It’s my birthday, and I want the upscaling, the single platform, the flexibility (sailing the high seas), but it’s soooo old. $200? IDK
It’s my birthday, and I want the upscaling, the single platform, the flexibility (sailing the high seas), but it’s soooo old. $200? IDK
Despite being 4 years old it’s still one of the better options, though with caveats. The one thing that it has that nothing else really has is real time AI upscaling. I’ve stopped using my Shield, and went back to using Roku boxes and Raspberry Pi 4B’s… so it’s hard for me to really recommend the Shield.
Nvidia has pretty much abandoned GeForce Experience, so despite this being a selling point for the device, you’d be happier using Moonlight + Sunshine even if you did buy a Shield. The Nvidia Shield also has terrible input lag for bluetooth controllers. I think this because of how Android blocks direct access to hardware, and so it introduces input lag. So if you actually want to use GeForce Experience, it means you’d have to buy and 8bitdo USB stick, or pay for VirtualHere to fix the controller problem. I personally setup a Raspberry Pi 4B with Moonlight and I’m much happier with that.
For Plex, I’d be hesitant. Over on Reddit I keep reading about how people have attempted using the Shield to run their home media, and it’s usually followed with regret. I didn’t get into streaming locally until after I stopped using my Shield, though so I can’t personally attest to that. Instead, I’m using a second Pi to run a NAS and Jellyfin… and again, the Shield might be preferable if you want everything in one unit.
So, I can’t exactly recommend the Nvidia Shield… but at the same time I don’t think most people would have the time to build their own Raspberry Pi based solutions either.
I’ve had an overall good experience with Plex and my Shield, though in my case I only use Shield as a client and my NAS hosts my server. Of the commercial streamers you can buy, it has some of the broadest video/audio format support. A lot of other options don’t support lossless audio like TrueHD or DTS-MA.
But can you completely copy the UX of a shield pro with raspberry pi?
I mean, I can grab the TV’s remote, or the shields remote, and whichever I turn on, both of them turn on. It also wakes up from sleep faster than the TV turns on. I can use the TV’s remote to control the shield. Basically it works completely transparently.
It also makes it work really nice with android phones. I can cast spotify, youtube, google photos, or the screen onto the TV, and it works better than the TV’s cast with the apps.
I used Plex and while it worked nice for most of the time, I got fed up with it trying to steer me away from local streaming, and having a hard time finding my way back to it in the therrible UI. I set up Jellyfin and couldn’t be happier, HDR, Dolby Vision, 4K streaming just works perfectly.
The UI is much faster than a flagship LG TV too…
What I’m asking is… is it possible to set up an RPi to work this seamlessly and user friendly? With apps like netflix, hbo max, jellyfin, etc, with a remote and nice and easy UI so anyone can use it on their first try?
There are IrDA adapters which can let it react to your remote, so yes
The UX wouldn’t be a problem. Transcoding may be, though.
I use the original shield controller and it’s great with no input lag. I never got the headphone jack on it working though.
I am usually not very exigent with input lag, but I noticed this when I tried it with my Shield, I won’t deny what you just say, but to me it did great help to turn the gaming mode in my TV, after all the input lag is almost imperceptible for me.