> Nvidia released the first Shield Android TV in 2015
> it took about 18 months to [create] an entirely new security stack [...] Android updates aren’t actually that much work compared to DRM security, and some of its partners weren’t that keen on re-certifying older products.
> In February 2025, Nvidia released Shield Patch 9.2 [...] That was the Tegra X1 [security] bug finally being laid to rest on the 2015 and 2017 Shield boxes.
This is a real engineering marvel. Everybody else would have just given up entirely long time ago. DRM bugs are in most case practically unrecoverable for products that shipped already (and physically in the hands of the adversary). The incentive to tell to consumers "Ditch that product you bought from us 2 years ago, and buy the more recent hardware revision or successor" is extremely strong.
This really feels like a platform that is maintained with pride and love by the nvidia engineering teams (regardless of one's opinion about DRM per se).
> They added auto-playing, full screen video ads to the home screen.
I'm pretty sure this is actually Google's fault (even Sony televisions suffer from this bullcrap). Unlike phone Android, Google TV (yes, that's the official name now) enforces certain "standards", one of them is this bullcrap.
Who cares who delivered the actual bytes or who initiated the change, the matter of fact is that people buy a device from one company, then the company is responsible for the experience they deliver while it's supported. Since they chose Android, they're responsible for the experience you get when using the stuff you buy from them.
I'd never complain to the maker of a compressor when it dies in a fridge, I'll complain to the one I bought the fridge from. Not sure why we're so adamant on thinking differently regarding computers. NVIDIA might blame Google internally, but feels like consumers are right to be pissed off about NVIDIA changing (or being OK with someone else changing) their experience in a product they bought from NVIDIA.
Because you're on a forum called Hacker News and we pride ourselves on being smart enough to understand the details of systems, and using that to our advantage. Nvidia as a corporation isn't some nobody compared to Google, but do you really think their engineering team has the clout to get Google's advertising arm to bend to their will?
I use an old Amazon FireTV Stick on an old LG LED TV (semi-smart), and neither of them bug me with such fullscreen ads, unless I opt to watch MX content on Amazon Prime (MX is basically third-party ads-funded free OTT content; Amazon Prime requires subscription, and even its standard subscription has occasional ads for Prime content, though Amazon Prime also has a premium pricing tier for ads-free content).
I don't face such third-paety ads nonsense on Netflix and Disney+ (yet), at least on this old FireTV and old LG TV.
Unskippable irrelevant annoying ads and privacg concerns are the main reasons I still steer clear of "smart" TVs.
My Samsung Frame TV shows ads in the app bar and you cannot disable/remove them. They can’t even use the Google excuse because the TV runs Samsung’s OWN TizenOS.
No. The Apple TV _service_ does, and you can configure that service to be some kind of weird god service if you want. But you can also treat that service like any other normal service, one that only comes up if you launch it. In that case, the home screen is just a straight icon grid with no kerfuffle.
Yes, one or two, and not annoying (not trying to grab your attention). No ads for toothpaste or cars.
Apple TV is not the solution for purists who cannot handle anything that can be construed as an ad. It’s a great solution for those who just want to browse and watch content without distracting ads everywhere.
The Apps in the home row on Apple TV will have fullscreen promotions when the home row is along the bottom of the screen. If you set your home row apps with care, the fullscreen previews will not be ads (i.e. Photos will do a slideshow of your photos, Jellyfin just pulls random images from its/your own movie library metadata, etc.).
The only customers who care about DRM are the suppliers; not the users. Force the user to not be able to play DRM content, and they'll end up pirating.
Furthermore, I never demanded a new Android TV version. All I wanted was security fixes, not Google's new shitty launcher. I'd never have bought the product if it contained the current launcher.
They did this with the switch 1 too they were just less well remembered because that subsequently got re-hacked. They lost the ARM trust zone keys and rebuilt the entire DRM stack on the HDCP keys which had been provisioned but they were not using.
Everyone is missing the why here, this only happens because the whole stack is vertically integrated. Even if say LG wanted to make a box like this and update it for 10 years they couldn’t, they don’t make the chips. Qualcomm straight up refuses to support chips through this many Android releases. Even if device manufacturers want to support devices forever it won’t matter if the actual SoC platform drops support.
While the vertical integration is definitely the best way to get it done, it's not strictly required as long as there is good enough documentation for a platform. Linux originally supported Intel without any Intel engineers even knowing it existed.
Also consider Apple's chips, which have gotten Linux support without Apple ever submitting a single line of code.
While Qualcomm's behaviour is definitely a massive bummer (not to mention Qualcomm's competitors), it doesn't stop manufacturers from supporting their devices. It merely stops maintaining support from being cheap and easy.
Not only that, "vertical integration" is a red herring. If you had a "vertically integrated" device made entirely by Qualcomm and they stopped supporting it after 3 years then the vertical integration buys you nothing. The actual problem is that Qualcomm sucks.
> Linux originally supported Intel without any Intel engineers even knowing it existed.
It should be noted that Intel makes CPUs, while Qualcomm makes SoCs, which include much more than just a CPU. Usually supporting the CPU is the easiest part, the rest is the issue.
That said, when device OEMs release the kernel sources, modders are able to update custom roms for a long time, so I doubt this is just a Qualcomm issue.
> It should be noted that Intel makes CPUs, while Qualcomm makes SoCs, which include much more than just a CPU. Usually supporting the CPU is the easiest part, the rest is the issue.
Here's a random 15 year old Intel PC (you can also do this on many current ones):
$ lspci | grep -v Intel
[no output]
Every piece of silicon in it is made by Intel and most of them, including the GPU, are integrated into the CPU. And it's all supported by current Linux kernels. The same is true for many AMD systems except that you'll usually see a third party network or storage controller which is itself still supported.
The kernel is usually frozen but sometimes projects like PostmarketOS can use the changes to upstream the changes and add general Linux support.
Anyone can make a diff between the upstream kernel and the Qualcomm kernel. Maintaining these changes into later versions of the kernel will be quite challenging, but the base is already there.
That said, phones also come with plenty of binary drivers and those cannot be ported. That's an important reason not to bother with later kernel versions in custom ROMs: after all of your hard work, the end result will be missing important features such as GPU acceleration.
What do you think are the reasons pc's don't need Dell xps 13 9350 Windows and Lenovo ThinkPad T14s Gen 6 Linux and so on but phones need Galaxy S26 Linux, Xiaomi 16 Linux and so on?
Because ARM lacks some of the device auto-discovery features that amd64 provides for free, unless you're lucky and use a device with ACPI+DSDTs on ARM. You need a special build for the hardware, but you don't need to alter the source code.
Custom kernels also exist for amd64 devices, often including workarounds and patches that are not in mainline to improve performance or compatibility.
As a vendor, that requires practically zero extra effort.
https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Devices has a list of devices that run either mainline or almost-mainline Linux. Only the "downstream" devices require vendor Linux kernels. Of course, hardware support is partial for most of these devices because vendors haven't contributed proper upstreamable drivers and volunteers haven't had the time to write them yet, but it's not like every ARM device needs a special kernel fork, that's just something ARM vendors do out of laziness.
That was from when Macs ran Intel and could easily dual boot Windows. I still have an old Mac Book Pro with Windows 10 on it. Updates only stopped recently because Win10 is at end of life. I've been meaning to blow everything out and install Linux.
I am giving props to Microsoft because it did wrangle an industry together to standardize where one company makes the operating system and other companies make the hardware yet you can still upgrade your operating system even without the support of the vendor.
because google doesnt deliver the full OS, it delivers a bunch of stuff that the vendors then bastardize and use with insane drivers and crap from SoC vendors.
they should NEVER accept any of the binary only crap drivers, they should demand code be upstream or wont buy. But they dont care. Google doesnt care.
> Qualcomm straight up refuses to support chips through this many Android releases.
That's not entirely accurate. They do provide chips with extended support, such as the QCM6490 in the Fairphone 5. These are not popular because most of the market demands high performance, and companies profit from churning out products every year, but solutions exist for consumers who value stability and reliability over chasing trends and specs.
I think it's more a combination of vertical integration and Nvidia upper management actually wanting to provide support for so long. Apple, Google, and Samsung all make smartphones with their own chips, and yet none of them support running the newest OS on 10+ year old devices.
I have to wonder if the Nintendo Switch picking up the Tegra X1 SOC has something to do with it. There's a good chance a lot of components of the (custom microkernel) operating system are derived from Android, and with the Switch receiving active support for so long, I wouldn't be surprised if the work between the Shield TV and Switch are related.
With the Switch being shipped for nearly 10 years, it pales in comparison to the shelf life of most any processor Apple, Google, Samsung, Qualcomm, MediaTek (?) push out.
Though Apple in particular is interesting, as their Apple TV lineup also has the same long legs, with the Apple TV HD/4th Gen releasing in 2015 and receiving the latest OS.
I've got the OG model, and it's still the main device hooked up to my TV. All my TV streaming goes through it (mostly Jellyfin these days), and it can stream games no problem via Moonlight.
It's hooked up to a 4k LG TV, and I have no idea about how it does the upscaling, but 720p content looks perfectly fine on it.
After the ADHD-inducing default Android TV interface, Projectivy is just beautifully clean and simple.
I have quite a few Android TV (or are they called Google TV these days?) devices, and they all get the Projectivy makeover. The TCL TV running Android needs some 'adb' commands run so that the users selection of launcher is maintained across reboots, bit other than that it's been smooth.
The only two complaints about mine is the one set of updates about 5 years ago that killed every connection to my NAS, and that the auto skip function for credits doesn't know if there are scenes after the credits.
But overall, for running it for like 9 years with a cost of less than $200 and essentially zero maintenance, the shield is awesome.
The Steam Link, also from 2015, is also still receiving updates! My partner and I use ours regularly to play co-op games on our TV. I really appreciate the efforts of whomever is keeping it running.
Shipped out of the box with Android 2.3, Samsung supported it up until Android 4.1, then I switched to CyanogenMod until my father rage-bought me a new phone in 2016 because it crashed so much he had trouble contacting me. I still kept it up to date with LineageOS and then unofficial versions for fun (it's at Android 13 last I checked).
Do I expect a Samsung Galaxy SII to do as well with 2026 software as it did in 2013? No, but I can run a 2013 computer with 2026 software without needing to track down dodgy homebrews on xdaforums.com and that reflects badly on the smartphone ecosystem.
>That reminds me of my own Samsung Galaxy SII.
Shipped out of the box with Android 2.3, Samsung supported it up until Android 4.1
Even that was amazing for Samsung's standards back then.
For example my former Samsung Note II shipped with Android 4.1.1 Jellybean and they only supported it till 4.4.2 KitKat. Just let that sink in. I basically bought a flagship e-waste device.
