Roku Ultra vs Nvidia Shield Pro vs Apple TV 4k - Which one to choose?

[msankadi]

It's the problem with kodi.it fails to play true hd files of 60+ gb seemlessly.it crashes .it happens with Kodi on all devices

What! No it doesn't. I have an i3 nuc and regularly play 80gb plus downloaded 4k files on it. It has nto crashed even once till now. What device are yoh using it on?

 

[girishtd8262]

What! No it doesn't. I have an i3 nuc and regularly play 80gb plus downloaded 4k files on it. It has nto crashed even once till now. What device are yoh using it on?

It started after recent update.even I didn't have any problem before that.few of FM's here also facing the problem.

 

[msankadi]

It started after recent update.even I didn't have any problem before that.few of FM's here also facing the problem.

Oh maybe I didn't update I think it prompted for one week back... But you can easily find the older version and install that as long as you are on android or windows... Not sure if apple allows that

 

[Amarendra]

I am not assuming ATV is better for everyone, nor is the shield .. In fact most users do not need a dedicated streamer to begin with.
Pretty much any current gen TV will work absolutely fine with its built in apps too.


e.g. If you (just as an example) do not have an ATMOS audio setup and dont plan to setup one either - there is no point in you searching for ATMOS support on your streamer
or if you have an old TV that does not support native 24p and you do not have any plans to upgrade anytime soon either, you shouldn't be bothered about 24p on streamer either

Now take user A with the following priorities
- ATMOS on all major streaming platforms > Native 24p support > good fluid UI that's yield marked improvement over TV apps > occasional local playback support from pre-existing NAS/ plex server

and user B
- AIO machine that can work as a NAS + plex server > fluid UI (as above) > High usage of local playback but with support for occasional OTT and ok with judder management being handled on TV > ATMOS support

A should get ATV, B should get a shield - or would you disagree?

As an aside, i have a FS 4K - it was and still is a great device for the price .. However its retired as it did not tick all the boxes for me ..
Yet, I would have gladly picked it today too if I needed to improve the user experience on an older TV and had no need for the other bells & whistles.
Horses for courses, that's all

With you totally but only point is that I can't understand what bells and whistles are missing in the chromecast with googletv vis a vis the apple tv. Don't get me wrong- I am a recent convert to the Apple eco system and am loving it. Nvidia shield atleast adds some value through upscaling (recent version) and local usb playback.

 

[grebe925]

With you totally but only point is that I can't understand what bells and whistles are missing in the chromecast with googletv vis a vis the apple tv. Don't get me wrong- I am a recent convert to the Apple eco system and am loving it. Nvidia shield atleast adds some value through upscaling (recent version) and local usb playback.

I'm not a purist by any means but I downloaded the Apple TV app on my 2015 Nvidia Shield Pro and it picks up the ATMOS signal on my Marantz 1710 and displays 4K content with great detail and very little judder on my 85" 4K VU TV in HDR10. Obviously the improved upscaling is not necessary with 1 on 1 pixel mapping. What am I missing without the Apple TV device?

 

[Amarendra]

I'm not a purist by any means but I downloaded the Apple TV app on my 2015 Nvidia Shield Pro and it picks up ATMOS content and displays a great 4K picture on my 85" 4K VU TV in HDR10. Obviously the upscaling is not necessary. What am I missing without the Apple TV device?

Honestly nothing

 

[msankadi]

Obviously the improved upscaling is not necessary with 1 on 1 pixel mapping. What am I missing without the Apple TV device?

On a lighter note, You are missing the placebo effect of paying over the top to think you have the best possible experience

 

[superczar]

With you totally but only point is that I can't understand what bells and whistles are missing in the chromecast with googletv vis a vis the apple tv. Don't get me wrong- I am a recent convert to the Apple eco system and am loving it. Nvidia shield atleast adds some value through upscaling (recent version) and local usb playback.

