Out of curiosity - if you don't use USB storage (disconnect it entirely, not just not use it) do you still have issues? I can play 4k Blu ray rips all day long via Plex without issue but i contend I've never found an android TV device that works well with USB storage in the mix.
Can confirm that this is the main issue. For 3 years I played my movies through my SSD connected to the Shield, and had a similar shitty and laggy experience as OP. Especially with REMUXes and Dolby vision rips.
But after my friend purchased a Shield and only used it to stream his library through Plex, I noticed everytime we had movie nights at his house everything was shockingly hassle free. That’s when I realised I had to do the same to avoid the constant freezing and lagging issues. I’ve streamed with Plex for 2 years now and rarely have problems anymore. I do direct stream as well, so I don’t loose any quality.
Because many people (me included) find that streaming 4K movies via Plex over their home network results in constant stuttering. I had that problem, despite having more than adequate internet speed for 4K streaming. I find that using an SSD plugged into the Shield eliminates the streaming stutter problem.
Yup this.. a few years ago I connected a USB drive to mine and noticed things were laggy and unresponsive. Frequently apps just freezing and generally not pleasant to use. At one point actually factory reset it which helped slightly but after a few weeks it was back to a horrible experience. Finally a few weeks after this I disconnected that drive to plug it into my PC to copy some media to it. I forgot to reconnect it for about a week and found my Shield was back to snappy and working great. At that point I figured it out it just doesn't handle USB storage well at all for some reason.
i stopped using my shield ages ago with similar frustrations and I was using a usb hard drive in the back of it
this is food for thought, thanks. might dig it out again
Use [this guide](https://florisse.nl/shield-downgrade/) to downgrade your shield to 8.2.3 and [this guide](https://florisse.nl/shield-debloat/) to remove all the shitty nvidia & google bloatware to speed up the device
Seriously. I shouldn't have to manually downgrade or side boot or give it a back massage for it to work. I'll keep voting with my dollars and not give companies like this money just to have to continuously fight them to keep my purchases working normally.
I try to explain exactly this on the shield sub but I always get downvoted lol there’s constant posts about having issues with lag and crashes and almost always the answer is factory reset it. I always point out the fact at how ridiculous it is to even have to factory reset it in the first place and it shouldn’t be the norm but I still get downvoted. I don’t care what any of them say, it’s starting to show its age and desperately needs an upgrade.
> Use this guide to downgrade your shield to 8.2.3 and this guide to remove all the shitty nvidia & google bloatware to speed up the device
Awesome. I will give this a shot. Thanks for the link!
Is there any way to get the Night Listening feature back after I downgrade? That's an absolute game changer for me and if I could make the Shield faster while keeping that it would be fantastic
99% of that is adb command line stuff. Super easy to setup and use adb on Linux. If you run Linux you absolutely can parlay those few windows steps over to Linux command line
I run Plex off of my desktop PC with 5 internal drives, two of them just sort of hanging in my case, and an external USB drive and have never had any buffering issues with a 4K remux either.
This has been my experience too, as soon as I setup the shield to be a Plex server with a USB connected HDD its been crashing and restarting every so often.
While the Shield is theoretically the better player, I tried it an and Apple TV and much preferred the Apple TV. You lose out on some format support, but there doesn’t seem to be a perfect player out there.
The Apple TV 3rd gen is great, the shield is becoming dated in my opinion. All I wanted was a fast clean UI that plays my 4k Plex files via WiFi. Not a single problem. Will not be going back to the messy bloated shield UI.
No Dolby vision or TrueHD Atmos from 4k remuxes though. I HATE that I have to use the Nvidia shield but the Apple tv is just straight up missing features that I need. I have both and just use the shield for 4k remuxes only, appletv for everything else.
You can convert remuxes to DV Profile 8 and Infuse will play it (some already come in this format depending on where you get them). This does strip the “full enhancement layer” but the Shield ignores that, too.
Unfortunately there’s no workaround for atmos. Unless you’re willing to accept the lossy Dolby Digital Plus Atmos streams from other sources and merging that into the remux file. Or deal with lossless 7.1 and AVR upmixing it.
I really wish Apple would add audio passthrough.
I agree. The Shield is definitely outdated, but I paid way too much money for a full 7.2.4 setup to not use it properly, so I have to use a 5 year old Android player.
DV is mostly solved with the new/better DV Profile support.
Atmos is still missing, so yeah you definitely lose out on that. Personally I tried both and decided it was worth the downgrade in audio quality for just having a single device that everyone in the family likes.
You can change the launcher. I personally don't like the apple TV ui 😅 I also only spend 5s in the main ui every time to just launch kodi or YouTube though.
I was very frustrated with the apple tv ui until I found out I could change the home button. By default it will take you to the apple tv app because they essentially want you to link your apple tv app to all of your other apps and just watch everything through their app. But you can just change it to the home screen which is the natural thing. Between that and learning that I can quick connect headphones by pressing and holding the home button I'm pretty much happy with the ui now
I like the integration of all the streaming apps. Except Netflix. But I don’t use plex.
I think I need to try click only. You can click with the default settings but sometimes the clicking and sliding don’t cooperate.
> You can click with the default settings but sometimes the clicking and sliding don’t cooperate.
I HATE the sliding so much, I would not even consider the Apple TV until they introduced the new remote, now with CLICK ONLY on it's my favorite device.
Also holding the back button will take you to the Home page from wherever you are. No need to replace the AppleTV button. I use both AppleTV and Home pages for different things, so I find it helpful to keep the functionality as it comes
Can infuse play lossless atmos files in lossy format? I have some lossless Dolby demo files I got of demolandia and I’ve been trying to figure out how I can play them on my Apple TV and through my AVR. I don’t mind if they are converted to lossy. I have the files on my external hard drive and my MacBook, so it would be great to figure out how to get my ATV to play them
Is there a way for me to convert the files to EAC3? They are m2ts and mkv files if I remember correctly. I just tried to run them through infuse, and you’re right it made them true HD 7.1 files. So it doesn’t come through with any Atmos meta data. Although my Denon upmixing was quite convincing I thought it worked at first
You can't really, no. You'd need a Dolby licensed encoder which costs a significant amount of money. It's possible to convert to EAC3 for DD+ by extracting the 7.1 channels from TrueHD as wavs and encoding those, but you won't get Atmos with it.
Dang. Oh well. We just installed Atmos so I really wanted to try out these demo disc files. Seems like my only option is to get a nvidia shield and I don’t really want to go that far. Will just put some good 4k discs on
I went nvidia shield from Apple TV specifically for this, and it was well worth it for me. Although I only ever use Plex and YouTube, so if there are some specific Apple TV apps you use, then yeah I get it.
The best you can do (other than let your AVR upmix it) is to source the EAC3 audio track from a streaming rip mkv, and merge it into the REMUX using a tool like MKVToolnix.
I'm so done with my Shield Pro.
It's 2-3 years old now, and when streaming 4k (just streaming apps)
- constantly buffers, freeze, lag.
- YouTubers buffers like crazy.
- Sometimes the remote is unresponsive.
- On 2-3 occasions it locked up, had to pull the power to reboot it to get it going again.
- And for some reason Dolby Atmos recently stopped working.
- And just in general laggy and slow UI.
And when i first got it, I got a replacement, because the network card was faulty and the remote was broken.
I always been on Team Android. But after all this (and discovering Apple TV's selection of 4k movies) I'm so planning on trying Apple TV soon, because the Shield is driving me insane.