Custom ROMs didn't help much since you'd lose S-pen functionality if you went past 4.4.2 as modders couldn't port the needed firmware blobs past that kernel or something like that.
Oh, and also, using custom ROMs could brick your wifi from working as the FW of the wifi chip was tied to Knox tripping the e-fuse on custom ROMs, so then you'd need to use some voodoo to patch wifi back. That is, if you were lucky and your phone wouldn't brick itself due to the FW bug in Samsung's eMMC, that would lock itself to read-only mode out of nowhere.
Seriously, fuck Samsung for that PoS phone, fuck them in the a**. That phone should have been a lemon recall with full refund to consumers.
I rooted my old S3 probably around 2016 I had laying around. There was an exploit called "let it rain" and that got me root access.
Then on XDA Developers I found several custom ROM'S. Someone even created a Nougat ROM for that thing later on. That was the last version I was able to load on it. I sure did learn a lot back then.
I have one of them, and been using it daily since I bought it in 2016. Bought a cheap Bluetooth remote control from AliExpress which was an upgrade over the Logitech Harmony crap I had earlier.
If it were to break, knock on wood it won't happen, what options are there? I have tried to look but haven't really found anything that is free of Chinese backdoors and has decent hardware. For just Plex or Jellyfin a N100 box or similar could do, but I want easy launch of HBO, YouTube etc. And I need that remote control option.
From what I've seen in forums where people asked this, the answer is: nothing.
I only have two devices providing material to my media system: a Shield Pro and a Blu-Ray player. The Shield is the critical element, used daily for streaming and playing local media from a USB-connected SSD.
I hope Nvidia revises the Shield with up-to-date hardware and maintains its flexible nature. It's a pretty cool product. The biggest shortcomings I've encountered are the fault of moronic media companies. Great example: Spectrum (the cable company). These dolts have an Android application with which subscribers can watch content. But it doesn't run on Android TVs. It's called "Spectrum TV." It's so gallingly stupid that I hate rewarding them with money every month.
Oh, and I love how they addressed the goddamned Netflix button. If you so much as LOOK at the remote, Netflix launches in the middle of whatever you're watching. I actually removed the button from the remote entirely.
With a SofaBaton remote and some button reassignments using the Button Mapper app, everything is just right now, and pairing a Bluetooth mouse and keyboard was easy.
Apple TV is great except they prevent installing software which is not on their App Store. A big one for me is SmartTubeNext, which removes YouTube ads and sponsored segments. I can't even pay for that if I wanted to.
I've been using the Thomson Google TV Streaming Stick. It's cheap (~40 euros) and it works surprisingly well for what it is. It's sold in Europe, but I think you can find the same product in the US at Walmart, rebranded as Onn+ Streaming Device.
It's not as powerful as an Nvidia Shield, of course, but at least is not a random product from Temu riddled with spyware.
I have bought three for all my relatives since 2015, and finally bought one for myself. They are still in stock and sold by local brick and mortar retailers as well as online!
I use the n100 for jellyfin, and shield for streaming and controller with jellyfin client.
The built-in OS on my LG is honestly good enough for me. There's a jellyfin client in the LG app store that works well enough (it's just a wrapper for a browser client as I understand it). But I only use my TV to watch shows/movies, not sure about other usecases.
On android you can, usually, go into the settings, go to the app section, go into the specific app you wanna downgrade and, if it's an app that comes preinstalled and can't be deleted outright, you get an option to "remove upgrades" or some such thing.
I'm not even sure which one I have, it's old but it's great. Use it for streaming (smarttube, some apps) and moonlight/sunshine. It does 4k with a ps5 controller so well. Love it. I think it was like a 100 bucks 8 years ago? I use my desktop 5090 and basically stopped using ps5 for couch gaming because it looks so much better. Great value!
Also, not that this is better probably (it is Google and Nvidia after all), but it means my Samsung TV is not connected to the internet, so I don't have to wait 10 seconds for the menu to come up because it is busy loading and injecting ads.
It depends what you're looking for. In the AV enthusiast circles a lot of people flock towards the Ugoos AM6B Plus (with CoreELEC).
It is one of the only devices (alongside Oppo clones) that can play Dolby Vision Profile 7 FEL (Full Enhancement Layer) with 100% accuracy. The Shield can play P7, but it ignores the FEL data; the Ugoos actually processes it.
That said, people don’t generally use Android on it, instead you boot to CoreELEC from an SD card and use Kodi.
This is the only reason I know about this Ugoos device. I find it so strange that Profile 7 is effectively unsupported outside of Blu-ray players and this one device. It doesn't even seem like it can be a processing power issue because the documentation says that the other profiles have higher maximum pixel rates.
I don't have the Ugoos box myself though. Instead I'm running a series of processing steps on my Blu-ray rips which converts the file to Profile 8. For every movie I've tried so far this has been fine, though I've read that some movies lean far too heavily on the FEL and have color problems without it.
> I find it so strange that Profile 7 is effectively unsupported outside of Blu-ray players and this one device.
Since DV Profile 7 is only used for Blu-Ray discs, and playing backed up BR copies from a non BR player is not really supported, it kind if makes sense that it's not supported.
For the Ugoos device, I'm not sure, but I thought the chipset inside supports it, but you still need to flash custom firmware (CoreELEC) and provide a Dolby Vision file to unlock this. So it's not supported out of the box.
I have an am6b+ but in reality the shield is a much nicer device to use if one wants to use anything outside of their local media.
I actually wish we could run android in a container on the CoreELEC side and switch back and forth between Kodi and the android UI/apps (without needing a reboot, and having a better managed android environment than the provided one).
except, I don't care so much about the high quality widevine playback. Plain youtube, MLB.TV and many others don't need certification. yeah netflix does, but that's less important to me.
The unfortunate part is that CoreELEC only works when you get all your content from a locally attached disk. You can't even really stream it from your beefy NAS/server, and you definitely can't use any streaming services.
I'm constantly surprised how many people are in that narrow category of just dipping thier toe in the water for "self-hosted" content that it's little enough it fits on disk storage you can have in your living room (mine is a half-height server rack in the basement), but also have progressed past thr point of using any streaming services. I guess there are a lot of people without families that also never travel out there.
> The unfortunate part is that CoreELEC only works when you get all your content from a locally attached disk. You can't even really stream it from your beefy NAS/server
This is not true. Streaming from a NAS at high speeds is fully supported and works fine. I would suggest to use NFS over SMB though, SMB gives me issues for higher bitrate content
Streaming apps do indeed not work. It's a device for local / NAS media playback.
I used it with plex (in kodi) just fine. With that said, I'd agree that its mostly for local media (where local can be whatever plex can get to). Outside of plex, either you are using plain kodi or some simple kodi extensions (say youtube) that just aren't as nice to use as their android app equivalents (in regards to streaming services, it does support MLB.TV for those that like baseball, but again, not quite as nice an experience IMO as the android app).
Him, I hadn't tried running it myself, but I couldn't find any indication if anyone using it for Plex (or equivalent). I only saw people going thru complicated schemes to Terry and setup network shared drives, or directly attaching external harddrives. I stand corrected.
If my entire world was plex, I probably would have kept it as my main device, but I really like a lot of the android streaming apps i use and the experience in kodi land just isn't as good when it exists.
CoreELEC is a godsend for FEL compatibility, IMO. With a little luck, you can get a device to do FEL for under $100, and you don't have to deal with some random, poorly maintained Android release that probably won't keep up with security updates, etc.
The Apple TV's pretty good. I imagine I'd have a hard time switching to a Shield TV unless it gets a CPU bump, whereas Apple still keeps making newer models with modern-ish phone SoCs.
I've looked at this a few times, and AppleTV actually has pretty poor support unless you're only using a select few streaming services and not streaming any of your own content.
Shield performs exponentially better in every way except for the god awful stock interface (and Google data collection vs Apple data collection).
The hardware and tvOS still have extremely limited support for most video codecs, no support at all for audio pass thru, and very limited non-stereo audio options. If you want the equivalent of watching on your laptop it's good, but if you have better than stereo speakers, or a 4K TV that supports HDR10+ or Dolby Vision, AppleTV can't compete except for the big name streaming services that have special tvOS privileges/integration.
FWIW, I have no trouble playing any of my alternatively sourced media, 4K Dolby Vision included, using an app called Infuse. Pass-through audio may indeed be an issue for some lossless surround formats, or at least that's what it sounded like the last I looked into it some years ago. I don't have the right room to set up surrounds so it's stereo only over here anyway. But that said I love the app, lovely interface, etc.
When I tried that before, the Infuse UI was unusably show for me, likely due to the library size, streaming from my server hung for a long time, it had to transcode most of the time because so few codecs were supported and it only supported stereo audio output. DV wasn't supported at all at the time.
It sounds like it's gotten better by a lot, but I'm curious whether you've had to pay for each newer version if Infuse. They were doing a "for life" purchase before, but that just meant the one major version number, and they were releasing new and EOL old major versions every 1.5-2 years at the time. It seemed like they were heading own the path of a monthly subscription payment model at the time
I had to look to remember, I'm on a $10/year subscription for "Pro". From looking at their page I'd say some codec support is under the Pro license. I know I haven't thrown anything at it that needed transcoding, but I'm not playing anything exotic either.
Being annual and pretty cheap I really don't mind throwing them some money to continue development, it's worth it to me for the experience. I can't tell from the website but I feel like there's a monthly option if ya just want to test the waters.
I stream all of my own content with an Apple TV and Plex just fine. I don't know what problems you've had there. It even handles exotic stuff like Hi10P h.264.
How's your surround sound? tvOS 26 decided at the last minute not to support audio pass thru, which means only the pretty basic audio codecs that the AppleTV itself can decode are supported. That's an extremely limited number, and I believe only the very basic 5.1 is supported for any surround options.
The rest of these Roku/Amazon/Google devices are full of advertising and underpowered hardware that results in cluttered and laggy interfaces. The Apple TV interface is completely free of advertising, responsive, and easy to navigate.
High end model is $150 (US). Very fast and yes Apple gets some of your info but it's not getting resold to advertisers and 3rd parties. Generally speaking doesn't require adware to keep the price low.
The Shield TV's cylindrical form factor could use a rethink. It is hard to find a good spot for it on a shelf when cords are connected at both ends (HDMI and MMC slot at one end, power and LAN at the other) and the ports are too close for all cords to use right-angle-heads. Leaving it invisible by placing it on the floor or behind other gear sometimes impedes Bluetooth signal, so there it sits, well apart from the AVR, BD, other devices.
