B-1
Honorary Master
- Joined
- Apr 17, 2020
- Messages
- 11,337
- Reaction score
- 14,569
When?
-
Join the MyBroadband community
South Africa’s biggest forum. Discuss, discover, and connect with thousands of members.
-
Question of the Day: What is your non-negotiable item, device, or app for international travel?
Best TV box?
- Thread starter qscwbt
- Start date
When?
Crumbl0x
Expert Member
- Joined
- Mar 18, 2020
- Messages
- 1,147
- Reaction score
- 681
Yep you get it!
I used to run a ~R7000 HTPC for a long while, mainly offline media, but when services started to take prevalence and began targeting media boxes more and more with support for TV-specific applications and extensions, I instead just opted for the Ematic Jetstream @ R1100 for live TV and some apps, and an ODROID N2+ @ R1700 for local media, which (when running CoreELEC) supports all codecs under the sun and has flawless audio, refresh rate and resolution switching, all while using only 3.6W of power
NUCs I find these days as super mini-general purpose PC's (especially with AMD hardware) but I've longed stopped recommending them as pure media boxes just for ease alone.
Azg
Expert Member
The colour issues on the 2019 Shield were fixed quite early on after release by a software update.My past experiences with Amazon have convinced me that Amazon are easier to deal with than most local suppliers
As an example of what might be a tad more difficult to resolve:
As for Plex, it is probably the best Plex player available.
agentrfr
Executive Member
We have an appleTV, NUC and shield. Easiest to use in general is the shield if I had to say, but it is all pretty close
The NUC has a 4k120 4:4:4 output, so it does the HDR stuff flawlessly. With a little fandagling, you can get the tone mapping correct in mpv for SDR->HDR (Rec2100 - which even today VLC still doesnt f*&%% get right pos), which makes a huge difference for things that are only SDR sources. I'd even put my hat in that HDR makes a bigger difference to SDR than 4k does to 1080p. Of course it does all the things like dolby DTS raw passthrough to the external sound system perfectly (thank goodness for EARC on the TV). It is also nice to know I can play all my linux distros natively using it an not have to worry about harware codec support (who knows - HDR10+ and dolbyvision are cool now, but hybrid-log-gamma dynamic metadata is probably going to be a thing going forward)
We also use the NUC as an emulator (mostly PS1 and Switch) and to stream games from the PC to the TV (ala steam or parsec) which is quite cool. We have two wireless xbone controllers bound to the NUC, which I think you can do on a shield but we never tried. Side note: It Takes Two was a fabulous game to play together on the couch
The shield is mostly used for netflix tbh - just sit down and click play. I immagine that is what most people want. Shield is also pretty seamless streaming phone/tablet screen or VLC playlist over the network
AppleTV exists just for the apple people that prefer that. The netflix apple app is painful with the appletv remote. The only redeeming thing that it does better than the NUC or shield is the DSTV control using an iphone / ipad app natively.
One thing to keep in mind, is that the NUC can play anything if it can be displayed in a webpage or a linux distro. The shield and appletv require that certain thing to be supported (for example, maybe crunchyroll magically stops working on the shield one day - then what?)
The NUC has a 4k120 4:4:4 output, so it does the HDR stuff flawlessly. With a little fandagling, you can get the tone mapping correct in mpv for SDR->HDR (Rec2100 - which even today VLC still doesnt f*&%% get right pos), which makes a huge difference for things that are only SDR sources. I'd even put my hat in that HDR makes a bigger difference to SDR than 4k does to 1080p. Of course it does all the things like dolby DTS raw passthrough to the external sound system perfectly (thank goodness for EARC on the TV). It is also nice to know I can play all my linux distros natively using it an not have to worry about harware codec support (who knows - HDR10+ and dolbyvision are cool now, but hybrid-log-gamma dynamic metadata is probably going to be a thing going forward)
We also use the NUC as an emulator (mostly PS1 and Switch) and to stream games from the PC to the TV (ala steam or parsec) which is quite cool. We have two wireless xbone controllers bound to the NUC, which I think you can do on a shield but we never tried. Side note: It Takes Two was a fabulous game to play together on the couch
The shield is mostly used for netflix tbh - just sit down and click play. I immagine that is what most people want. Shield is also pretty seamless streaming phone/tablet screen or VLC playlist over the network
AppleTV exists just for the apple people that prefer that. The netflix apple app is painful with the appletv remote. The only redeeming thing that it does better than the NUC or shield is the DSTV control using an iphone / ipad app natively.