I have not used the new CC so can't say for sure how well it performs.
Here are a few I can take an educated guess at:

Hard/Technical differences:

• Lack of 24p switching/ native frame rate matching: May not matter to a few, important for most, deal breaker for some
• 
  
• Significantly more powerful SoC - s905x is a fairly low end SoC while the A12 even in 2021 is at par with 2020 flagship Android SoCs

Soft/ usability aspects - This May not matter if you are not in their ecosystem - which is why I already mentioned that ATV makes more sense for ppl already using their broader product range. Many of these are arguably achievable on FS/CC too but through convoluted mechanisms that act as a deterrent to actual usage of a feature.

Also this is what I largely meant when I said bells & whistles.

• 1 click Audio switching to shared headphones - A lot of our (wife and I ) OTT watching happens late night and I really appreciate the ability to flip our individual headphones between phone/tablet/ laptop with a single click to any of the streamers as well
• Color calibration : Auto calibration of the color profile using the iPhone camera/ face scanner
• Default Audio routing to HomePod pair - This one is debatable - but a HomePod pair is quite possibly the cheapest way to add good quality audio to a TV that is not hooked to a fat AVR setup.
• Airplay2 for video
• Apple Music - selecting the ATV(s) from the control center on your phone will give you the same Music app that you use on your phone but as a full jukebox/remote for your fat audio setup
• Native remote in the control center - I have used the FS remote app on both android and iOS. this is not the same

To reiterate, these come down to individual needs & preferences.
For someone who does not have a functioning network stack, the local USB on shield will trump all of the above.
For others with an existing full network stack, local USB on shield is totally irrelevant
perhaps the same for upscaling abilities if they already have a capable upscaler on their video chain

Personally I probably place undue weightage on usability design.
If a value add feature requires me to do anything more than a few button clicks (after initial setup), I will likely never use it again after the initial excitement and thus for others will similar preferences, a lot of the things mentioned above will matter a lot.

 

[Love4sound]

It's the problem with kodi.it fails to play true hd files of 60+ gb seemlessly.it crashes .it happens with Kodi on all devices

My self and another FM I know use the latest version in kodi and it plays 40-90gb files with ease. Kodi is buggy at times and it needs reset. In my two years of usage the need to reset due to kodi being buggy was 3-4 times which isn’t a big deal.

It started after recent update.even I didn't have any problem before that.few of FM's here also facing the problem.

Even yesterday I used with the latest update. It’s not crashing and playing smoothly

 

[amrutmhatre90]

Kodi on Nvidia Shield is flawless, never crashed for me. I just make sure I close it before shutting down.

 

[girishtd8262]

My self and another FM I know use the latest version in kodi and it plays 40-90gb files with ease. Kodi is buggy at times and it needs reset. In my two years of usage the need to reset due to kodi being buggy was 3-4 times which isn’t a big deal.

Even yesterday I used with the latest update. It’s not crashing and playing smoothly

Cache clearance solved few times.

 

[Love4sound]

Cache clearance solved few times.

Sometimes it’s the movie file in the HD that gets corrupted. 2 months back it happened to me. All the movies in m2ts and MP4 formats kept crashing. Only way to play them was I had to start the movie from beginning and should not do any changes. If I pause and play or rewind or forward it will crash. I reset kodi,even factory reset my shield and still had the same issues. So I thought the issue was with hard disk and got a new one and guess what same issue. So I downloaded them again in MKV format and now it’s working flawlessly. Kodi should be smooth in playing 40-90 gb files at ease. Please do check every aspect cause something is wrong for sure.

 

[Amarendra]

Sometimes it’s the movie file in the HD that gets corrupted. 2 months back it happened to me. All the movies in m2ts and MP4 formats kept crashing. Only way to play them was I had to start the movie from beginning and should not do any changes. If I pause and play or rewind or forward it will crash. I reset kodi,even factory reset my shield and still had the same issues. So I though the issue was with hard disk and got a new one and guess what same issue. So I downloaded them again in MKV format and now it’s working flawlessly. Kodi should be smooth in playing 40-90 gb files at ease. Please do check every aspect cause something is wrong for sure.

Does Kodi have any advantage over PLEX ? I never had these problems when streaming over PLEX.