The solution to it being clunky can't be to add mass to it. Unless you're proposing transferring the internals to a new case and facing all the ports to the back. Seriously, look at this thing. The best thing you can do is tie-wrap the cables together.
I've been hacking on computer and av hardware for ~40 years, but I know NOT to risk the only one I've got without getting some clear sense of the pitfalls ahead by using schematics, teardowns, photos, etc.
That is the new Shield TV design from 2019. The original Shield TV and the Pro were flat design. Strange that they changed it when old design worked well.
If I KNEW companies would do things like this, I'd be more likely to buy their product. But on the other hand I don't know who to trust because plenty say such things because it is easy to say then ... and then they just quit.
This a company which routinely provides driver updates to their GPUs for 10+ years. I'm guessing that puts them in a different mindset from the get-go, to your typically smartphone vendor.
Unfortunately it doesn't seem to extend to the other Shield products. My Nvidia Shield tablet hasn't had an update in many years.
Then again, this is probably why it is still fast :-P
I'm using it pretty much daily as an ebook reader and sometimes i use it to watch videos on bed by transcoding them on my PC (the hardware isn't that good to decode modern formats). Amusingly, these days i use it much more than back when it was new :-P. I keep it offline though (mainly to avoid wasting battery, there isn't anything in it i'd care if it caught malware by net osmosis somehow) and transfer files via a USB cable.
My 2017 model probably short circuited during a lightning strike, because it stopped working after a storm. My friend offered to sell me his 2019 but I thought there'd be new hardware. I should have bought it.
I love the Shield, compared to even the Chromecast at the time, we noticed a huge difference in colour on the TV. If NVIDIA ever produce a refresh, they'll have my money.
It's nice that you can unlock the bootloader on these and flash Lineage if you want to limit snooping by Google.
That being said, I think that you get more flexibility and performance with a mini PC and and air mouse. For one, stock (Googled) Android does not give you an easy way to use a browser with an ad-blocker, which is still the best way to stream from many sources without ads. Also all these anemic Android boxes struggle with high bitrate 4K videos.
You unfortunately lose Widevine support when you do this though (either switching to LineageOS or a mini-PC). That means you can't stream any of the mainstream services in anything like a half-decent quality.
It's very unfortunate that every streaming service has given up on supporting anything except Google-fied Android and Apple iOS/tvOS. I dont like the services to begin with, but a fully Jellyfin stack can only get you so far when there are niche requests involved as well.
That's the kicker I'm pointing out. It's a very limited number of people that agree.
If you're satisfied with the equivalent of 6-12 DVDs worth of content, or are only pulling the latest of a handful of shows and deleting them once watched, that's about all most people's setups will be able to store. But just like when streaming first started, people appreciate the 100s of TB of content from the streaming services and usually want that level of access.
I have 40+ TB on a >100TB system and we still use Netflix, HBO, or AppleTV+.
At this point I actually don’t know why I bother with the streaming services anymore. I recently watched a blu ray movie after a long time of just watching streams and the quality of the picture just blew me away.
Is there even Blu-ray level content available for series that are streaming only? Or is it restricted to just movie releases?
Edit: actually, now that I think of it, having the audio available in our local language instead of English is a boon for the kids. But otherwise, I don’t know why we bother.
The IronFox version of Firefox works excellently on my 2019 Shield TV.
Also the DuckDuckGo browser blocks a ton of stuff on my 2019 Shield TV when first installed via NeoStore (F-Droid and other repositories frontend) then upgraded via AuroraStore (Google Play Store frontend) or Google Play itself. I've found that I had to use that sequence because it could not install initially from the Play Store, but maybe that has changed.
Another browser option is Cromite, which is a hardened Chromium for Android.
Please talk to your congresspeople about getting DRM abolished, in the meantime, please don't try to deny my freedom to consume legally obtained content that is only available with DRM.
That would be great, honestly. Imagine just being able to install Android apps like Netflix, Disney+, ... On your Steam Deck or Steam Machine and having it work out of the box with Widevine L1. Then you'd truly just only need one device attached to your TV for all your entertainment needs. And then a great and supported one at that.
The drivers are already done, they're in the Android build.
I just want a more open OS.
I don't mind if it requires running a vendor signed boot, kernel and driver chain, I'd be using those same vendor chains anyway for non upstreamed hardware most likely.
Search a bit and you'll find how to install Projectivity/Projectivy Launcher that's way way better. For bonus points and a lot snapper functionality you can go the extra mile and use adb to remove the old Google Launcher and the related bloatware.
They updated it recently to fix the stuttering in the Disney app, and that issue had been there for a year or so. And they did that probably because Disney paid them.
something else that is outstanding about this device is the support. a couple of months ago my 2017 edition kept restarting occasionally while watching a movie so i got in touch with nvidia support, after a bit of back n forth they agreed to send me a brand new power adapter for free which arrived promptly and completely fixed the problem
Yes. And it's ironic that they can do this ten years ago but can't be bothered to make a new one today. I guess the old one still works well enough and people buy it though which the article states.
Feels like a reverse Bell Labs approach. They find their cash cow and only invest in their cash cow rather than research new product areas and fields.
Its not ironic, its perfect business sense. 10 years ago they gave a shit about gamers and streamers as they were their main market. Now its all about AI server hardware, and they are fighting off international mega clients who all want to secure their chip output for years to come.
Why would Nvidia give 2 hoots about a living room streaming box now?
Because having all your eggs in one basket (GPUs), especially when that basket is artificially huge and likely to crumble, (AI Bubble), is a TERRIBLE idea?
I think they had done a minor hardware refresh, at the time it came out it was pretty powerful compared to the underpowered alternatives, plus the promise of pure Android TV on it.
This is just being released now, which probably means its been in the R&D pipeline for the last few years. I would wager this is last gamer feature tech that Nvidia develops for quiter a while.
I mean the main reason it exists is because. Nvidia spent a bunch of money designing and fabbing the Tegra for automotive use and nobody bought it so the project was desperate to find a customer rather than out of the goodness of their hearts. That's also why they sold it to Nintendo at a bargain basement price for the Switch.
I strongly suspect the reality is that they had to give Nintendo so much money back due to the complete failure of the bootloader security that they still produce the Shield as Jensen still demands they claw their way back to break even.
Mine did as well after an update but thankfully i was within the return/replace window at bestbuy. Ive just never updated it (5 years) and it’s been awesome to use with jellyfin and streaming games from the pc.
Shield TV + extra storage + HDHomeRun tuner is still a great device for getting OTA TV.
The only downside is that more recent versions use the Google Android TV launcher which is filled with a garbage truck full of ads, often for things I would never want to watch (horror movies? Nope!). Yes you can replace the launcher, but that's a pain.
Would love to pay more for a device that has updated codec support, no ads or tracking, and is basically identical.
If plex was smart they’d sell a little box of their own and ditch all this faux-social media nonsense they’re slowly implementing. I do not care at all what my friends are watching. Not one bit. Just make it connect to servers. People are happy to pay for it clearly. How many beelinks have been sold just to run Jellyfin/Plex? I’d gladly buy a plex box for $100 - talk about a great Christmas present for friends and family!
Sidebar: I like Jellyfin but it is nowhere as turnkey as Plex. Otherwise I’d advocate for that too. That being said, I am slowly trying to get mine nice and stable and user-friendly because the way Plex is going does not give me great confidence about the next 2 to 3 years. But at least right now, it is by far the best experience out there.
I get I have no research or anything to back this up and maybe it’s a terrible idea ultimately, but based on the number of low tech literacy people I know personally who are either running their own Plex servers or attaching to others, an even more turnkey simple piece of hardware seems like something that could do reasonably well.
I wanted to do this and got a Shield last year but returned it because of a live TV bug with the Android Plex client. The programming guide stopped working and could only be fixed by restarting the app, but on Android quitting to the home screen keeps the app running and you can't force quit without going into menus. Sadly that's the OS and changing a launcher didn't fix it.
Actually you can double tap the home button on your remote to see all apps currently running, and can then click the close button on any one of them.
Google TV apps leak memory like a sieve, so it's pretty common to need to manually close all other apps to make the one you're trying to use work. Even !y wife just dies of now as soon as any one of the apps starts acting up.
Projectivy has turned out to be my favourite launcher for the Shield TV after trying a bunch. It displays only the things I want to see, and has a great deal of options.
A million times this. I was so frustrated with how slow and ad-laden the default Shield launcher was. When I got it, it had no ads and was really snappy. Changing over to Projectivy (or any custom launcher really) fixed so many issues and made the device snappy again.
Oh, I've seen instructions, most of them start with "enable dev mode, then use adb to run ton of inscrutable commands that may or may not break the system over time".
Overall, it seems like a recipe to end up in an unknown state where you can no longer easily get updates and the only recovery is to wipe the system.
I've seen similar methods to "Clean up Windows 11", and it always seems like you're just putting the device into an unknown state. A few ads you can become blind to is not as bad as a totally broken system.
It does seem sketchy, but you can kind of guess what it's cleaning based on the name in the uninstall command. I just skim down to the section that says it's for removing the launcher and reqd those, then run only a few.
The upside of the launcher thing is that you can setup a new default launcher and use it for a while without doing any adb. That let's you verify it's working for you first. And when you do finally remove the Google one, a lit if the ad and nloatware stuff no longer runs in the background even if you haven't removed it, so it's abh8ge perf0rmance benefit.
If you are uncomfortable with ADB on the CLI, you can look up the subject ''Debloat++ Shield TV'' as discussed in XDA Forums' Shield TV subforum for how to use an app for that.
Friend, you are #11 on the leaderboard here on HN and you stated that enabled dev mode is too scary. I promise you, you have the skillset to research that your worries are false and you can accomplish this easier than rebutting me on this. I believe in you.
Once your find your comfort, you might even find other items of joy that are being gatekept from you like SmartTube.
Friend, I never said it was scary, only that it was not maintainable and would put your system in an unknown state.
How different is this from say installing Debian, then picking out a bunch of globally installed software that supports "make install" and spraying files all over the root filesystem, then expecting the next run of "apt update" to work properly without things breaking?
Maybe my concerns are unwarranted, but the vast majority of Android mangling I've done over the years has not generally resulted in long-term stability, for a variety of reasons. Recall that the point of this article is that it's 10 year old hardware still in support!
It’s a single app. several are open source. I recommend flauncher. Once again, you are overly complicating a process that you do not know and are arguing from a point of ignorance. As you point out, it’s a 10 year old platform. It’s very stable and known. I am done trying to let you see what you are not interested in.
Or alternatively: Apple could finally add support for bitstreaming to the Apple TV.
I'm kind of envious of how smooth and slick the ATV's UI is compared to the clunky UI on the ShieldTV, but I can't switch due to lack of bitstreaming support.
