NVIDIA Shield
- Thread starter Hateyou
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Threelions
Victory Through Harmony
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I use a private service for IPTV, no KODI. Can give you more info if you’re interested. For emulation I use Dolphin, M64 Plus FZ, redream, snes9x
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Vorph
Bronze Baronet of the Realm
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Finally broke down yesterday and bought a Pro while Amazon has Shields on sale for $20 off, and it's out for delivery today. Mainly because DV encoded rips are becoming more and more common and Plex on Roku doesn't even handle profile 5 let alone profile 7 (and even the Shield can't do FEL there). Still not sure if I can keep using Plex or if I need to switch to using something like Kodi for Nerds, Vimu, or whatever. I have a few DV files that are purple/green on my Roku to test on the new Shield today.
The other reason I bought it is that the computer I have been using as a Plex server for a long time now is my old gaming PC and probably uses more electricity in a year than the Shield Pro cost me. So my main question is, is there any reason not to just use the USB port on the Shield Pro? I don't have a NAS setup at the moment since it was previously just plugged into the Plex server, but I could create a NAS on either my router or Pi-hole if I needed to. Also, the drive is formatted NTFS and I really don't want to reformat it to something else. I've seen some posts on the Shield subreddit that suggest it's kind of a pain in the ass to access it from a PC when mounted as external storage, and obviously I will need to do that to copy over MKVs.
Next question, anyone here have an opinion on best launcher? I've seen people mention Wolf, ATV, FLauncher, etc. for getting rid of Google's ad-ridden shit that they've forced Nvidia to pass along.
The other reason I bought it is that the computer I have been using as a Plex server for a long time now is my old gaming PC and probably uses more electricity in a year than the Shield Pro cost me. So my main question is, is there any reason not to just use the USB port on the Shield Pro? I don't have a NAS setup at the moment since it was previously just plugged into the Plex server, but I could create a NAS on either my router or Pi-hole if I needed to. Also, the drive is formatted NTFS and I really don't want to reformat it to something else. I've seen some posts on the Shield subreddit that suggest it's kind of a pain in the ass to access it from a PC when mounted as external storage, and obviously I will need to do that to copy over MKVs.
Next question, anyone here have an opinion on best launcher? I've seen people mention Wolf, ATV, FLauncher, etc. for getting rid of Google's ad-ridden shit that they've forced Nvidia to pass along.
Kithani
Blackwing Lair Raider
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It’s not a massive pain in the ass to access but it’s probably not the ideal way. The most annoying thing is you can’t set your own password so I always have to log into the sheild to look it up. It used to be way worse a few years ago as it didn’t support SMB3 so speeds were very slow to transfer but that has been fixed and I don’t have any major complaints.
I currently have a 1 TB hard drive as external by USB to my 2015 or 2017 shield Pro and plan to upgrade to a 3TB soon it has been working well for me.
Hateyou
Not Great, Not Terrible
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I have my stuff on a usb external connected to the pro in the basement. I have it set up on the network, so I just click the shield shortcut on my PC and it opens as if it’s a drive on my PC. I just drag and drop, delete, copy paste, etc. as if it were a normal drive booked to the PC.
It was annoying to get it all set up with passwords and IP address and all that but once I got it all working it has been fine. I lost connection to it once, all I did to fix it was disable then reenable sharing it on the network via the shield options menu and it started working again. Think I’ve had it going for five or six months now.
The setup most likely sucked because it was my first time setting up a plex server and I had no idea what I was doing.
Vorph
Bronze Baronet of the Realm
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Ah ok, I'm still getting everything set up, so guess I'll give it a try connected directly to the Shield. I had read that people were sometimes unable to access anything but the 16GB of internal storage when the USB drive was mounted as external storage (and if you mount a drive as internal storage it encrypts the whole thing).
So far it's working great using my old Plex server. The Dolby Vision encodes I have that played in green & purple on Roku Plex are playing perfectly on the Shield. AI upscaling for non-4K stuff looks quite nice too.
So far it's working great using my old Plex server. The Dolby Vision encodes I have that played in green & purple on Roku Plex are playing perfectly on the Shield. AI upscaling for non-4K stuff looks quite nice too.
Intrinsic
Person of Whiteness
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Have you tested out any launchers yet? Interested to hear some feedback for changing mine. However I do absolutely nothing with it right now except Netflix et all.
Vorph
Bronze Baronet of the Realm
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Tried ATV so far, not realizing that it was the 'abandonware' launcher that Wolf fixed the issues with.