 

[Love4sound]

Does Kodi have any advantage over PLEX ? I never had these problems when streaming over PLEX.

Plex is also great but it’s slow compared to kodi in shield. For example if I forward or rewind there is buffering. Even when I play the movie it takes about 5-10 seconds to start the movie.Also the issues i mentioned above was there in plex as well since the issue was with the file and not the player. And another added advantage with kodi is real debrid. You don’t even have to download and play from HD. You can directly stream all movies ,tv shows and this includes blu ray remux files 40-90gb as well

To reiterate, these come down to individual needs & preferences.
For someone who does not have a functioning network stack, the local USB on shield will trump all of the above.
For others with an existing full network stack, local USB on shield is totally irrelevant
perhaps the same for upscaling abilities if they already have a capable upscaler on their video chain

Even for those with an existing network stack the shield offers more then what apple TV has to offer purely cause of KODI. There are lot of add-ons which many benefit from apart from the local usb play back. And bring real debrid in to the picture there is no comparison with apple tv. People who are going to watch only netflix, amazon prime, hot star etc and similar OTT alone will benefit from apple TV in a HT set up especially when it is an Atoms set up, Shield offers much more then just local usb play back. Not starting a war shield vs apple tv but just stating facts so people can choose the right device as per their usage pattern. The AI up-scaling is superior to most upscalers available.

 

[superczar]

Even for those with an existing network stack the shield offers more then what apple TV has to offer purely cause of KODI. There are lot of add-ons which many benefit from apart from the local usb play back. And bring real debrid in to the picture there is no comparison with apple tv. People who are going to watch only netflix, amazon prime, hot star etc and similar OTT alone will benefit from apple TV in a HT set up especially when it is an Atoms set up. Shield offers much more then just local usb play back. Not starting a war shield vs apple tv but just stating facts so people can choose the right device as per their usage pattern. The AI up-scaling is superior to most upscalers available.

It is again a question of preferences and priorities, No?

Don't get me wrong... I have (rather had) been using kodi since xbmc days
Loved it for many years ...almost a decade i guess
In fact till 4-5 years ago was very happy running openelec Kodi flashed on a s905x box.. even set that up for many friends.
I also used plex intermittently but would always go back to Kodi.

Fast forward to now and I would not go back to it over infuse for local storage playback .. Several reasons why but eventually it boils down to Preferences and priorities

 

[Love4sound]

It is again a question of preferences and priorities, No?

I clearly mentioned for people with an atmos HT set up

Don't get me wrong... I have (rather had) been using kodi since xbmc days
Loved it for many years ...almost a decade i guess
In fact till 4-5 years ago was very happy running openelec Kodi flashed on a s905x box.. even set that up for many friends.
I also used plex intermittently but would always go back to Kodi.

Fast forward to now and I would not go back to it over infuse for local storage playback .. Several reasons why but eventually it boils down to Preferences and priorities

Now let me share an example. See the screenshots of how real debrid works using video ad ons on kodi. I can directly search for any movies or tv shows. I have shared example of me browsing by years. Opened Wonder Woman and the last image is the links for you to directly stream or download it to the HD connected to shield. It clearly shows the file size, format and codecs. See how good it is? So you cannot say shield is irrelevant for people who don’t need usb play back. Apple TV cannot trump this unless your only usage is OTT which is again available with shied as well, with the Apple TV being better in OTT quality is what I heard back from owners of both

 

[superczar]

I clearly mentioned for people with an atmos HT set up

Now let me share an example. See the screenshots of how real debrid works using video ad ons on kodi. I can directly search for any movies or tv shows. I have shared example of me browsing by years. Opened Wonder Woman and the last image is the links for you to directly stream or download it to the HD connected to shield. It clearly shows the file size, format and codecs. See how good it is? So you cannot say shield is irrelevant for people who don’t need usb play back. Apple TV cannot trump this unless your only usage is OTT which is again available with shied as well with Apple TV being better in OTT quality is what I heard back from owners of both

You and I are on the same page for the most part...
Personally I have by and large moved away from torrents and usenet unless, unless something is not available on OTT/ renting at all - several reasons for it , including I'd rather avoid ahem content if I can.