I thought about this but what would it have that is missing? Hardware decoding for newer codec like AV1 is one thing, but what else?
I have two of these one in my living room and one in my bedroom. They are the best devices for playing pirate Emby servers 4k Remuxes with dolby vision and dolby audio support direct play.
They're missing support for newer codecs and current WiFi standards, can't decode Dolby Vision FEL, and, unless something had changed recently, they don't keep up on security updates (even if they are pushing out other updates).
I suspect the last point would be true even if they launched new hardware, though.
Also the current hardware has lots of overheating problems that hugely affect performance (you have to re-paste the heat sink to the CPU after only 2 years), and thier Bluetooth antenna is so awful it makes Bluetooth controllers for gaming completely unusable due to lag from lost/dropped packets (and the remote constantly disconnect and reconnect randomly).
In addition to hardware support for more modern codecs, USB C seems to be an easy upgrade, it would also benefit from being able to detect frame rate to auto-switch for the HDMI (this likely needs hardware support).
I'd love to buy a newer, better streaming box than the several I already have but after spending quite a bit of time investigating, the state of Android TV-based streaming boxes & sticks is awful. That's one reason NVidia's Shield (Tegra X1 SoC) is still well-regarded despite being a circa 2015 design (the 2019 rev was just a cost reduce/bug fix with the same performance).
Beyond that your choices are to either stick with the same mainstream Google/Amazon/WalMart boxes which are locked down and based on 5+ year-old SoC designs or go with second-tier boxes from Asian vendors on AliExpress/Amazon/eBay, all of which have some different combination of significant compromises:
* Don't work with certain DRM, streaming services or codecs
* Has unreliable manufacturer support (certain firmware works with some DRM/services, next rev fixes one but breaks another)
And even those are built on old hardware designs because there's been no significant advancement in set-top SoC performance for over 5 years. There are only a handful of set-top SoC makers (MediaTek, Amlogic, Rockchip, etc) and while they do occasionally introduce new chips, they mostly only update the video decoding block to support newer codec levels or DRM revisions while keeping the same ancient ARM CPU/GPU cores (or different cores with the same class of 2015-2018 performance).
A good example is the Ugoos AM6B Plus box someone in this thread mentioned as an option for certain use cases. It's been verified to decode DV7 with FEL BUT only works well with local files, not streaming services. And the Amlogic 922x SoC in that box is 5+ year-old tech (I have the same chip in an Amazon Fire TV Stick 4k Max (2nd gen)). The hardware performance of these boxes has been essentially frozen in time due to a 'perfect storm' of factors:
* Most consumers want the cheapest box they can get which plays the main streaming platforms (NetFlix, Amazon, Apple, Disney+, etc). As long as they get a picture of minimally acceptable quality, they don't know or care if the hardware/firmware/drivers properly support the better Dolbyvision levels or adds the enhancement layer or supports ICtCp color space, 12-bit tunneling through RGB or if it handles Source-Based Tone Mapping (SBTM) correctly. They also don't care about playing locally hosted files smoothly or horrendous latency in the Wifi/Ethernet driver stack that nerfs local game streaming.
* DRM is a shit show. The big Hollywood studios require streaming platforms to use specific encryption. So the streaming platform apps will only playback streams on SoCs which have been officially certified (or they nerf the stream to 720p). The certification process is onerous, costly and time-consuming for SoC makers.
* SoC makers, having run the certification gauntlet a couple times now, would like to do it again, approximately... never. On top of that mess, developing and maintaining firmware for their decoding block which properly supports the constantly evolving landscape of divergent codec levels, enhancement layers, color spaces, tone mapping, etc is hard, expensive and requires deep expertise across multiple domains. They just want to sell trays of cheap SoCs and see all the rest as a bottomless money pit eating their slim margins.
NVidia did all this with the Shield and it's grandfathered in on the DRM and they've done a decent job supporting some more recent codecs, levels and layers where they can. But the Tegra X1 platform is 10+ years old now - yet it's still slightly more performant than any other DRM-certified SoC to this day, which just shows what a mess this is.
Which is insanely frustrating if you understand technology platforms, care about actually seeing the full quality modern tech can deliver and would like to do so on a non-ancient hardware platform capable of other trivial things like locally streaming files with actual throughput >100mbps or streaming games with non-glacial latency. But that's just table stakes because the things which could be done with more modern hardware are super-interesting, like AI-based upscaling, frame gen, removing compression artifacts, reformatting content, on-device gaming, etc.
But using standard small form-factor PC/GPU hardware is a non-starter because of DRM certification. So... it would be great if NVidia would make a new Shield based on the new Tegra. But that's a huge new effort and, sadly, NVidia would crazy to divert resources or wafers from the AI-bubble cash printer to anything else - so I highly doubt it's going to happen.
What is it about mobile phone chipsets that makes the unsuitable for a TV stick or STB?
Is it that there is special TV-specific hardware like tuners, HW accelerated audio and video decoders, and PQ/AQ accelerators?
Apple has adapter their A15 chipsets for use in the Apple TV, so it seems possible. But obviously the Apple TV products don't have tuners, aren't driving a display natively, and probably don't have enough I/O interfaces to add all the extra hardware you'd need to embed it in a panel or STB.
It's a good question and I'm not actually sure as I'm not a hardware guy, just a user who's looked into these productz. So far, the popular Android TV set-top boxes (or sticks) I've seen use SoCs that seem dedicated to set-top applications. It may that mobile phone chipsets have different integration to support cellular modems and air interfaces.
There are some boxes which use use Android instead of Android TV but these tend to require using versions of the streaming apps made for mobile phones. I haven't really looked into these as they tend not to work well with remote controls so I haven't been interested.
> Nvidia released the first Shield Android TV in 2015
> it took about 18 months to [create] an entirely new security stack [...] Android updates aren’t actually that much work compared to DRM security, and some of its partners weren’t that keen on re-certifying older products.
> In February 2025, Nvidia released Shield Patch 9.2 [...] That was the Tegra X1 [security] bug finally being laid to rest on the 2015 and 2017 Shield boxes.
This is a real engineering marvel. Everybody else would have just given up entirely long time ago. DRM bugs are in most case practically unrecoverable for products that shipped already (and physically in the hands of the adversary). The incentive to tell to consumers "Ditch that product you bought from us 2 years ago, and buy the more recent hardware revision or successor" is extremely strong.
This really feels like a platform that is maintained with pride and love by the nvidia engineering teams (regardless of one's opinion about DRM per se).
They added auto-playing, full screen video ads to the home screen. I threw mine in the garbage.
Pride and love, lol…
> They added auto-playing, full screen video ads to the home screen.
I'm pretty sure this is actually Google's fault (even Sony televisions suffer from this bullcrap). Unlike phone Android, Google TV (yes, that's the official name now) enforces certain "standards", one of them is this bullcrap.
> I'm pretty sure this is actually Google's fault
Who cares who delivered the actual bytes or who initiated the change, the matter of fact is that people buy a device from one company, then the company is responsible for the experience they deliver while it's supported. Since they chose Android, they're responsible for the experience you get when using the stuff you buy from them.
I'd never complain to the maker of a compressor when it dies in a fridge, I'll complain to the one I bought the fridge from. Not sure why we're so adamant on thinking differently regarding computers. NVIDIA might blame Google internally, but feels like consumers are right to be pissed off about NVIDIA changing (or being OK with someone else changing) their experience in a product they bought from NVIDIA.
Because you're on a forum called Hacker News and we pride ourselves on being smart enough to understand the details of systems, and using that to our advantage. Nvidia as a corporation isn't some nobody compared to Google, but do you really think their engineering team has the clout to get Google's advertising arm to bend to their will?
What the commenter is saying pertains to the _decision_ to use Android. That is why this is happening. That is NVidia.
Such decisions cannot be reversed on a whim.
I use an old Amazon FireTV Stick on an old LG LED TV (semi-smart), and neither of them bug me with such fullscreen ads, unless I opt to watch MX content on Amazon Prime (MX is basically third-party ads-funded free OTT content; Amazon Prime requires subscription, and even its standard subscription has occasional ads for Prime content, though Amazon Prime also has a premium pricing tier for ads-free content).
I don't face such third-paety ads nonsense on Netflix and Disney+ (yet), at least on this old FireTV and old LG TV.
Unskippable irrelevant annoying ads and privacg concerns are the main reasons I still steer clear of "smart" TVs.
My Sony TV doesn't do this, thankfully
My Samsung Frame TV shows ads in the app bar and you cannot disable/remove them. They can’t even use the Google excuse because the TV runs Samsung’s OWN TizenOS.
They’re lucky it’s a good (beautiful) TV..
This doesn't really bother me. I just use my TV to watch Netflix.
Ofcourse Samsung has "sponsored" apps everything does.
You could just have download a different home screen... sad.
I did end up switching to Flauncher for a while before getting an Apple TV.
Does Apple TV have ads for Apple shows in its UI?
No. The Apple TV _service_ does, and you can configure that service to be some kind of weird god service if you want. But you can also treat that service like any other normal service, one that only comes up if you launch it. In that case, the home screen is just a straight icon grid with no kerfuffle.
Yes, one or two, and not annoying (not trying to grab your attention). No ads for toothpaste or cars.
Apple TV is not the solution for purists who cannot handle anything that can be construed as an ad. It’s a great solution for those who just want to browse and watch content without distracting ads everywhere.
Amazon started this trend among major streaming services - showing self promotion ads.
Apple took notes and decided to outdo them. The F1 movie ads famously popped up in inappropriate places.
The Apps in the home row on Apple TV will have fullscreen promotions when the home row is along the bottom of the screen. If you set your home row apps with care, the fullscreen previews will not be ads (i.e. Photos will do a slideshow of your photos, Jellyfin just pulls random images from its/your own movie library metadata, etc.).
You can make them still images by going into the accessibility settings
Full screen video ads on the home screen ? I don’t see this on mine.
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Yep. I had to switch to an alternative launcher to get rid of them.
This is Google. Just change the default launcher and you're good.
Nova Launcher just added advertisements, unless you buy Pro. Ads come for everyone.
Try https://github.com/spocky/miproja1, it's awesome and will never get any ads.
Can confirm, it works very well. You can set it as the default launcher, and never have an issue.
That's because Nova launcher sold to new owners (whose presumed only goal is to serve ads)
The only customers who care about DRM are the suppliers; not the users. Force the user to not be able to play DRM content, and they'll end up pirating.
Furthermore, I never demanded a new Android TV version. All I wanted was security fixes, not Google's new shitty launcher. I'd never have bought the product if it contained the current launcher.
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This is the story I’m really interested in. How have they prevented MBAs from ruining this product?
Infinite money.