Going to try FLauncher next since it's actually on Play store. It's really basic, but I'm not sure I really care about anything besides the 7 or so icons I'll be using all the time. Have a feeling I'll probably end up using Wolf in the end though.
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Xexx
Vyemm Raider
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Meh my plex server is hosted in netherlands - i have way too many people accessing my server to keep it home/local so for $22 a month i just pay to have it hosted. I had some Shields but now i have the house filled with Apple TVs and im quite content with the switch.
Vorph
Bronze Baronet of the Realm
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I can see the appeal of a hosted Plex server if you share it with a lot of people or travel all the time, but Apple TV has no support for lossless/bitstream audio (AFAIK the Shield is the only one that does, other than maybe some obscure Chinese boxes that I'd never touch), and is only spec'ed for DV profile 5. Plus everything I've read says that the ATV Plex client outputs green/purple even in profile 5, just like on Roku devices, and the only way to get it to work at all is with the Infuse player.
In terms of having the broadest support for audio and video formats, CCwGTV seems to be the second best option at the moment, with the new Fire TV 4K Max being a close third. I actually bought a Fire TV 4K Max a couple days before the Shield went on sale to test against Roku, but the Shield sale also offered one-day delivery so they showed up at the same time and after trying out the Shield first I don't think there's even any reason to open the other box. As good as they might be for the $35-40 price tag, the sticks' lack of wired ethernet (and only 100BT even if you buy a dongle) alone is damned near a deal-breaker for me.
In terms of having the broadest support for audio and video formats, CCwGTV seems to be the second best option at the moment, with the new Fire TV 4K Max being a close third. I actually bought a Fire TV 4K Max a couple days before the Shield went on sale to test against Roku, but the Shield sale also offered one-day delivery so they showed up at the same time and after trying out the Shield first I don't think there's even any reason to open the other box. As good as they might be for the $35-40 price tag, the sticks' lack of wired ethernet (and only 100BT even if you buy a dongle) alone is damned near a deal-breaker for me.
Hateyou
Not Great, Not Terrible
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Yeah that was part of the setup issues I was having. Trying to figure out the right configuration of mounting it as internal or external. I think you also have to specify which USB port of the two you are using or it didn’t work right, like it didn’t auto detect what you were plugging in.
I can go look at my exact settings if you run into problems. If my dumb ass can figure it out though I’m sure you’ll be fine, you seem more IT savvy than I am.
Vorph
Bronze Baronet of the Realm
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Yeah, it's all working fine now. It detected the drive correctly, I guess since I was already using the first port for a Logitech dongle so I could type with a K400 instead of having to use the remote. Windows is reading and writing to the drive fine. Not the fastest connection ever, but it's good enough. As long as you don't try to do anything while it's doing something like a full scan of a new Plex library that is.
Got Sideload Channel Launcher 3 setup as my default launcher and other than some other minor visual stuff like wallpapers and layout I'm pretty happy with the Shield overall.
Got Sideload Channel Launcher 3 setup as my default launcher and other than some other minor visual stuff like wallpapers and layout I'm pretty happy with the Shield overall.
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Ossoi
Tranny Chaser
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I've always used my PC to store and play back all my downloaded movies/TV shows. I use MPC-HC and madVR to pass HDR and Atmos.
Everything is now spread across multiple HD's. I have a 2016 LG OLED which doesn't handle newer HDR formats. Recently got a Chromecast with Google TV. Is there a more efficient way of storing and playing everything back?
I installed Plex on the PC and Chromecast but a) I can't get atmos b) it still requires the PC to be on c) it worked fine the first night but recently 4k videos don't load across the network.
Also, I just bought a Hue TV lightstrip for the OLED and am using the Hue PC sync app. This works fine on Youtube and my downloaded movies to get the lights to sync - however because I don't have the Sync box Netflix content from the Chromecast won't sync. And Netflix via the PC app gives me Atmos but not 4k/HDR (maybe because my PC is too old)
Everything is now spread across multiple HD's. I have a 2016 LG OLED which doesn't handle newer HDR formats. Recently got a Chromecast with Google TV. Is there a more efficient way of storing and playing everything back?
I installed Plex on the PC and Chromecast but a) I can't get atmos b) it still requires the PC to be on c) it worked fine the first night but recently 4k videos don't load across the network.
Also, I just bought a Hue TV lightstrip for the OLED and am using the Hue PC sync app. This works fine on Youtube and my downloaded movies to get the lights to sync - however because I don't have the Sync box Netflix content from the Chromecast won't sync. And Netflix via the PC app gives me Atmos but not 4k/HDR (maybe because my PC is too old)