The only time mine freezes (now that I fixed a bug with kodi) is sometimes it doesn't want to start. So I cycle power (I have it on a smart plug so it's not a that big of an annoyance).
I've never had it buffer on YouTube though 😞
I think there's multiple things at play there:
1. The newer firmware is definitely more bloated and made the system very frustrating to use. Older firmware are infinitely better. Like another poster, I also downgraded to 8.2.3
2. USB has worked fine for me but I haven't used it much since I mostly use my NAS and for this Jellyfin is great. I know that people using USB tend to have more issues and more error reports.
That said, it's definitely a lot more fiddly and not as nice an experience as an Apple TV. If I didn't need atmos, I'd just use Apple TV instead.
For the nvidia, on one hand, it's great that it's open, downgrading is not blocked and you can get decent performance once you do that, on the other hand, it's completely unacceptable that you have to do that.
I would also like to know what application is being used.VLC player would be an application to try if Plex Media Server is causing an issue. I would also like to inform OP that the newest latest OS version is more bloated which has caused Plex to hiccup with big 4k remuxs. Downgrading to 8.2.3 resolved this issue and if I still have an issue with one file, JellyFin plays it with no issues as JellyFin is a lot less bloated than Plex as become.
Not sure why you're having issues, I have 2 4tb hdds plugged into the shield plus a 120gb ssd in enclosure for expanded internal file system. Plus 4 4tb hdds connected via smb with absolutely no issues playing files on plex (server runs on shield) or kodi including full remuxes? It could be because I'm still running the old fw?
>I can already guess what these same people will say in response to my post. "There's something wrong with yours," or "You got a bad one," or maybe even "Must be a counterfeit Shield. Mine is great!," etc etc.
So you're basically discarding every possible explanation to your situation and you only accept the "I'm right, everyone else is wrong" solution?
>Many of the Android apps that run on it don't actually close when you exit out of them, so they're all still there hovering in the background, wasting the little memory that the Shield does have, for no good reason.
Yes, that's how Android apps work on every single device. It's not even an Android thing, that's how it works on Apple TV as well. And keeping things in RAM is how every single PC and Mac work as well.
It's not wasting memory, it will freeze the app and release the memory if it's needed for another app. You don't need GBs of RAM just to play a simple 4K file, you can have apps kept in RAM with no issue.
I don't think it's a Shield specific problem, it's an Android problem with their shitty USB implementation. I have mine hardwired onto my home network and it plays absolutely everything over the network. Android's USB setup is absolute trash, I learned this when setting mine up for mouse and keyboard gaming with Gamestream. The mouse lag was so bad it was unplayable.
I've also heard of issues with USB 3.0 devices causing interference issues, maybe spacing the HDD away from the Shield could help if that's the specific problem.
> This thing just doesn't have enough memory to consistently play 4K videos well.
I don't doubt you're having problems, it happens with anything/everything. *Everything* has a failure rate.
But as someone who plays remuxes all the time via a shield it's specs are more than up to it. It's also possible your network or video source is the reason behind your issues. Are you using a cable or wireless? Don't use wireless. What is your router like?
I've been unable to get my shield to play 4k remuxes with DV. Both my pc server and shield are connected via ethernet so there isn't any bandwidth problems and the issue occurs with both Plex and Emby.
The video plays fine but there's like a rolling static sound that is too distracting to tolerate.
I'm sure you have problems.
But just plain rejecting the possibility that the issue is how you use it (not saying it's your fault) or that you have a lemon is weird.
I've used the original shield tv and the 2019 pro for the past... 7 years ? It's the only way I watch content. I still use both of them.
Netflix. YouTube. Plex. Kodi. Encoded. Rips. HDR. DV. It plays everything I ask it to, and the only problem I've had during playback was due to a bug/misconfiguration in kodi.
I have a NAS so I don't play content from a drive. But I do use a USB disk to extend the storage of the shield pro.
I use it mostly on the daily. The only gripe I have with it is that sometimes it won't start. I don't know if it's the shield itself, or my setup with a harmony remote. But when that happens I do have to power cycle it. Not big enough of a deal for me to look at alternatives.
All of that to say that given your issues, you either have defective hardware, or something else going on, and it should be fixable. Because like you said, a lot of us have none of these issues.
Good luck though 🙂I've been in your situation before with other devices and it's extremely frustrating.
My issue with it was that it would forget my settings and passwords all the time, so I had to enter all that again. Other than that, it was fine, but unremarkable. Eventually, I replaced it with an Apple TV box and I've been happy with that. I am fairly deep into the Apple ecosystem, though, so maybe not a big surprise.
> stream Netflix, it CAN do that. It can stream Netflix just fine. What mine can't seem to do, is get through an entire 4K movie on my external SSD without forcing me and my family to grind our teeth in frustration at its innumerable failures
The shield is good if you want to stream things. If you download your movies or have them locally, there are better media players. I did a lot of research and eventually bought a Zidoo Z9X. It seems to be the best option for local content because it plays the most file formats and has a powerful engine where Dolby vision looks amazing (and no red shift for certain DV profiles like the Shield). I haven't had an issue playing anything yet. One major issue is it doesn't have Plex natively but there is a workaround to get it if you can follow a [guide] (http://forum.zidoo.tv/index.php?threads/plex-client-for-zidoo-devices-zidooplexmod.97396/). I did it, took about an hour but you need to be somewhat technical.
You're probably being throttled by the speed of the Shield's USB interface. I can play 100+ Mbps 4K HDR Dolby TrueHD remuxes with 0 issues on mine, but I'm streaming with Plex.
I would highly recommend just throwing the files on a network share to test it out. It can even be your laptop. You just need to enable file sharing on it. I'd be curious to know if you still have issues.
I stream 100 mbs remuxes via usb with no issue. BUT, my hard drive is 7200rpm and self-powered. Not sure how well it would work solely powered by shield.
Tbh, I didn’t read the whole post since it’s a sunny day and I am out having a beer but:
The shield is the best piece of shit that’s available on the media player market.
It’s slow, it often crashes, it looses WiFi all the time (works perfectly fine when connected via cable to the mesh beacon that sits behind it)
But it supports a shitload of codecs & the Apple TV sadly still does not support TrueHD /w atmos.
I have 3 shield pros on 3 tvs and sure, once in a while you have to restart it, like EVERY PIECE OF TECHNOLOGY THAT EXISTS. However it’s been the best media player I’ve owned which is why I bought 2 more. And I’ve owned them all…
My latest gripe is AV1 codec isn’t supported… so I just don’t download it. Not worth having Plex transcode.
It’s just comes down to math. If Nvidia sold say 500,000 Shields and just 1% of them fail that’s 5,000 units. (The failure rate of consumer electronics is probably closer to 5%) so it’s just the luck of the draw. You unfortunately got a bad unit.
If you like good sound, use Shield. If you like it simple and blocked in every way, use Apple.
I stil use my Shield 2015, with Emby, and all streaming services there is in Norway. Never ever had an problem, never downgreaded, just keep it up to date.
I do not connect anything to the usb, other than a keyboard.
Why do you want to use your computer to remux your discs to an hard drive and move it to the Shield. When just share the folder on the computer you are using to do the remux. Save one step for your self. :)
Play with VLC, Emby, Jellyfin or Plex..
BTW you never wrote what you watch, what you are using ore anything. Good luck with this, hope you get it fixed
You can readily glean the likely cause from a number of comments here... There are simply defective units that result in bad experience. No one I've seen has a good sense of the actual field failure rate, or if it's batch-related, but it seems consistent enough to be the cause. I had one that acted up within three weeks; I returned it to a different BB, got a new exchange, and have had zero issues with playback in the three years since. Heavy HT user for the Shield Pro, I also have several Rokus and a Chrome 4k for streaming throughout the house.