Like Apple, SpaceX or Tesla.
(though I suspect that Apple hired some MBAs to work on Liquid Ass)
They did this with the switch 1 too they were just less well remembered because that subsequently got re-hacked. They lost the ARM trust zone keys and rebuilt the entire DRM stack on the HDCP keys which had been provisioned but they were not using.
Nvidia doesn't make money on hardware, they make money on ecosystems.
Everyone is missing the why here, this only happens because the whole stack is vertically integrated. Even if say LG wanted to make a box like this and update it for 10 years they couldn’t, they don’t make the chips. Qualcomm straight up refuses to support chips through this many Android releases. Even if device manufacturers want to support devices forever it won’t matter if the actual SoC platform drops support.
While the vertical integration is definitely the best way to get it done, it's not strictly required as long as there is good enough documentation for a platform. Linux originally supported Intel without any Intel engineers even knowing it existed.
Also consider Apple's chips, which have gotten Linux support without Apple ever submitting a single line of code.
While Qualcomm's behaviour is definitely a massive bummer (not to mention Qualcomm's competitors), it doesn't stop manufacturers from supporting their devices. It merely stops maintaining support from being cheap and easy.
Not only that, "vertical integration" is a red herring. If you had a "vertically integrated" device made entirely by Qualcomm and they stopped supporting it after 3 years then the vertical integration buys you nothing. The actual problem is that Qualcomm sucks.
> Linux originally supported Intel without any Intel engineers even knowing it existed.
It should be noted that Intel makes CPUs, while Qualcomm makes SoCs, which include much more than just a CPU. Usually supporting the CPU is the easiest part, the rest is the issue.
That said, when device OEMs release the kernel sources, modders are able to update custom roms for a long time, so I doubt this is just a Qualcomm issue.
> It should be noted that Intel makes CPUs, while Qualcomm makes SoCs, which include much more than just a CPU. Usually supporting the CPU is the easiest part, the rest is the issue.
Here's a random 15 year old Intel PC (you can also do this on many current ones):
Every piece of silicon in it is made by Intel and most of them, including the GPU, are integrated into the CPU. And it's all supported by current Linux kernels. The same is true for many AMD systems except that you'll usually see a third party network or storage controller which is itself still supported.So no, it's a Qualcomm problem.
They update the roms while keeping everything provided by Qualcomm the same
so basically the kernel is frozen even if the android version is updated
The kernel is usually frozen but sometimes projects like PostmarketOS can use the changes to upstream the changes and add general Linux support.
Anyone can make a diff between the upstream kernel and the Qualcomm kernel. Maintaining these changes into later versions of the kernel will be quite challenging, but the base is already there.
That said, phones also come with plenty of binary drivers and those cannot be ported. That's an important reason not to bother with later kernel versions in custom ROMs: after all of your hard work, the end result will be missing important features such as GPU acceleration.
What do you think are the reasons pc's don't need Dell xps 13 9350 Windows and Lenovo ThinkPad T14s Gen 6 Linux and so on but phones need Galaxy S26 Linux, Xiaomi 16 Linux and so on?
Because ARM lacks some of the device auto-discovery features that amd64 provides for free, unless you're lucky and use a device with ACPI+DSDTs on ARM. You need a special build for the hardware, but you don't need to alter the source code.
Custom kernels also exist for amd64 devices, often including workarounds and patches that are not in mainline to improve performance or compatibility.
As a vendor, that requires practically zero extra effort.
https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Devices has a list of devices that run either mainline or almost-mainline Linux. Only the "downstream" devices require vendor Linux kernels. Of course, hardware support is partial for most of these devices because vendors haven't contributed proper upstreamable drivers and volunteers haven't had the time to write them yet, but it's not like every ARM device needs a special kernel fork, that's just something ARM vendors do out of laziness.
> Even if device manufacturers want to support devices forever it won’t matter if the actual SoC platform drops support.
Yeah, so that's not a why, that's a how (and it's not necessary or sufficient anymore, see the Samsung and Pixel reference).
The why seems very much what the article covers.
Yet Microsoft figured this out decades ago.
I (well my mom) had a supported with security updates version of Windows 7 on my 2007 Mac Mini (not a typo) until 2023.
That was from when Macs ran Intel and could easily dual boot Windows. I still have an old Mac Book Pro with Windows 10 on it. Updates only stopped recently because Win10 is at end of life. I've been meaning to blow everything out and install Linux.
I am giving props to Microsoft because it did wrangle an industry together to standardize where one company makes the operating system and other companies make the hardware yet you can still upgrade your operating system even without the support of the vendor.
Yet Google can’t seem to make that happen.
because google doesnt deliver the full OS, it delivers a bunch of stuff that the vendors then bastardize and use with insane drivers and crap from SoC vendors.
they should NEVER accept any of the binary only crap drivers, they should demand code be upstream or wont buy. But they dont care. Google doesnt care.
> Qualcomm straight up refuses to support chips through this many Android releases.
That's not entirely accurate. They do provide chips with extended support, such as the QCM6490 in the Fairphone 5. These are not popular because most of the market demands high performance, and companies profit from churning out products every year, but solutions exist for consumers who value stability and reliability over chasing trends and specs.
I think it's more a combination of vertical integration and Nvidia upper management actually wanting to provide support for so long. Apple, Google, and Samsung all make smartphones with their own chips, and yet none of them support running the newest OS on 10+ year old devices.
I have to wonder if the Nintendo Switch picking up the Tegra X1 SOC has something to do with it. There's a good chance a lot of components of the (custom microkernel) operating system are derived from Android, and with the Switch receiving active support for so long, I wouldn't be surprised if the work between the Shield TV and Switch are related.
With the Switch being shipped for nearly 10 years, it pales in comparison to the shelf life of most any processor Apple, Google, Samsung, Qualcomm, MediaTek (?) push out.
Though Apple in particular is interesting, as their Apple TV lineup also has the same long legs, with the Apple TV HD/4th Gen releasing in 2015 and receiving the latest OS.
If you read the article the actual "why" is because the CEO personally requested it and gave an effectively unlimited budget.
No need to be rude. The person above is adding a new insight to the conversation.
Vertical integration makes it possible but motivation makes it happen. Where is Samsung's ultra LTS Exynos device?
Qualcomm's industrial ARM SoC are supported for nearly 10 years: Qualcomm QCM6490 in Fairphone 5 gets 8 years security updates.
It is called a legal binding contract, business use it all the time to enforce support.
Contracts can be broken and resolved with money. Happens all the time.
Yes, and lawsuits do exist as well.
Point being, blame lies not only on Qualcomm as Google advocates tend to point out.
I've got the OG model, and it's still the main device hooked up to my TV. All my TV streaming goes through it (mostly Jellyfin these days), and it can stream games no problem via Moonlight.
It's hooked up to a 4k LG TV, and I have no idea about how it does the upscaling, but 720p content looks perfectly fine on it.
Best (worst?) of all... it still gets updates.
Yeah I just loved the one where they forced ads on the homescreen. Now I use ProjectIvy
+1 for Projectivy.
After the ADHD-inducing default Android TV interface, Projectivy is just beautifully clean and simple.
I have quite a few Android TV (or are they called Google TV these days?) devices, and they all get the Projectivy makeover. The TCL TV running Android needs some 'adb' commands run so that the users selection of launcher is maintained across reboots, bit other than that it's been smooth.
The only two complaints about mine is the one set of updates about 5 years ago that killed every connection to my NAS, and that the auto skip function for credits doesn't know if there are scenes after the credits.
But overall, for running it for like 9 years with a cost of less than $200 and essentially zero maintenance, the shield is awesome.
I thought the Shield's claim to fame was it was a certified 4K Android TV device because it could handle it early on?
The Steam Link, also from 2015, is also still receiving updates! My partner and I use ours regularly to play co-op games on our TV. I really appreciate the efforts of whomever is keeping it running.
Steam Link is one of the greatest hardware releases of all time.
That reminds me of my own Samsung Galaxy SII.
Shipped out of the box with Android 2.3, Samsung supported it up until Android 4.1, then I switched to CyanogenMod until my father rage-bought me a new phone in 2016 because it crashed so much he had trouble contacting me. I still kept it up to date with LineageOS and then unofficial versions for fun (it's at Android 13 last I checked).
Do I expect a Samsung Galaxy SII to do as well with 2026 software as it did in 2013? No, but I can run a 2013 computer with 2026 software without needing to track down dodgy homebrews on xdaforums.com and that reflects badly on the smartphone ecosystem.
>That reminds me of my own Samsung Galaxy SII. Shipped out of the box with Android 2.3, Samsung supported it up until Android 4.1
Even that was amazing for Samsung's standards back then.
For example my former Samsung Note II shipped with Android 4.1.1 Jellybean and they only supported it till 4.4.2 KitKat. Just let that sink in. I basically bought a flagship e-waste device.
Custom ROMs didn't help much since you'd lose S-pen functionality if you went past 4.4.2 as modders couldn't port the needed firmware blobs past that kernel or something like that.
Oh, and also, using custom ROMs could brick your wifi from working as the FW of the wifi chip was tied to Knox tripping the e-fuse on custom ROMs, so then you'd need to use some voodoo to patch wifi back. That is, if you were lucky and your phone wouldn't brick itself due to the FW bug in Samsung's eMMC, that would lock itself to read-only mode out of nowhere.
Seriously, fuck Samsung for that PoS phone, fuck them in the a**. That phone should have been a lemon recall with full refund to consumers.
I rooted my old S3 probably around 2016 I had laying around. There was an exploit called "let it rain" and that got me root access. Then on XDA Developers I found several custom ROM'S. Someone even created a Nougat ROM for that thing later on. That was the last version I was able to load on it. I sure did learn a lot back then.
I have one of them, and been using it daily since I bought it in 2016. Bought a cheap Bluetooth remote control from AliExpress which was an upgrade over the Logitech Harmony crap I had earlier.
If it were to break, knock on wood it won't happen, what options are there? I have tried to look but haven't really found anything that is free of Chinese backdoors and has decent hardware. For just Plex or Jellyfin a N100 box or similar could do, but I want easy launch of HBO, YouTube etc. And I need that remote control option.
From what I've seen in forums where people asked this, the answer is: nothing.
I only have two devices providing material to my media system: a Shield Pro and a Blu-Ray player. The Shield is the critical element, used daily for streaming and playing local media from a USB-connected SSD.
I hope Nvidia revises the Shield with up-to-date hardware and maintains its flexible nature. It's a pretty cool product. The biggest shortcomings I've encountered are the fault of moronic media companies. Great example: Spectrum (the cable company). These dolts have an Android application with which subscribers can watch content. But it doesn't run on Android TVs. It's called "Spectrum TV." It's so gallingly stupid that I hate rewarding them with money every month.
