely to try it again anytime soon. The Roku interface (in the current preview app) is about as close to exactly what I want and I am not, at least for now, seeking a new experience or marginal improvement.
The Shied is acting as a Plex server for my audiobook library and that, for now, is all I need it to do.
Sorry for the late reply. I have used the Mr. MC client and it is a mixed bag. It is an app relatively early in its development cycle compared to other established apps, but the devs seem to be working hard at rapidly adding features each release. The most recent release added a lot of features that I was looking for. I sometimes use Mr. MC on an Apple TV client at the moment because it has Hue Entertainment compatibility, and AFAIK, it is the only game in town for Apple TV and Hue Entertainment right now. On the nVidia Shield client, I am back to base XBMC with the Plex add-on since SPMC is no longer in active development. I would consider going to Mr. MC in the future as it matures.
I prefer the Shield over Fire TV mainly because it supports 7.1 audio and Fire TV does not. Plus it handles hevc better. It’s particularly noticeable with lipsynch. It’s just spot on with the Shield, not so much with the Fire TV. I have multiple Fire TV 4K and a Cube to play with. The other really important thing for me is it has double the storage of the Fire TV 4k (same as the Cube though). But I can easily add storage to the Shield with a USB stick. To me the Shield is way better than the Firestick products.