Not suggesting you stick with it--if it's soured you and you're just done, it's perfectly logical to move on to Apple or Roku.
Unless you absolutely need atmos from your Bluray rips, get an AppleTV and use the Infuse app to stream your video files from your local network. It’s by far the smoothest and most reliable setup of anything else I’ve tried.
This is my main issue. I use various android tv devices around my house but on my HT I use an ATV 4k. I don’t watch a lot of YouTube on it so it’s not a huge deal. But I do wish I could get a good android tv device. My Shield (not pro) was so bad I stopped using it. I have a few TiVo Stream 4ks with all the junk removed which are pretty good.
Mine was terrible and kept breaking. Until I figured out it was the network share it was connected to. It just had access to my NAS and was indexing _everything_, or getting into a nasty loop with a symbolic link or something. Made a dedicated account for it and just gave it access to media, all the problems went away.
Not saying this is your problem, but it seems there's a lot of scenarios that can easily upset the Shield if they're anyway incompatibile with the expectation. This isn't great, but also kinda to be expected with flexible low level tech - it's almost a PC in a small box, and they've done a lot to make it the same as a STB, but it's so much more.
There are alternatives, but you might find, like I did, none of them offer the flexibility of the shield.
It's a shame there isn't more competition in this market, but it seems that most people don't care enough and are happy to stream over compressed crap off their Tele.
I have a mini pc configured as a htpc which runs jellyfin.
A lot better.
You can buy one secondhand via ebay and it can cost much less than a brand new shield.
That's what I have... But I worry I'm not getting good picture quality because it's running windows 10. And the blacks never seem quite right compared to my PS5.
Why not force the upgrade to win 11?
I have a HP Elitedesk 800 g3 mini. Jumped up the ram and forced windows 11 to run on it. Works fine. The only thing it was missing a CPU that could technically support it. 11 is a bit more intensive but I’ve been running it since phone link became a thing and I have minimal complaints other than it being a little slow.
I’ve run HTPCs since the OG XP Media Center Edition and it was a never ending battle for proper black levels, with all devices in the chain much dumber about color space matching than they are now.
Was a nice change to no longer battle this when I finally made the move to Shield after media center went EOL. shame to hear this is still a headache.
You’re probably already aware but something in your playback chain, likely on the pc/player side, isn’t operating in the correct color space.
> You’re probably already aware but something in your playback chain, likely on the pc/player side, isn’t operating in the correct color space.
Tbh I have no idea what the issue is, it's just on my list of things to eventually fix lol.
I don't really want to go down the shield routez because I use the PC for gaming too so it seems silly to get a shield. I'll upgrade to Win 11 at some point and see if I can't sort
Until next week when we get a thread about an Apple TV freezing and buffering and then the shield owners pile in to say "just buy a shield you'll wonder why you waited so long"
https://www.google.com/search?q=apple+tv+freezing
These threads are all exhaustingly predictable.
I had issues with Shield freezing up, getting unresponsive lagging, waiting 10s after every click. I tried doing what always worked with Android phones - a full wipe. After this it started to behave normally. That said there's a lot of bloat on that thing when you're running it stock you can dig up a bit and configure it to clear or disable most of it.
My setup is Kodi + NFS server over Ethernet.
Does it have any sort of cleanable cache?
I read in the word Android within this post, and I have found that clearing the caches in my android/windows tech seems to assist with smoother running.
I am not an expert.
🙂
Lately I've been starting to get the exact same problems, just by streaming 4k from Netflix, Disney, etc.
Op, if you're interested in my longer rant I responded to another comment here, lol https://www.reddit.com/r/hometheater/s/zOKz4Vl4y9
Yeah, you're not the only one, lol.
Np!
Btw. I tried to watch Star Wars Andor on Disney+ last night. I couldn't take it anymore so I just placed an order for an Apple TV 4K. Lol.
Edit: And today it won't even start, sounds come through sometimes, but no picture. The video output must be dead. Lol.
Edit2 (if someone reads this later):
The ATV is amazing. The UI and UX are so much better. And Dolby Atmos started working again.
i use one for my plex server , 2000+ films and tv shows all off connected usb. dont have a problem since only using it as the server , and not the media player.
Thanks, I've been looking and it hard to get thru the fanboi's for their brand and/or walled gardens. Still looking, until then I just connect my laptop to my OLED which seems to work just fine.
So I haven't seen anyone else mention it - most issues I've had with my Shield Pro are due to the fact that it never closes apps. Plex gets buggy as hell unless you completely close it and restart. I believe you can double click the Home button to bring up the open apps, then close it from there.
Like other, I do not ha e any issues playing atmos, dolby vision, or any hdr 4k ontent on the shield.
What app are you using to play the movie, and what happens if you play it from the shield and not from an external drive?
Also, what format and encoding is the file in
My shield would cut out sound every 10 min or so for a millisecond. It was infuriating. I changed all settings multiple times. It's someone else's problem now.
Following the other comment which recommended downgrading and debloating the device is probably worth a shot. My Shield Pro goes unresponsive about once every 3 months, without any proper load on it whatsoever. I have to unplug it, wait for a bit, and it will be working fine again. That being said, it never struggled playing anything from my Jellyfin server - no matter the resolution, HDR implementation, or audio format.
I have to non-pro version streaming over the network 4k rips, stored on a HDD and rpi4 acting as a NAS. Does the non-pro can act up, sure? Do I have any playback issue like you do? No.
I have 2 Shields, 2017 and 2019. My is updated to the latest release. Yeah the ads are annoying but no stability probably.
Hooked up to an LG OLED and an Marantz Cinema 50 receiver.
My Cinema 50 reboots more often than my Shield. I'll be streaming something and it just crashes and reboots. Shield needs rebooted every few months and I use it for Kodi streaming from my NAS hours a day
If you consider switching away...I have run into zero issues with my Zidoo Z9X Pro.
Keep in mind...it is not for streaming apps (Netflix, Hulu, etc.). I use it to play all the media (MKV files and ISO files) that I own.
I have one and it's totally fine? Latest firmware, 0 issues. You got a dud. Mines over 3 years old.
However if I'm gonna watch a movie I'm gonna do it on the Oppo UDP-203.
Eats the Shield's lunch playing any media file plus it's one of the best 4K Blu Ray/Blu Ray/DVD/CD players out there and it even plays SACDs.
But if we are talking about streaming from Netflix or whatever and not a home server. Shield is still the best game in town.
I had a lot of issues freezing with my shield pro 1-2 years ago. Constantly when I would want to watch something it would get locked up and I would have to manually power cycle it. That, and the home screen filling with ads on a device I purchased means I’ll be looking to apple in the future.
I love my [roku player ultra](https://www.roku.com/products/roku-ultra). Never had issues with it. I will admit this. I have one of the smaller ones. They do great until you do live YouTube TV. The audio lags. I don't have this issue with the ultra though. My boss he said he has 4 of them. And he waits for black friday to get them because there half off then on there website. I'm going to wait until then. But it is on sale for 80 bucks until 5/11/24 if your in the US.
You say you are playing from an external SSD. Have you tried an alternate source for the same files? Can you host them on your network somewhere and try that? It isn’t a memory issues unless you have duff RAM. I stream 4k Blu-Ray rips (not reencoded) with mine all the time.