Oh, and I love how they addressed the goddamned Netflix button. If you so much as LOOK at the remote, Netflix launches in the middle of whatever you're watching. I actually removed the button from the remote entirely.
Netflix button fix-
Get the app "button mapper" (or similar name)
On the free version, you can configure the button for-
one click of the netflix button to open Plex, and 2 clicks to open something else (eg youtube).
This also works when the shield and TV are off-
One click of the netflix button turns on the shield, which turns on the tv.
Thanks. I should get around to just remapping it. I've had to replace my original remote, and the new one still has the Netflix button.
With a SofaBaton remote and some button reassignments using the Button Mapper app, everything is just right now, and pairing a Bluetooth mouse and keyboard was easy.
The next best is probably an Apple TV 4k, but it can't direct play as many audio and video formats as the Shield.
Apple TV is great except they prevent installing software which is not on their App Store. A big one for me is SmartTubeNext, which removes YouTube ads and sponsored segments. I can't even pay for that if I wanted to.
I use the Infuse app, and I haven't seen it fail with anything yet.
It doesn't support TrueHD Atmos (UHD Blu-ray Atmos in other words). It also doesn't support FEL.
That said, it supports JOC Atmos (the streaming service version) and you can convert all your TrueHD Atmos to JOC Atmos easily.
It also can’t stream games
It is trivially easy to know that this isn’t true.
Moonlight on the Apple TV works great.
I've been using the Thomson Google TV Streaming Stick. It's cheap (~40 euros) and it works surprisingly well for what it is. It's sold in Europe, but I think you can find the same product in the US at Walmart, rebranded as Onn+ Streaming Device.
It's not as powerful as an Nvidia Shield, of course, but at least is not a random product from Temu riddled with spyware.
Not sure how it compares, but Xiaomi TV Box S is similarly priced. It's physically bigger (slightly), which somehow comforts me a bit.
I would suspect it being a Google product, it also is riddled with spyware.
It's not made by Google, it's just certified. So it must have the same amount of spyware that the Nvidia Shield has (which we all know it's not zero).
I have bought three for all my relatives since 2015, and finally bought one for myself. They are still in stock and sold by local brick and mortar retailers as well as online!
I use the n100 for jellyfin, and shield for streaming and controller with jellyfin client.
The built-in OS on my LG is honestly good enough for me. There's a jellyfin client in the LG app store that works well enough (it's just a wrapper for a browser client as I understand it). But I only use my TV to watch shows/movies, not sure about other usecases.
Mine is a Samsung TV from same year as my Shield, and its Tizen-based offering is the reason I got the Shield to begin with.
Google TV Streamer?
No thanks. Downgraded to 8.2.3 years ago and going strong with a custom launcher. Has absolutely everything I need and nothing that I don’t.
This was the guide back then, possibly still works. [0]
[0] https://florisse.nl/shield-downgrade/
I just removed updates from whichever app it is that handles the launcher, all ads gone, still get to be on latest OS version :)
How?
On android you can, usually, go into the settings, go to the app section, go into the specific app you wanna downgrade and, if it's an app that comes preinstalled and can't be deleted outright, you get an option to "remove upgrades" or some such thing.
this. anything above 9.x has been shit for me.
I'm not even sure which one I have, it's old but it's great. Use it for streaming (smarttube, some apps) and moonlight/sunshine. It does 4k with a ps5 controller so well. Love it. I think it was like a 100 bucks 8 years ago? I use my desktop 5090 and basically stopped using ps5 for couch gaming because it looks so much better. Great value!
Also, not that this is better probably (it is Google and Nvidia after all), but it means my Samsung TV is not connected to the internet, so I don't have to wait 10 seconds for the menu to come up because it is busy loading and injecting ads.
I have had two for 10 years and have no complaints whatsoever
The lack of hardware support for a few modern codecs is a pretty big complaint from me, but nothing else out there is decent :/
It depends what you're looking for. In the AV enthusiast circles a lot of people flock towards the Ugoos AM6B Plus (with CoreELEC).
It is one of the only devices (alongside Oppo clones) that can play Dolby Vision Profile 7 FEL (Full Enhancement Layer) with 100% accuracy. The Shield can play P7, but it ignores the FEL data; the Ugoos actually processes it.
That said, people don’t generally use Android on it, instead you boot to CoreELEC from an SD card and use Kodi.
> can play Dolby Vision Profile 7 FEL
This is the only reason I know about this Ugoos device. I find it so strange that Profile 7 is effectively unsupported outside of Blu-ray players and this one device. It doesn't even seem like it can be a processing power issue because the documentation says that the other profiles have higher maximum pixel rates.
I don't have the Ugoos box myself though. Instead I'm running a series of processing steps on my Blu-ray rips which converts the file to Profile 8. For every movie I've tried so far this has been fine, though I've read that some movies lean far too heavily on the FEL and have color problems without it.
> I find it so strange that Profile 7 is effectively unsupported outside of Blu-ray players and this one device.
Since DV Profile 7 is only used for Blu-Ray discs, and playing backed up BR copies from a non BR player is not really supported, it kind if makes sense that it's not supported.
For the Ugoos device, I'm not sure, but I thought the chipset inside supports it, but you still need to flash custom firmware (CoreELEC) and provide a Dolby Vision file to unlock this. So it's not supported out of the box.
I have an am6b+ but in reality the shield is a much nicer device to use if one wants to use anything outside of their local media.
I actually wish we could run android in a container on the CoreELEC side and switch back and forth between Kodi and the android UI/apps (without needing a reboot, and having a better managed android environment than the provided one).
The problem with this setup will sadly be that WideVine / DRM stuff will not like it, so you're locked to low resolution playback from streaming apps.
Each of these Android set top boxes need to be certified to get high quality playback.
except, I don't care so much about the high quality widevine playback. Plain youtube, MLB.TV and many others don't need certification. yeah netflix does, but that's less important to me.
The unfortunate part is that CoreELEC only works when you get all your content from a locally attached disk. You can't even really stream it from your beefy NAS/server, and you definitely can't use any streaming services.
I'm constantly surprised how many people are in that narrow category of just dipping thier toe in the water for "self-hosted" content that it's little enough it fits on disk storage you can have in your living room (mine is a half-height server rack in the basement), but also have progressed past thr point of using any streaming services. I guess there are a lot of people without families that also never travel out there.
> The unfortunate part is that CoreELEC only works when you get all your content from a locally attached disk. You can't even really stream it from your beefy NAS/server
This is not true. Streaming from a NAS at high speeds is fully supported and works fine. I would suggest to use NFS over SMB though, SMB gives me issues for higher bitrate content
Streaming apps do indeed not work. It's a device for local / NAS media playback.
I used it with plex (in kodi) just fine. With that said, I'd agree that its mostly for local media (where local can be whatever plex can get to). Outside of plex, either you are using plain kodi or some simple kodi extensions (say youtube) that just aren't as nice to use as their android app equivalents (in regards to streaming services, it does support MLB.TV for those that like baseball, but again, not quite as nice an experience IMO as the android app).
Him, I hadn't tried running it myself, but I couldn't find any indication if anyone using it for Plex (or equivalent). I only saw people going thru complicated schemes to Terry and setup network shared drives, or directly attaching external harddrives. I stand corrected.
there's a reasonably nice plex kodi addon.
If my entire world was plex, I probably would have kept it as my main device, but I really like a lot of the android streaming apps i use and the experience in kodi land just isn't as good when it exists.
CoreELEC is a godsend for FEL compatibility, IMO. With a little luck, you can get a device to do FEL for under $100, and you don't have to deal with some random, poorly maintained Android release that probably won't keep up with security updates, etc.
The Apple TV's pretty good. I imagine I'd have a hard time switching to a Shield TV unless it gets a CPU bump, whereas Apple still keeps making newer models with modern-ish phone SoCs.
I've looked at this a few times, and AppleTV actually has pretty poor support unless you're only using a select few streaming services and not streaming any of your own content. Shield performs exponentially better in every way except for the god awful stock interface (and Google data collection vs Apple data collection). The hardware and tvOS still have extremely limited support for most video codecs, no support at all for audio pass thru, and very limited non-stereo audio options. If you want the equivalent of watching on your laptop it's good, but if you have better than stereo speakers, or a 4K TV that supports HDR10+ or Dolby Vision, AppleTV can't compete except for the big name streaming services that have special tvOS privileges/integration.
FWIW, I have no trouble playing any of my alternatively sourced media, 4K Dolby Vision included, using an app called Infuse. Pass-through audio may indeed be an issue for some lossless surround formats, or at least that's what it sounded like the last I looked into it some years ago. I don't have the right room to set up surrounds so it's stereo only over here anyway. But that said I love the app, lovely interface, etc.
When I tried that before, the Infuse UI was unusably show for me, likely due to the library size, streaming from my server hung for a long time, it had to transcode most of the time because so few codecs were supported and it only supported stereo audio output. DV wasn't supported at all at the time.
It sounds like it's gotten better by a lot, but I'm curious whether you've had to pay for each newer version if Infuse. They were doing a "for life" purchase before, but that just meant the one major version number, and they were releasing new and EOL old major versions every 1.5-2 years at the time. It seemed like they were heading own the path of a monthly subscription payment model at the time
I had to look to remember, I'm on a $10/year subscription for "Pro". From looking at their page I'd say some codec support is under the Pro license. I know I haven't thrown anything at it that needed transcoding, but I'm not playing anything exotic either.
Being annual and pretty cheap I really don't mind throwing them some money to continue development, it's worth it to me for the experience. I can't tell from the website but I feel like there's a monthly option if ya just want to test the waters.
> a 4K TV that supports HDR10+ or Dolby Vision, AppleTV
You can play HDR10+ 4K on Apple TV using Infuse[0] (and whatever DLNA server you want to stand up with your content.)
[0] Since 2017, apparently.
Not sure what you are on about. AppleTV with InFuse handles all/most codecs. Best media player in the market bar none.
I stream all of my own content with an Apple TV and Plex just fine. I don't know what problems you've had there. It even handles exotic stuff like Hi10P h.264.
How's your surround sound? tvOS 26 decided at the last minute not to support audio pass thru, which means only the pretty basic audio codecs that the AppleTV itself can decode are supported. That's an extremely limited number, and I believe only the very basic 5.1 is supported for any surround options.
What makes the Apple TV desirable? It’s $185. Why would I choose it over a Roku $30 or Ultra $80?
The rest of these Roku/Amazon/Google devices are full of advertising and underpowered hardware that results in cluttered and laggy interfaces. The Apple TV interface is completely free of advertising, responsive, and easy to navigate.