One thing to keep in mind, is that the NUC can play anything if it can be displayed in a webpage or a linux distro. The shield and appletv require that certain thing to be supported (for example, maybe crunchyroll magically stops working on the shield one day - then what?)
Herr der Verboten
Honorary Master
For its the seamlessness of running a vpn in the background and game streaming.
Herr der Verboten
Honorary Master
For what?
Crumbl0x
Expert Member
- Joined
- Mar 18, 2020
- Messages
- 1,147
- Reaction score
- 681
Most boxes have 2GB and get by if you use one or two active applications in the foreground, but it's generally recommended to look from 4GB if you plan on running a few services like a proxy and casting utilities in the background without it cutting out. That said, Android usually doesn't handle memory management well on top of bad OEM parameters for aggressively killing applications so it might only be marginally better. The Shield I think doesn't present this problem, AppleTV doesn't support these utilities anyway regardless of great memory management and for NUC's, you'd like 8GB just to bide nicely with everything and some extra cache for 4K buffering if need be.
qscwbt
Expert Member
- Joined
- Feb 24, 2014
- Messages
- 3,437
- Reaction score
- 2,255
the reason I need the tv box is my smart tv runs out of memory. Example. I am watching something on catchup. If I pause forward or rewind the tv says "TV will restart app to clear up memory". This happens often now even when just watching. (only dstv online) So my tv runs out of memory. So I need a tv box that will n0t run out off memory.
Herr der Verboten
Honorary Master
I never had that issue with the nv shield pro and it had hbomax, vrv, youtube and netflix running if I weren't using moonlight for game streaming. The only 'issue' I had went away by getting a decent hdmi cable. However, I do not run plex from it I run it from my main pc, I was too lazy to move it over. It has 3 gig memory, but I would say get the one with the most if there is a model with more?
I see that you need to use very specific apps to play Dolby Vision/HDR on Netflix: https://help.netflix.com/en/node/42384
Does it do frame rate matching?
Again when I read your post about the NUC, it sounds complicated.
Why not just your cellphone?
If the TV is smart, you should be able to cast. I honeslty do not see the need for a TV box anymore?
Unless its not a smart TV, in which case, get a ChromeCast, And still just cast anything and everything from your phone.
If the TV is smart, you should be able to cast. I honeslty do not see the need for a TV box anymore?
Unless its not a smart TV, in which case, get a ChromeCast, And still just cast anything and everything from your phone.
agentrfr
Executive Member
You can run the netflix wepage in Edge and it gets HDR, or the windows store app and it also gets HDR. I find that the difference between HDR and HDR10/DV are marginal at netflix's bitrates
The TV has VRR, so frame rate matching is not a problem? - it simply displays natively when fullscreen
The NUC is more of a toolbox of things you can do, of which you are in control. If it isnt your thing to play with that then a shield pro is prolly your best option
agentrfr
Executive Member
HDR, HDR10/DV, 'proper' surround sound and bitrates higher than 5 mbps avc
Does the Chrome Cast Ultra not support this?HDR, HDR10/DV, 'proper' surround sound and bitrates higher than 5 mbps avc
But for Audiophiles I would agree, That leaves us with 99.5% of the population who IMO does not need a TV box if your TV is smart & you have an android cellphone.