But when that scenario occurs (raised by wolves is a recent example that comes to mind), I have to resort to other mechanisms.

Now one could go the realdebrid way like you suggested.

However there are several other automation mechanisms to do this which can be better or worse than RD (which I have not used)
For example open source PVRs like Sonarr and Radarr will automate it to the extent that you just key in your preferred TV show and preferred quality - and it will auto grab everything you need as and when they air,

In fact since you are into this a lot more than I am , I would strongly suggest looking up these two PVRs- you may or not end up preferring them over realdebrid but you should definitely try them out

 

[Love4sound]

You and I are on the same page for the most part...
Personally I have by and large moved away from torrents and usenet unless, unless something is not available on OTT/ renting at all - several reasons for it , including I'd rather avoid ahem content if I can.

But when that scenario occurs (raised by wolves is a recent example that comes to mind), I have to resort to other mechanisms.

Now one could go the realdebrid way like you suggested.

However there are several other automation mechanisms to do this which can be better or worse than RD (which I have not used)
For example open source PVRs like Sonarr and Radarr will automate it to the extent that you just key in your preferred TV show and preferred quality - and it will auto grab everything you need as and when they air,

In fact since you are into this a lot more than I am , I would strongly suggest looking up these two PVRs- you may or not end up preferring them over realdebrid but you should definitely try them out

Yeah real debrid is just one of many. I mostly prefer as it is really cheap and lately been the most used in the kodi community. They have an official twitter account and are very active with all the latest news on upgrades,downtime etc. will check out sonarr and thanks for the suggestion.People can use what’s convenient for them be it Shield or Apple TV. Just putting the differences and advantages out in the open for others to make a decision.

 

[msankadi]

You and I are on the same page for the most part...
Personally I have by and large moved away from torrents and usenet unless, unless something is not available on OTT/ renting at all - several reasons for it , including I'd rather avoid ahem content if I can.

But when that scenario occurs (raised by wolves is a recent example that comes to mind), I have to resort to other mechanisms.

Now one could go the realdebrid way like you suggested.

However there are several other automation mechanisms to do this which can be better or worse than RD (which I have not used)
For example open source PVRs like Sonarr and Radarr will automate it to the extent that you just key in your preferred TV show and preferred quality - and it will auto grab everything you need as and when they air,

In fact since you are into this a lot more than I am , I would strongly suggest looking up these two PVRs- you may or not end up preferring them over realdebrid but you should definitely try them out

I am confused as to the use case...on the one hand you are recommending spending 3x-4x more for video quality. On the other hand, you are saying you have moved away from proper blurays to OTT?
The OTT 4k is nowhere good enough for proper 4k. If you look at the bitrate for 4k on OTT platforms including apple tv it will be 1/3-1/4th of the bitrates of untouched bluray releases...if I remember right it is actually 15-25mbps bitrate for ott vs bitrate for untouched blurays can be as high as 128mbps

So, if actual video quality is the concern, surely a 3x-4x higher bitrate source video stream would be much better compared to a powerful soc...what will the soc do if the source itself is poor?

 

[superczar]

I am confused as to the use case...on the one hand you are recommending spending 3x-4x more for video quality. On the other hand, you are saying you have moved away from proper blurays to OTT?
The OTT 4k is nowhere good enough for proper 4k. If you look at the bitrate for 4k on OTT platforms including apple tv it will be 1/3-1/4th of the bitrates of untouched bluray releases...if I remember right it is actually 15-25mbps bitrate for ott vs bitrate for untouched blurays can be as high as 128mbps

So, if actual video quality is the concern, surely a 3x-4x higher bitrate source video stream would be much better compared to a powerful soc...what will the soc do if the source itself is poor?

While the above argument makes for a classic example of cherry-picking but I will let that pass

Just to clarify though, The availability and cost of BR disks are an issue so I presume you are talking OTT vs BR remuxes ?