Apple TV's way beefier hardware, but let's not pretend it doesn't also have advertising.
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The Rokus are garbage for two main reasons IMO.
1) They close or lock down hidden features that people find to make it better, it's not user friendly.
2) ADs, they should give them away with how much advertising they bundle with it.
High end model is $150 (US). Very fast and yes Apple gets some of your info but it's not getting resold to advertisers and 3rd parties. Generally speaking doesn't require adware to keep the price low.
It's a lot faster.
It doesn’t suck.
The Shield TV's cylindrical form factor could use a rethink. It is hard to find a good spot for it on a shelf when cords are connected at both ends (HDMI and MMC slot at one end, power and LAN at the other) and the ports are too close for all cords to use right-angle-heads. Leaving it invisible by placing it on the floor or behind other gear sometimes impedes Bluetooth signal, so there it sits, well apart from the AVR, BD, other devices.
The Flying Spaghetti Monster blessed you with CAD and a 3D printer for such tasks.
The solution to it being clunky can't be to add mass to it. Unless you're proposing transferring the internals to a new case and facing all the ports to the back. Seriously, look at this thing. The best thing you can do is tie-wrap the cables together.
Nothing on ifixit so far regarding the 2019 Shield TV 2nd Gen cylindrical device:
https://www.ifixit.com/Search?query=nvidia+shield
I've been hacking on computer and av hardware for ~40 years, but I know NOT to risk the only one I've got without getting some clear sense of the pitfalls ahead by using schematics, teardowns, photos, etc.
That is the new Shield TV design from 2019. The original Shield TV and the Pro were flat design. Strange that they changed it when old design worked well.
I have a 2019 and it's flat.
I think that's because you have the Pro version.
If I KNEW companies would do things like this, I'd be more likely to buy their product. But on the other hand I don't know who to trust because plenty say such things because it is easy to say then ... and then they just quit.
It's part of the reason I like Apple devices.
This a company which routinely provides driver updates to their GPUs for 10+ years. I'm guessing that puts them in a different mindset from the get-go, to your typically smartphone vendor.
I'd buy one if they made a new one, but I guess thats basically the hardware the switch uses
This has me wondering if I can use my release Switch as an Android TV box
Unfortunately it doesn't seem to extend to the other Shield products. My Nvidia Shield tablet hasn't had an update in many years.
Then again, this is probably why it is still fast :-P
I'm using it pretty much daily as an ebook reader and sometimes i use it to watch videos on bed by transcoding them on my PC (the hardware isn't that good to decode modern formats). Amusingly, these days i use it much more than back when it was new :-P. I keep it offline though (mainly to avoid wasting battery, there isn't anything in it i'd care if it caught malware by net osmosis somehow) and transfer files via a USB cable.
The CEO actively uses the shield pro which im sure is part of it. I just wish they would release a refresh.
My 2017 model probably short circuited during a lightning strike, because it stopped working after a storm. My friend offered to sell me his 2019 but I thought there'd be new hardware. I should have bought it.
I love the Shield, compared to even the Chromecast at the time, we noticed a huge difference in colour on the TV. If NVIDIA ever produce a refresh, they'll have my money.
But you can buy it now. I'm not sure what's different if you thought you should have bought your friends.
It's nice that you can unlock the bootloader on these and flash Lineage if you want to limit snooping by Google.
That being said, I think that you get more flexibility and performance with a mini PC and and air mouse. For one, stock (Googled) Android does not give you an easy way to use a browser with an ad-blocker, which is still the best way to stream from many sources without ads. Also all these anemic Android boxes struggle with high bitrate 4K videos.
You unfortunately lose Widevine support when you do this though (either switching to LineageOS or a mini-PC). That means you can't stream any of the mainstream services in anything like a half-decent quality.
It's very unfortunate that every streaming service has given up on supporting anything except Google-fied Android and Apple iOS/tvOS. I dont like the services to begin with, but a fully Jellyfin stack can only get you so far when there are niche requests involved as well.
> That means you can't stream any of the mainstream services in anything like a half-decent quality.
Maybe, but I don't think it's a big loss, and the *arr suite works just fine as a substitute.
That's the kicker I'm pointing out. It's a very limited number of people that agree.
If you're satisfied with the equivalent of 6-12 DVDs worth of content, or are only pulling the latest of a handful of shows and deleting them once watched, that's about all most people's setups will be able to store. But just like when streaming first started, people appreciate the 100s of TB of content from the streaming services and usually want that level of access.
I have 40+ TB on a >100TB system and we still use Netflix, HBO, or AppleTV+.
At this point I actually don’t know why I bother with the streaming services anymore. I recently watched a blu ray movie after a long time of just watching streams and the quality of the picture just blew me away.
Is there even Blu-ray level content available for series that are streaming only? Or is it restricted to just movie releases?
Edit: actually, now that I think of it, having the audio available in our local language instead of English is a boon for the kids. But otherwise, I don’t know why we bother.
> stock (Googled) Android does not give you an easy way to use a browser with an ad-blocker
Firefox supports Ublock origin on Android or am I missing something here?
The IronFox version of Firefox works excellently on my 2019 Shield TV.
Also the DuckDuckGo browser blocks a ton of stuff on my 2019 Shield TV when first installed via NeoStore (F-Droid and other repositories frontend) then upgraded via AuroraStore (Google Play Store frontend) or Google Play itself. I've found that I had to use that sequence because it could not install initially from the Play Store, but maybe that has changed.
Another browser option is Cromite, which is a hardened Chromium for Android.
Dupe of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46824003
I love my shield, it’s been a staple.
If they wanted to really knock it out the park, the next step would be a steamos port with DRM support.
DRM is anti-consumer malware, so I hope not.
There are other ways to source videos than paying a monthly fee forever for something that you will never own.
Yeah, but when your daughter wants to watch Moana 2, that tends to stop being an issue.
you might find that not everyone agrees
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Please talk to your congresspeople about getting DRM abolished, in the meantime, please don't try to deny my freedom to consume legally obtained content that is only available with DRM.
Unless Valve are going to do some work to enable that and support a hardware backed chain of trust for drivers that's not going to happen.
(I think it should happen but that's not the same as that it will.)
That would be great, honestly. Imagine just being able to install Android apps like Netflix, Disney+, ... On your Steam Deck or Steam Machine and having it work out of the box with Widevine L1. Then you'd truly just only need one device attached to your TV for all your entertainment needs. And then a great and supported one at that.
The drivers are already done, they're in the Android build.
I just want a more open OS.
I don't mind if it requires running a vendor signed boot, kernel and driver chain, I'd be using those same vendor chains anyway for non upstreamed hardware most likely.
It could be really interesting if they used a fraction of the tech they have or recently stopped using that could still fit here well.
I love the NVIDIA Shield as a technical product...but...I really wish they spent some effort on User Experience.
Search a bit and you'll find how to install Projectivity/Projectivy Launcher that's way way better. For bonus points and a lot snapper functionality you can go the extra mile and use adb to remove the old Google Launcher and the related bloatware.
If memory serves the launcher/ui is out of their control. It is GoogleTVs launcher and they are forced to use it.
It should be possible to install a alternative launcher that is preferable.
The reality though, is that there's likely bigger fish being chased.
They updated it recently to fix the stuttering in the Disney app, and that issue had been there for a year or so. And they did that probably because Disney paid them.
It's a corporation, they don't work for free.
something else that is outstanding about this device is the support. a couple of months ago my 2017 edition kept restarting occasionally while watching a movie so i got in touch with nvidia support, after a bit of back n forth they agreed to send me a brand new power adapter for free which arrived promptly and completely fixed the problem
Is this a paid PR piece? Because many other devices by Nvidia like the Jetson boards never get any long term updates.
What a new model would need is more compat with DV and better software. Get rid of the Android ads. Add better frame rate matching. Etc.
My Nvidia Shield Portable is sad to hear this. They updated it to Lollipop 5.1 and then killed it. Pretty much useless now.
That was such a cool device. Running emulators on it was a blast. When I got my Steam Deck it immediately reminded me of the Nvidia Shield Portable.
It's ironic that Nvidia before becoming a behemoth had the money for this kind of device.
They have been a public company for over 20 years.
Look at their valuation for those 20 years compared to today. What was their valuation 10 years ago?
Oh, I'm familiar with the valuation.
They were able to build this device and provide a Android TV certified 4K device that didn't need to have planned obsoleteness.
Yes. And it's ironic that they can do this ten years ago but can't be bothered to make a new one today. I guess the old one still works well enough and people buy it though which the article states.
Feels like a reverse Bell Labs approach. They find their cash cow and only invest in their cash cow rather than research new product areas and fields.
Its not ironic, its perfect business sense. 10 years ago they gave a shit about gamers and streamers as they were their main market. Now its all about AI server hardware, and they are fighting off international mega clients who all want to secure their chip output for years to come.
Why would Nvidia give 2 hoots about a living room streaming box now?
Streaming games as well.
They do seem to keep building devices for individual use, if not for home, like their new workstation at home for computers.
Because having all your eggs in one basket (GPUs), especially when that basket is artificially huge and likely to crumble, (AI Bubble), is a TERRIBLE idea?
Corporations dont think like that.
They look at market segment 1 (gamers) and see millions, possibly hundreds of millions.
They look at market segment 2 (ai) and they see hundreds of billions, possibly trillions.
Its a public company with shareholders and a board of directors to appease, the decision is an easy one.
Maybe it's working fine enough for their uses?
I think they had done a minor hardware refresh, at the time it came out it was pretty powerful compared to the underpowered alternatives, plus the promise of pure Android TV on it.
> rather than research new product areas and field
Google “Gsync Pulsar”.
This is just being released now, which probably means its been in the R&D pipeline for the last few years. I would wager this is last gamer feature tech that Nvidia develops for quiter a while.
I mean the main reason it exists is because. Nvidia spent a bunch of money designing and fabbing the Tegra for automotive use and nobody bought it so the project was desperate to find a customer rather than out of the goodness of their hearts. That's also why they sold it to Nintendo at a bargain basement price for the Switch.
I strongly suspect the reality is that they had to give Nintendo so much money back due to the complete failure of the bootloader security that they still produce the Shield as Jensen still demands they claw their way back to break even.
My shield bricked itself after just a few months, so YMMV on this. No rhyme or reason why.
Mine did as well after an update but thankfully i was within the return/replace window at bestbuy. Ive just never updated it (5 years) and it’s been awesome to use with jellyfin and streaming games from the pc.
Shield TV + extra storage + HDHomeRun tuner is still a great device for getting OTA TV.
The only downside is that more recent versions use the Google Android TV launcher which is filled with a garbage truck full of ads, often for things I would never want to watch (horror movies? Nope!). Yes you can replace the launcher, but that's a pain.