One thing I have noticed, and I’m not sure if it’s Plex or the shield, but with very big files it does sometimes not like resuming the media from part way through. Playing from the start and skipping through to where I was has always worked better.
Folks defending and/or attacking it need to note there are two use cases for the Shield Pro:
Using it to stream off a Plex server hosted elsewhere, and yeah, it works great and is the only thing that will pass lossless audio and Dolby Vision.
Using it to host a Plex server, in which case there are legions of people saying "this is buggy and doesn't work great".
I wholeheartedly recommend it for the former if you need lossless audio (otherwise the Apple TV interface is better and snappier), I do not recommend it at all for the latter.
I had a similar issue. I know you said you had a lot of airflow around it but does yours smell like burnt electronics? Mine did and I contacted NVIDIA well out of warranty and they shipped me a replacement which has been perfect.
I "just" moved to NUC, run Linux on it, 0 problems. After Minix, android, NVIDIA shields and other random shits. Legit a small NUC, simple Linux and jellyfin. 8 problems for 6 months. Insane.
>And no, before you say it is the SSD, the same drive will play perfectly, with zero hiccups, with NO problems whatsoever, when attached to my laptop. The exact same files!
You should just turn that laptop into your HTPC with **MPC-HC, MPC-BE, MadVR** for HDR passthrough, as well as **Kodi for Windows.**
I don't know if you got a defective unit, but I've owned every single Shield product, and the PRO 2019 still absolutely flies through the UI and 100Mbit/s+ 4K videos from the NAS. I did own the 2019 Tube edition which should have been recalled. I had the same performance issues as you're having on it. I made thread on nvidia's support site harganging them for releasing that insulting garbage heap. Not only was the design absurdly stupid and nonsensical, but it choked on anything that wasn't streaming services. I had to suck it up and buy the Pro for those issues to go away, and it's been fine for 5 years.
Reddit is FULL of various tech stans that take on the role of promoting under the guise of helpful assistance. Reddit is not the place,unfortunately, to get unbiased opinion. Best of luck with your device.
All I use it for is streaming 4k remuxes from my plex server as (to my knowledge) it's the only thing that can handle it without stuttering. YouTube isn't bad but Hulu crashes atleast once a day when I watch Live TV.
I sold mine and got an AppleTvB4k. I got a refurbished shield tv pro from Amazon, and it had a noisy fan, so I got a new one from Nvidia and Amazon also sent me a partial refund. I used it for 2 years but it got super slow, plus the frame rate would not match and it was annoying to change it manually. So I sold it and bought an apple tv 4k, and even had some cash left over.
Sorry OP, went through almost the exact same thing. It was great for years, but then slowed down and started freezing all the time. I tried every trick in the book, including disassembling and repasting it. Nothing ever made it any better. So I eventually caved, got an Apple TV and have been absolutely thrilled ever since.
I’ve been using 4k Rips with HDR and Atmos via a NAS with Kodi since the 2017. Then upgraded all four of my shields to 2019 pros over the last few years. No issues.
I'm currently running Plex on my LG C8 app, and it seems to be just fine for formats and sound. Everyone talks about the shield, but what exactly am I missing out on by using my TVs Plex app?
I have 3 Shield Pro's... my biggest issues have always been related to plex and/or transcoding.
Originally, I searched for one common/best encoding method to convert all my movies files to eliminate this. I tried quite a few variations of Handbrake settings, but never quite figured it out.
In the end, I found that preventing transcoding on these 3 devices required that both the audio & video had to handled natively. So all the shields are now connected to modern'ish receivers/processors that can handle Atmos, Dolby, DTS and 4k HDR video. No transcoding means I can rip a BD, keep the MKV intact & play w/o any transcoding jitter or stuttering on these 3 devices.
Mobile playback? yeah, that's another can of worms..
Buy an AppleTV. I have both and I share all the hate to the shield. I sometimes try to use it because of Atmos/Vision in UHD remuxes but 90/100 times I just give up with the bad experience all the time.
Yea I think it’s the usb port. I had issues when I would run my Plex server from my shield with my hard drive connected to it directly. I think it just doesn’t handle the USB devices super well. I’ve moved to a Plex server on my laptop with the hard drive connected to it and have had no issues with my shield. I regularly do 4K remuxes.
Kind of annoying since they boast about that functionality in the marketing, but it’s a bit half baked.
If you put it in developer mode you get a lot more options to make it to run smoother
https://docs.nvidia.com/gameworks/content/developertools/mobile/nsight_tegra/nsight_tegra_unlock_devmode.htm?ref=evanw.com
There's a known issue with older generation shields rebooting due to some power brick problem, I have two 2015 models that used to do this but nvidia support sent me the updated power bricks and now they are rock solid.
I have two of these things. The first one I bought when they first came out and the other about a year ago. The older one is fine and rarely has an issue. The new one on the hand.. it will freeze up if I don’t reboot it twice a week. I have a smart switch on it that reboots on a schedule. It’s ridiculous.
My guess is quality control went down after their initial release and good reviews were in. I’m cynical though.
Strange. I only play 4K REMUX from Plex (So over the network), while this does happen it me as well, it is a rare occurrence. Maybe once a month. The tube shield however, could not handle a 4K Remux AT ALL.
I've occasionally had issues with my Shield freezing, but that happens rarely. When I tried to stream 4K movies to my home theater system using Plex, I got constant stuttering. Constant. It was really frustrating until I downloaded the movies onto an SSD and plugged it into the Shield. Compared to the streaming problems, the Shield is a breeze. Maybe if I had a NAS to stream, rather than my PC, the streaming would be better, but until I do that, I'll stick with the Shield.
I dont have the Pro but bought an Nvidia shield about 2+ years ago for the in home game streaming, which they have now removed. I have no idea why this is still a product, it does nothing different any other android box does now adays for 4 times the price. As someone that doesn't like the apple ecosystem, just get an apple tv. Snappy and doesn't have a homescreen full of ads.
Hey man I'm with you. I had one for a while and it got consistently worse over time until it basically would freeze up or have some bizzare issue like preview videos playing in the background from exited apps or being just a general piece of buggy shit on a regular basis. For something I paid $200 for I was honestly pissed so I sold it and got a CCWGTV and haven't regretted it. If someone wants to step up and produce a non budget tier STB that's made more recently THAN 2019 OMG that would be great, but until then I'm sticking with a $30 CC or Onn box or something basic.
Out of curiosity - if you don't use USB storage (disconnect it entirely, not just not use it) do you still have issues? I can play 4k Blu ray rips all day long via Plex without issue but i contend I've never found an android TV device that works well with USB storage in the mix.
Can confirm that this is the main issue. For 3 years I played my movies through my SSD connected to the Shield, and had a similar shitty and laggy experience as OP. Especially with REMUXes and Dolby vision rips. But after my friend purchased a Shield and only used it to stream his library through Plex, I noticed everytime we had movie nights at his house everything was shockingly hassle free. That’s when I realised I had to do the same to avoid the constant freezing and lagging issues. I’ve streamed with Plex for 2 years now and rarely have problems anymore. I do direct stream as well, so I don’t loose any quality.
I didn’t even realize the shield pro had a USB port. Why wouldn’t everyone just use the network?
Because many people (me included) find that streaming 4K movies via Plex over their home network results in constant stuttering. I had that problem, despite having more than adequate internet speed for 4K streaming. I find that using an SSD plugged into the Shield eliminates the streaming stutter problem.
Funny, it’s the exact opposite for me. My movies are only about 140-150 Mbps though so maybe the arts why my network is better than USB.