Would love to pay more for a device that has updated codec support, no ads or tracking, and is basically identical.
If plex was smart they’d sell a little box of their own and ditch all this faux-social media nonsense they’re slowly implementing. I do not care at all what my friends are watching. Not one bit. Just make it connect to servers. People are happy to pay for it clearly. How many beelinks have been sold just to run Jellyfin/Plex? I’d gladly buy a plex box for $100 - talk about a great Christmas present for friends and family!
Sidebar: I like Jellyfin but it is nowhere as turnkey as Plex. Otherwise I’d advocate for that too. That being said, I am slowly trying to get mine nice and stable and user-friendly because the way Plex is going does not give me great confidence about the next 2 to 3 years. But at least right now, it is by far the best experience out there.
Boxee tried to do both the box (which was literally called "Box") and the social media, and now it's dead.
Free momentum with a name like PlexBox, too.
I get I have no research or anything to back this up and maybe it’s a terrible idea ultimately, but based on the number of low tech literacy people I know personally who are either running their own Plex servers or attaching to others, an even more turnkey simple piece of hardware seems like something that could do reasonably well.
I wanted to do this and got a Shield last year but returned it because of a live TV bug with the Android Plex client. The programming guide stopped working and could only be fixed by restarting the app, but on Android quitting to the home screen keeps the app running and you can't force quit without going into menus. Sadly that's the OS and changing a launcher didn't fix it.
Actually you can double tap the home button on your remote to see all apps currently running, and can then click the close button on any one of them.
Google TV apps leak memory like a sieve, so it's pretty common to need to manually close all other apps to make the one you're trying to use work. Even !y wife just dies of now as soon as any one of the apps starts acting up.
Yeah that's not how you close an app on the Shield as was pointed out.
replacing launcher is gonna take you 10-15mins. 30 max if you aren’t a complete fool.
Projectivy has turned out to be my favourite launcher for the Shield TV after trying a bunch. It displays only the things I want to see, and has a great deal of options.
A million times this. I was so frustrated with how slow and ad-laden the default Shield launcher was. When I got it, it had no ads and was really snappy. Changing over to Projectivy (or any custom launcher really) fixed so many issues and made the device snappy again.
Throwing in my recommendation for the ultra minimalist Flauncher.
Oh, I've seen instructions, most of them start with "enable dev mode, then use adb to run ton of inscrutable commands that may or may not break the system over time".
Overall, it seems like a recipe to end up in an unknown state where you can no longer easily get updates and the only recovery is to wipe the system.
I've seen similar methods to "Clean up Windows 11", and it always seems like you're just putting the device into an unknown state. A few ads you can become blind to is not as bad as a totally broken system.
It does seem sketchy, but you can kind of guess what it's cleaning based on the name in the uninstall command. I just skim down to the section that says it's for removing the launcher and reqd those, then run only a few. The upside of the launcher thing is that you can setup a new default launcher and use it for a while without doing any adb. That let's you verify it's working for you first. And when you do finally remove the Google one, a lit if the ad and nloatware stuff no longer runs in the background even if you haven't removed it, so it's abh8ge perf0rmance benefit.
If you are uncomfortable with ADB on the CLI, you can look up the subject ''Debloat++ Shield TV'' as discussed in XDA Forums' Shield TV subforum for how to use an app for that.
Friend, you are #11 on the leaderboard here on HN and you stated that enabled dev mode is too scary. I promise you, you have the skillset to research that your worries are false and you can accomplish this easier than rebutting me on this. I believe in you.
Once your find your comfort, you might even find other items of joy that are being gatekept from you like SmartTube.
Friend, I never said it was scary, only that it was not maintainable and would put your system in an unknown state.
How different is this from say installing Debian, then picking out a bunch of globally installed software that supports "make install" and spraying files all over the root filesystem, then expecting the next run of "apt update" to work properly without things breaking?
Maybe my concerns are unwarranted, but the vast majority of Android mangling I've done over the years has not generally resulted in long-term stability, for a variety of reasons. Recall that the point of this article is that it's 10 year old hardware still in support!
It’s a single app. several are open source. I recommend flauncher. Once again, you are overly complicating a process that you do not know and are arguing from a point of ignorance. As you point out, it’s a 10 year old platform. It’s very stable and known. I am done trying to let you see what you are not interested in.
It's sad how few competitors have come out in a decade.
Now if only they would release an updated one.
Or alternatively: Apple could finally add support for bitstreaming to the Apple TV.
I'm kind of envious of how smooth and slick the ATV's UI is compared to the clunky UI on the ShieldTV, but I can't switch due to lack of bitstreaming support.
I thought about this but what would it have that is missing? Hardware decoding for newer codec like AV1 is one thing, but what else?
I have two of these one in my living room and one in my bedroom. They are the best devices for playing pirate Emby servers 4k Remuxes with dolby vision and dolby audio support direct play.
A refresh comes out I'm not sure I would buy one.
They're missing support for newer codecs and current WiFi standards, can't decode Dolby Vision FEL, and, unless something had changed recently, they don't keep up on security updates (even if they are pushing out other updates).
I suspect the last point would be true even if they launched new hardware, though.
Also the current hardware has lots of overheating problems that hugely affect performance (you have to re-paste the heat sink to the CPU after only 2 years), and thier Bluetooth antenna is so awful it makes Bluetooth controllers for gaming completely unusable due to lag from lost/dropped packets (and the remote constantly disconnect and reconnect randomly).
In addition to hardware support for more modern codecs, USB C seems to be an easy upgrade, it would also benefit from being able to detect frame rate to auto-switch for the HDMI (this likely needs hardware support).
More horsepower would be nice. More connectivity.
But I think most importantly: confirmation that this isn't a dead end product.
You mean "finished", as in complete
WPA3 support for one would be nice, so I don't have to create a separate, insecure, SSID just for it.
I'd love to buy a newer, better streaming box than the several I already have but after spending quite a bit of time investigating, the state of Android TV-based streaming boxes & sticks is awful. That's one reason NVidia's Shield (Tegra X1 SoC) is still well-regarded despite being a circa 2015 design (the 2019 rev was just a cost reduce/bug fix with the same performance).
Beyond that your choices are to either stick with the same mainstream Google/Amazon/WalMart boxes which are locked down and based on 5+ year-old SoC designs or go with second-tier boxes from Asian vendors on AliExpress/Amazon/eBay, all of which have some different combination of significant compromises:
* Don't work with certain DRM, streaming services or codecs
* Has unreliable manufacturer support (certain firmware works with some DRM/services, next rev fixes one but breaks another)
And even those are built on old hardware designs because there's been no significant advancement in set-top SoC performance for over 5 years. There are only a handful of set-top SoC makers (MediaTek, Amlogic, Rockchip, etc) and while they do occasionally introduce new chips, they mostly only update the video decoding block to support newer codec levels or DRM revisions while keeping the same ancient ARM CPU/GPU cores (or different cores with the same class of 2015-2018 performance).
A good example is the Ugoos AM6B Plus box someone in this thread mentioned as an option for certain use cases. It's been verified to decode DV7 with FEL BUT only works well with local files, not streaming services. And the Amlogic 922x SoC in that box is 5+ year-old tech (I have the same chip in an Amazon Fire TV Stick 4k Max (2nd gen)). The hardware performance of these boxes has been essentially frozen in time due to a 'perfect storm' of factors:
* Most consumers want the cheapest box they can get which plays the main streaming platforms (NetFlix, Amazon, Apple, Disney+, etc). As long as they get a picture of minimally acceptable quality, they don't know or care if the hardware/firmware/drivers properly support the better Dolbyvision levels or adds the enhancement layer or supports ICtCp color space, 12-bit tunneling through RGB or if it handles Source-Based Tone Mapping (SBTM) correctly. They also don't care about playing locally hosted files smoothly or horrendous latency in the Wifi/Ethernet driver stack that nerfs local game streaming.
* DRM is a shit show. The big Hollywood studios require streaming platforms to use specific encryption. So the streaming platform apps will only playback streams on SoCs which have been officially certified (or they nerf the stream to 720p). The certification process is onerous, costly and time-consuming for SoC makers.
* SoC makers, having run the certification gauntlet a couple times now, would like to do it again, approximately... never. On top of that mess, developing and maintaining firmware for their decoding block which properly supports the constantly evolving landscape of divergent codec levels, enhancement layers, color spaces, tone mapping, etc is hard, expensive and requires deep expertise across multiple domains. They just want to sell trays of cheap SoCs and see all the rest as a bottomless money pit eating their slim margins.
NVidia did all this with the Shield and it's grandfathered in on the DRM and they've done a decent job supporting some more recent codecs, levels and layers where they can. But the Tegra X1 platform is 10+ years old now - yet it's still slightly more performant than any other DRM-certified SoC to this day, which just shows what a mess this is.
Which is insanely frustrating if you understand technology platforms, care about actually seeing the full quality modern tech can deliver and would like to do so on a non-ancient hardware platform capable of other trivial things like locally streaming files with actual throughput >100mbps or streaming games with non-glacial latency. But that's just table stakes because the things which could be done with more modern hardware are super-interesting, like AI-based upscaling, frame gen, removing compression artifacts, reformatting content, on-device gaming, etc.
But using standard small form-factor PC/GPU hardware is a non-starter because of DRM certification. So... it would be great if NVidia would make a new Shield based on the new Tegra. But that's a huge new effort and, sadly, NVidia would crazy to divert resources or wafers from the AI-bubble cash printer to anything else - so I highly doubt it's going to happen.
What is it about mobile phone chipsets that makes the unsuitable for a TV stick or STB?
Is it that there is special TV-specific hardware like tuners, HW accelerated audio and video decoders, and PQ/AQ accelerators?
Apple has adapter their A15 chipsets for use in the Apple TV, so it seems possible. But obviously the Apple TV products don't have tuners, aren't driving a display natively, and probably don't have enough I/O interfaces to add all the extra hardware you'd need to embed it in a panel or STB.
It's a good question and I'm not actually sure as I'm not a hardware guy, just a user who's looked into these productz. So far, the popular Android TV set-top boxes (or sticks) I've seen use SoCs that seem dedicated to set-top applications. It may that mobile phone chipsets have different integration to support cellular modems and air interfaces.
There are some boxes which use use Android instead of Android TV but these tend to require using versions of the streaming apps made for mobile phones. I haven't really looked into these as they tend not to work well with remote controls so I haven't been interested.
honestly, shield tv changed how i interact with my tv and my opinion about Android TV (even though its market sucks)
It is how Android should be across all devices.
And yet, they dropped updates for my Shield Tablet basically immediately after I bought it…