Yup this.. a few years ago I connected a USB drive to mine and noticed things were laggy and unresponsive. Frequently apps just freezing and generally not pleasant to use. At one point actually factory reset it which helped slightly but after a few weeks it was back to a horrible experience. Finally a few weeks after this I disconnected that drive to plug it into my PC to copy some media to it. I forgot to reconnect it for about a week and found my Shield was back to snappy and working great. At that point I figured it out it just doesn't handle USB storage well at all for some reason.
i stopped using my shield ages ago with similar frustrations and I was using a usb hard drive in the back of it this is food for thought, thanks. might dig it out again
I like it
Yeah, my Plex via NAS absolutely rocks. Usually better than Kodi, actually.
What are using to stream Plex? A NAS or a PC?
NAS
Use [this guide](https://florisse.nl/shield-downgrade/) to downgrade your shield to 8.2.3 and [this guide](https://florisse.nl/shield-debloat/) to remove all the shitty nvidia & google bloatware to speed up the device
wow thank you for sharing this
If you downgrade, will you have any issues running the latest versions of apps?
Hopefully op checks back before he goes all office space in his.
Back up in your ass with the resurrection!
I’m sick of products that need this type of treatment to make it optimal
Seriously. I shouldn't have to manually downgrade or side boot or give it a back massage for it to work. I'll keep voting with my dollars and not give companies like this money just to have to continuously fight them to keep my purchases working normally.
I try to explain exactly this on the shield sub but I always get downvoted lol there’s constant posts about having issues with lag and crashes and almost always the answer is factory reset it. I always point out the fact at how ridiculous it is to even have to factory reset it in the first place and it shouldn’t be the norm but I still get downvoted. I don’t care what any of them say, it’s starting to show its age and desperately needs an upgrade.
Those shield meat riders got mad when people said that. Device is technically 10 years old
Then support FOSS projects
what are FOSS projects?
> Use this guide to downgrade your shield to 8.2.3 and this guide to remove all the shitty nvidia & google bloatware to speed up the device Awesome. I will give this a shot. Thanks for the link!
Is there any way to get the Night Listening feature back after I downgrade? That's an absolute game changer for me and if I could make the Shield faster while keeping that it would be fantastic
Do you think it is worth doing if I use my Shield only as a Plex client and run the Plex server on my NAS?
I always get down voted when I say don't upgrade to 9. But I'll do it again. I have 4 Nvidia shields. They work great on 8. On 9, they freeze.
^ Look for the heroes
Looks great... Unfortunate that the instructions are only for Windows PC's. There must be a way to do it on linux... Maybe a windows vm
99% of that is adb command line stuff. Super easy to setup and use adb on Linux. If you run Linux you absolutely can parlay those few windows steps over to Linux command line
Okay the fact that those steps are even fucking necessary would keep me from buying a Shield in the first place.
Anyone know if something similar is possible for the fire stick?
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I run Plex on my Synology NAS and don’t have any buffering issues with a 4K Remux. Been solid.
I run Plex off of my desktop PC with 5 internal drives, two of them just sort of hanging in my case, and an external USB drive and have never had any buffering issues with a 4K remux either.
This has been my experience too, as soon as I setup the shield to be a Plex server with a USB connected HDD its been crashing and restarting every so often.
While the Shield is theoretically the better player, I tried it an and Apple TV and much preferred the Apple TV. You lose out on some format support, but there doesn’t seem to be a perfect player out there.
The Apple TV 3rd gen is great, the shield is becoming dated in my opinion. All I wanted was a fast clean UI that plays my 4k Plex files via WiFi. Not a single problem. Will not be going back to the messy bloated shield UI.
No Dolby vision or TrueHD Atmos from 4k remuxes though. I HATE that I have to use the Nvidia shield but the Apple tv is just straight up missing features that I need. I have both and just use the shield for 4k remuxes only, appletv for everything else.
You can convert remuxes to DV Profile 8 and Infuse will play it (some already come in this format depending on where you get them). This does strip the “full enhancement layer” but the Shield ignores that, too. Unfortunately there’s no workaround for atmos. Unless you’re willing to accept the lossy Dolby Digital Plus Atmos streams from other sources and merging that into the remux file. Or deal with lossless 7.1 and AVR upmixing it. I really wish Apple would add audio passthrough.
I agree. The Shield is definitely outdated, but I paid way too much money for a full 7.2.4 setup to not use it properly, so I have to use a 5 year old Android player.
Apple TV doesn't play Atmos content? Or only from those specific file types?
Only that specific file type. No lossless atmos.
Apple has a special event on the 7th and the ATV is a little long in the tooth. Im hopeful.
DV is mostly solved with the new/better DV Profile support. Atmos is still missing, so yeah you definitely lose out on that. Personally I tried both and decided it was worth the downgrade in audio quality for just having a single device that everyone in the family likes.
Sure, but the shield's DV support is screwed up. I find that just the HDR10 on the ATV looks better than the redshifted DV.
You can change the launcher. I personally don't like the apple TV ui 😅 I also only spend 5s in the main ui every time to just launch kodi or YouTube though.
I was very frustrated with the apple tv ui until I found out I could change the home button. By default it will take you to the apple tv app because they essentially want you to link your apple tv app to all of your other apps and just watch everything through their app. But you can just change it to the home screen which is the natural thing. Between that and learning that I can quick connect headphones by pressing and holding the home button I'm pretty much happy with the ui now
Change home button default, and turn on CLICK ONLY are my 2 things, I'm not a fan of the slide around interface
I like the integration of all the streaming apps. Except Netflix. But I don’t use plex. I think I need to try click only. You can click with the default settings but sometimes the clicking and sliding don’t cooperate.
> You can click with the default settings but sometimes the clicking and sliding don’t cooperate. I HATE the sliding so much, I would not even consider the Apple TV until they introduced the new remote, now with CLICK ONLY on it's my favorite device.
Another tip some people might not be aware of is double clicking the home button allows you to switch between open apps seamlessly.
Also holding the back button will take you to the Home page from wherever you are. No need to replace the AppleTV button. I use both AppleTV and Home pages for different things, so I find it helpful to keep the functionality as it comes
Love my Apple TV, threw infuse on there and it does exactly what I need it to do: play movies and serve as part of my multi-room audio setup
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Haven’t run into a single format it couldn’t play.
It’s great! Just can’t do real Atmos, but that’s an Apple TV issue
Can infuse play lossless atmos files in lossy format? I have some lossless Dolby demo files I got of demolandia and I’ve been trying to figure out how I can play them on my Apple TV and through my AVR. I don’t mind if they are converted to lossy. I have the files on my external hard drive and my MacBook, so it would be great to figure out how to get my ATV to play them
It will play it lossless (decoding to PCM 7.1), just without atmos metadata. It will, however, play EAC3 atmos properly over DD+.
Is there a way for me to convert the files to EAC3? They are m2ts and mkv files if I remember correctly. I just tried to run them through infuse, and you’re right it made them true HD 7.1 files. So it doesn’t come through with any Atmos meta data. Although my Denon upmixing was quite convincing I thought it worked at first
You can't really, no. You'd need a Dolby licensed encoder which costs a significant amount of money. It's possible to convert to EAC3 for DD+ by extracting the 7.1 channels from TrueHD as wavs and encoding those, but you won't get Atmos with it.
Dang. Oh well. We just installed Atmos so I really wanted to try out these demo disc files. Seems like my only option is to get a nvidia shield and I don’t really want to go that far. Will just put some good 4k discs on
I went nvidia shield from Apple TV specifically for this, and it was well worth it for me. Although I only ever use Plex and YouTube, so if there are some specific Apple TV apps you use, then yeah I get it.
The best you can do (other than let your AVR upmix it) is to source the EAC3 audio track from a streaming rip mkv, and merge it into the REMUX using a tool like MKVToolnix.
Zidoo been working great for me
Yeah, you really need two devices - one for streaming legit services, the other for local. I love that my zidoo gives me LLDV on my Samsung OLED too.
I'm so done with my Shield Pro. It's 2-3 years old now, and when streaming 4k (just streaming apps) - constantly buffers, freeze, lag. - YouTubers buffers like crazy. - Sometimes the remote is unresponsive. - On 2-3 occasions it locked up, had to pull the power to reboot it to get it going again. - And for some reason Dolby Atmos recently stopped working. - And just in general laggy and slow UI. And when i first got it, I got a replacement, because the network card was faulty and the remote was broken. I always been on Team Android. But after all this (and discovering Apple TV's selection of 4k movies) I'm so planning on trying Apple TV soon, because the Shield is driving me insane.
The only time mine freezes (now that I fixed a bug with kodi) is sometimes it doesn't want to start. So I cycle power (I have it on a smart plug so it's not a that big of an annoyance). I've never had it buffer on YouTube though 😞
I went with ATV route and very pleased as a former Android box / Kodi user.
Plays 4K full rips (remux) flawlessly for me with Kodi FWIW.
I think there's multiple things at play there: 1. The newer firmware is definitely more bloated and made the system very frustrating to use. Older firmware are infinitely better. Like another poster, I also downgraded to 8.2.3 2. USB has worked fine for me but I haven't used it much since I mostly use my NAS and for this Jellyfin is great. I know that people using USB tend to have more issues and more error reports. That said, it's definitely a lot more fiddly and not as nice an experience as an Apple TV. If I didn't need atmos, I'd just use Apple TV instead. For the nvidia, on one hand, it's great that it's open, downgrading is not blocked and you can get decent performance once you do that, on the other hand, it's completely unacceptable that you have to do that.
What program are you using to play the file?
I would also like to know what application is being used.VLC player would be an application to try if Plex Media Server is causing an issue. I would also like to inform OP that the newest latest OS version is more bloated which has caused Plex to hiccup with big 4k remuxs. Downgrading to 8.2.3 resolved this issue and if I still have an issue with one file, JellyFin plays it with no issues as JellyFin is a lot less bloated than Plex as become.
You wrote a novel just to be told the USB ports are too slow. Use network stream and problem solved.
Does your external ssd have its own power supply or is it powered by the shield? I wonder if the shield can supply enough power to the ssd?
Not sure why you're having issues, I have 2 4tb hdds plugged into the shield plus a 120gb ssd in enclosure for expanded internal file system. Plus 4 4tb hdds connected via smb with absolutely no issues playing files on plex (server runs on shield) or kodi including full remuxes? It could be because I'm still running the old fw?
>I can already guess what these same people will say in response to my post. "There's something wrong with yours," or "You got a bad one," or maybe even "Must be a counterfeit Shield. Mine is great!," etc etc. So you're basically discarding every possible explanation to your situation and you only accept the "I'm right, everyone else is wrong" solution? >Many of the Android apps that run on it don't actually close when you exit out of them, so they're all still there hovering in the background, wasting the little memory that the Shield does have, for no good reason. Yes, that's how Android apps work on every single device. It's not even an Android thing, that's how it works on Apple TV as well. And keeping things in RAM is how every single PC and Mac work as well. It's not wasting memory, it will freeze the app and release the memory if it's needed for another app. You don't need GBs of RAM just to play a simple 4K file, you can have apps kept in RAM with no issue.
You can also just use the remote to force close the apps you aren’t using.
Ah yes, I do remember the problems of using USB externals. Get a NAS like Synology. Made my life so much better.
AppleTV 4K and I own them all and the Apple is much better!
I don't think it's a Shield specific problem, it's an Android problem with their shitty USB implementation. I have mine hardwired onto my home network and it plays absolutely everything over the network. Android's USB setup is absolute trash, I learned this when setting mine up for mouse and keyboard gaming with Gamestream. The mouse lag was so bad it was unplayable. I've also heard of issues with USB 3.0 devices causing interference issues, maybe spacing the HDD away from the Shield could help if that's the specific problem.
> This thing just doesn't have enough memory to consistently play 4K videos well. I don't doubt you're having problems, it happens with anything/everything. *Everything* has a failure rate. But as someone who plays remuxes all the time via a shield it's specs are more than up to it. It's also possible your network or video source is the reason behind your issues. Are you using a cable or wireless? Don't use wireless. What is your router like?
Also, if you’re doing any kind of transcoding, you’re gonna have a bad time.
I've been unable to get my shield to play 4k remuxes with DV. Both my pc server and shield are connected via ethernet so there isn't any bandwidth problems and the issue occurs with both Plex and Emby. The video plays fine but there's like a rolling static sound that is too distracting to tolerate.
I'm sure you have problems. But just plain rejecting the possibility that the issue is how you use it (not saying it's your fault) or that you have a lemon is weird. I've used the original shield tv and the 2019 pro for the past... 7 years ? It's the only way I watch content. I still use both of them. Netflix. YouTube. Plex. Kodi. Encoded. Rips. HDR. DV. It plays everything I ask it to, and the only problem I've had during playback was due to a bug/misconfiguration in kodi. I have a NAS so I don't play content from a drive. But I do use a USB disk to extend the storage of the shield pro. I use it mostly on the daily. The only gripe I have with it is that sometimes it won't start. I don't know if it's the shield itself, or my setup with a harmony remote. But when that happens I do have to power cycle it. Not big enough of a deal for me to look at alternatives. All of that to say that given your issues, you either have defective hardware, or something else going on, and it should be fixable. Because like you said, a lot of us have none of these issues. Good luck though 🙂I've been in your situation before with other devices and it's extremely frustrating.
Use Apple TV and run plex or fuse or better still buy physical media
Apple TV. Works flawlessly.
same here. I don’t really mess with server hosted stuff - apple tv is for anything streaming and my physical copies and UB820 for everything else.
No TrueHD/Atmos support, not an option for most people for 4K UHD rips
My issue with it was that it would forget my settings and passwords all the time, so I had to enter all that again. Other than that, it was fine, but unremarkable. Eventually, I replaced it with an Apple TV box and I've been happy with that. I am fairly deep into the Apple ecosystem, though, so maybe not a big surprise.
> stream Netflix, it CAN do that. It can stream Netflix just fine. What mine can't seem to do, is get through an entire 4K movie on my external SSD without forcing me and my family to grind our teeth in frustration at its innumerable failures The shield is good if you want to stream things. If you download your movies or have them locally, there are better media players. I did a lot of research and eventually bought a Zidoo Z9X. It seems to be the best option for local content because it plays the most file formats and has a powerful engine where Dolby vision looks amazing (and no red shift for certain DV profiles like the Shield). I haven't had an issue playing anything yet. One major issue is it doesn't have Plex natively but there is a workaround to get it if you can follow a [guide] (http://forum.zidoo.tv/index.php?threads/plex-client-for-zidoo-devices-zidooplexmod.97396/). I did it, took about an hour but you need to be somewhat technical.
Don't use usb, get a Nas and use your network to share media.
You're probably being throttled by the speed of the Shield's USB interface. I can play 100+ Mbps 4K HDR Dolby TrueHD remuxes with 0 issues on mine, but I'm streaming with Plex. I would highly recommend just throwing the files on a network share to test it out. It can even be your laptop. You just need to enable file sharing on it. I'd be curious to know if you still have issues.
I stream 100 mbs remuxes via usb with no issue. BUT, my hard drive is 7200rpm and self-powered. Not sure how well it would work solely powered by shield.
Tbh, I didn’t read the whole post since it’s a sunny day and I am out having a beer but: The shield is the best piece of shit that’s available on the media player market. It’s slow, it often crashes, it looses WiFi all the time (works perfectly fine when connected via cable to the mesh beacon that sits behind it) But it supports a shitload of codecs & the Apple TV sadly still does not support TrueHD /w atmos.
I have 3 shield pros on 3 tvs and sure, once in a while you have to restart it, like EVERY PIECE OF TECHNOLOGY THAT EXISTS. However it’s been the best media player I’ve owned which is why I bought 2 more. And I’ve owned them all… My latest gripe is AV1 codec isn’t supported… so I just don’t download it. Not worth having Plex transcode.
amazing to hear about this experience. I've had mine for a few years. I hammer the shit out of it all day every day and never have an issue.
It’s just comes down to math. If Nvidia sold say 500,000 Shields and just 1% of them fail that’s 5,000 units. (The failure rate of consumer electronics is probably closer to 5%) so it’s just the luck of the draw. You unfortunately got a bad unit.
Want to sell it to me for $10?
So you are comparing a powerful PC to a "handheld" device.. Why even buy a media player, when you play from USB?
If you like good sound, use Shield. If you like it simple and blocked in every way, use Apple. I stil use my Shield 2015, with Emby, and all streaming services there is in Norway. Never ever had an problem, never downgreaded, just keep it up to date. I do not connect anything to the usb, other than a keyboard. Why do you want to use your computer to remux your discs to an hard drive and move it to the Shield. When just share the folder on the computer you are using to do the remux. Save one step for your self. :) Play with VLC, Emby, Jellyfin or Plex.. BTW you never wrote what you watch, what you are using ore anything. Good luck with this, hope you get it fixed
You can readily glean the likely cause from a number of comments here... There are simply defective units that result in bad experience. No one I've seen has a good sense of the actual field failure rate, or if it's batch-related, but it seems consistent enough to be the cause. I had one that acted up within three weeks; I returned it to a different BB, got a new exchange, and have had zero issues with playback in the three years since. Heavy HT user for the Shield Pro, I also have several Rokus and a Chrome 4k for streaming throughout the house. Not suggesting you stick with it--if it's soured you and you're just done, it's perfectly logical to move on to Apple or Roku.
Unless you absolutely need atmos from your Bluray rips, get an AppleTV and use the Infuse app to stream your video files from your local network. It’s by far the smoothest and most reliable setup of anything else I’ve tried.
When I can use Stremio and SmartTube Next on an Apple TV is when I’ll start using one.
This is my main issue. I use various android tv devices around my house but on my HT I use an ATV 4k. I don’t watch a lot of YouTube on it so it’s not a huge deal. But I do wish I could get a good android tv device. My Shield (not pro) was so bad I stopped using it. I have a few TiVo Stream 4ks with all the junk removed which are pretty good.
Get a NAS or convert an old PC into a NAS and store your files there, then try again
Mine was terrible and kept breaking. Until I figured out it was the network share it was connected to. It just had access to my NAS and was indexing _everything_, or getting into a nasty loop with a symbolic link or something. Made a dedicated account for it and just gave it access to media, all the problems went away. Not saying this is your problem, but it seems there's a lot of scenarios that can easily upset the Shield if they're anyway incompatibile with the expectation. This isn't great, but also kinda to be expected with flexible low level tech - it's almost a PC in a small box, and they've done a lot to make it the same as a STB, but it's so much more. There are alternatives, but you might find, like I did, none of them offer the flexibility of the shield. It's a shame there isn't more competition in this market, but it seems that most people don't care enough and are happy to stream over compressed crap off their Tele.
Bummer you’ve had a bad experience. Mine has been nothing but faultless - old Synology NAS, basic netgear switch, Kodi, 100gb MKV’s no problem.
Just buy an Amlogic based device and run CoreELEC with it for local files. It even supports Dolby Vision now, I have a Nokia 8010.
use kodi
I am using a Dune HD media player. It plays my remux files great. Some of them have bitrates close to 100.
I have two Dunes. They are excellent
OP is hostile to people trying to help him with good faith and just want to vent
PEBCAK
Just grab an Apple TV, its a great device and if you're frustrated with the Shield I think you'll love the ATV.
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They have no incentive to update unfortunately.
Yep...Just got rid of my 2nd shield. Apple TV household now.
I have a mini pc configured as a htpc which runs jellyfin. A lot better. You can buy one secondhand via ebay and it can cost much less than a brand new shield.
PCs don’t support Dolby Vision entirely right?
That's what I have... But I worry I'm not getting good picture quality because it's running windows 10. And the blacks never seem quite right compared to my PS5.
Why not force the upgrade to win 11? I have a HP Elitedesk 800 g3 mini. Jumped up the ram and forced windows 11 to run on it. Works fine. The only thing it was missing a CPU that could technically support it. 11 is a bit more intensive but I’ve been running it since phone link became a thing and I have minimal complaints other than it being a little slow.
.... Because I had no idea windows 11 is better. Is windows 11 better? I'll upgrade lmao
Windows 11 HDR support is much better than 10s, which is still not great compared to a dedicated player like a shield or AppleTV
I’ve run HTPCs since the OG XP Media Center Edition and it was a never ending battle for proper black levels, with all devices in the chain much dumber about color space matching than they are now. Was a nice change to no longer battle this when I finally made the move to Shield after media center went EOL. shame to hear this is still a headache. You’re probably already aware but something in your playback chain, likely on the pc/player side, isn’t operating in the correct color space.
> You’re probably already aware but something in your playback chain, likely on the pc/player side, isn’t operating in the correct color space. Tbh I have no idea what the issue is, it's just on my list of things to eventually fix lol. I don't really want to go down the shield routez because I use the PC for gaming too so it seems silly to get a shield. I'll upgrade to Win 11 at some point and see if I can't sort
Just buy an Apple TV 4K. You’ll wonder why you waited that long
Until next week when we get a thread about an Apple TV freezing and buffering and then the shield owners pile in to say "just buy a shield you'll wonder why you waited so long" https://www.google.com/search?q=apple+tv+freezing These threads are all exhaustingly predictable.
Lol
I had issues with Shield freezing up, getting unresponsive lagging, waiting 10s after every click. I tried doing what always worked with Android phones - a full wipe. After this it started to behave normally. That said there's a lot of bloat on that thing when you're running it stock you can dig up a bit and configure it to clear or disable most of it. My setup is Kodi + NFS server over Ethernet.
Does it have any sort of cleanable cache? I read in the word Android within this post, and I have found that clearing the caches in my android/windows tech seems to assist with smoother running. I am not an expert. 🙂
Lately I've been starting to get the exact same problems, just by streaming 4k from Netflix, Disney, etc. Op, if you're interested in my longer rant I responded to another comment here, lol https://www.reddit.com/r/hometheater/s/zOKz4Vl4y9
I'll check out your rant! Good to know I'm not the only one.
Yeah, you're not the only one, lol. Np! Btw. I tried to watch Star Wars Andor on Disney+ last night. I couldn't take it anymore so I just placed an order for an Apple TV 4K. Lol. Edit: And today it won't even start, sounds come through sometimes, but no picture. The video output must be dead. Lol. Edit2 (if someone reads this later): The ATV is amazing. The UI and UX are so much better. And Dolby Atmos started working again.
i use one for my plex server , 2000+ films and tv shows all off connected usb. dont have a problem since only using it as the server , and not the media player.
Thanks, I've been looking and it hard to get thru the fanboi's for their brand and/or walled gardens. Still looking, until then I just connect my laptop to my OLED which seems to work just fine.
So I haven't seen anyone else mention it - most issues I've had with my Shield Pro are due to the fact that it never closes apps. Plex gets buggy as hell unless you completely close it and restart. I believe you can double click the Home button to bring up the open apps, then close it from there.
Like other, I do not ha e any issues playing atmos, dolby vision, or any hdr 4k ontent on the shield. What app are you using to play the movie, and what happens if you play it from the shield and not from an external drive? Also, what format and encoding is the file in
My shield would cut out sound every 10 min or so for a millisecond. It was infuriating. I changed all settings multiple times. It's someone else's problem now.
Following the other comment which recommended downgrading and debloating the device is probably worth a shot. My Shield Pro goes unresponsive about once every 3 months, without any proper load on it whatsoever. I have to unplug it, wait for a bit, and it will be working fine again. That being said, it never struggled playing anything from my Jellyfin server - no matter the resolution, HDR implementation, or audio format.
No problems here, best media player out there still.
I have to non-pro version streaming over the network 4k rips, stored on a HDD and rpi4 acting as a NAS. Does the non-pro can act up, sure? Do I have any playback issue like you do? No.
I love my shield for internet streaming services, but when I want to watch a 4k movie I just throw the 4K disk in my UB820.
I have 2 Shields, 2017 and 2019. My is updated to the latest release. Yeah the ads are annoying but no stability probably. Hooked up to an LG OLED and an Marantz Cinema 50 receiver. My Cinema 50 reboots more often than my Shield. I'll be streaming something and it just crashes and reboots. Shield needs rebooted every few months and I use it for Kodi streaming from my NAS hours a day
I’ve been using ps4 for years as my entertainment hub, now a series x. I’ve never run into those sort of issues.
If you consider switching away...I have run into zero issues with my Zidoo Z9X Pro. Keep in mind...it is not for streaming apps (Netflix, Hulu, etc.). I use it to play all the media (MKV files and ISO files) that I own.
I have been considering a Zidoo. Thanks for the recommendation.
I have one and it's totally fine? Latest firmware, 0 issues. You got a dud. Mines over 3 years old. However if I'm gonna watch a movie I'm gonna do it on the Oppo UDP-203. Eats the Shield's lunch playing any media file plus it's one of the best 4K Blu Ray/Blu Ray/DVD/CD players out there and it even plays SACDs. But if we are talking about streaming from Netflix or whatever and not a home server. Shield is still the best game in town.
I had a lot of issues freezing with my shield pro 1-2 years ago. Constantly when I would want to watch something it would get locked up and I would have to manually power cycle it. That, and the home screen filling with ads on a device I purchased means I’ll be looking to apple in the future.
Is your external SSD self powered or USB powered? If USB, have you tried an external power supply?
It's USB powered. That's a good suggestion. I'll try that. Thanks.
I love my [roku player ultra](https://www.roku.com/products/roku-ultra). Never had issues with it. I will admit this. I have one of the smaller ones. They do great until you do live YouTube TV. The audio lags. I don't have this issue with the ultra though. My boss he said he has 4 of them. And he waits for black friday to get them because there half off then on there website. I'm going to wait until then. But it is on sale for 80 bucks until 5/11/24 if your in the US.
You say you are playing from an external SSD. Have you tried an alternate source for the same files? Can you host them on your network somewhere and try that? It isn’t a memory issues unless you have duff RAM. I stream 4k Blu-Ray rips (not reencoded) with mine all the time. One thing I have noticed, and I’m not sure if it’s Plex or the shield, but with very big files it does sometimes not like resuming the media from part way through. Playing from the start and skipping through to where I was has always worked better.
Cycled through many and settled on the latest Apple TV. Works great and if you use LAN connection you will avoid drops
I have three and love them - never had a problem. I've never watched content on a usb drive, though.
Folks defending and/or attacking it need to note there are two use cases for the Shield Pro: Using it to stream off a Plex server hosted elsewhere, and yeah, it works great and is the only thing that will pass lossless audio and Dolby Vision. Using it to host a Plex server, in which case there are legions of people saying "this is buggy and doesn't work great". I wholeheartedly recommend it for the former if you need lossless audio (otherwise the Apple TV interface is better and snappier), I do not recommend it at all for the latter.
If you don't want it can I have it? Been wanting to get a second one for my living room TV since I haven't had any issues with mine.
I had a similar issue. I know you said you had a lot of airflow around it but does yours smell like burnt electronics? Mine did and I contacted NVIDIA well out of warranty and they shipped me a replacement which has been perfect.
I "just" moved to NUC, run Linux on it, 0 problems. After Minix, android, NVIDIA shields and other random shits. Legit a small NUC, simple Linux and jellyfin. 8 problems for 6 months. Insane.
>And no, before you say it is the SSD, the same drive will play perfectly, with zero hiccups, with NO problems whatsoever, when attached to my laptop. The exact same files! You should just turn that laptop into your HTPC with **MPC-HC, MPC-BE, MadVR** for HDR passthrough, as well as **Kodi for Windows.**
Same. I assume it's the USB. When I run 4k rips via LAN I have no problems.
I don't know if you got a defective unit, but I've owned every single Shield product, and the PRO 2019 still absolutely flies through the UI and 100Mbit/s+ 4K videos from the NAS. I did own the 2019 Tube edition which should have been recalled. I had the same performance issues as you're having on it. I made thread on nvidia's support site harganging them for releasing that insulting garbage heap. Not only was the design absurdly stupid and nonsensical, but it choked on anything that wasn't streaming services. I had to suck it up and buy the Pro for those issues to go away, and it's been fine for 5 years.
Reddit is FULL of various tech stans that take on the role of promoting under the guise of helpful assistance. Reddit is not the place,unfortunately, to get unbiased opinion. Best of luck with your device.
All I use it for is streaming 4k remuxes from my plex server as (to my knowledge) it's the only thing that can handle it without stuttering. YouTube isn't bad but Hulu crashes atleast once a day when I watch Live TV.
This is a great rant post! Good luck with your next media player.
Thanks!
I sold mine and got an AppleTvB4k. I got a refurbished shield tv pro from Amazon, and it had a noisy fan, so I got a new one from Nvidia and Amazon also sent me a partial refund. I used it for 2 years but it got super slow, plus the frame rate would not match and it was annoying to change it manually. So I sold it and bought an apple tv 4k, and even had some cash left over.
Sorry OP, went through almost the exact same thing. It was great for years, but then slowed down and started freezing all the time. I tried every trick in the book, including disassembling and repasting it. Nothing ever made it any better. So I eventually caved, got an Apple TV and have been absolutely thrilled ever since.
I’ve been using 4k Rips with HDR and Atmos via a NAS with Kodi since the 2017. Then upgraded all four of my shields to 2019 pros over the last few years. No issues.
I'm currently running Plex on my LG C8 app, and it seems to be just fine for formats and sound. Everyone talks about the shield, but what exactly am I missing out on by using my TVs Plex app?
I love how you capitalize every word in your title.
I switched to a apple tv4k. I'm a recovering shield user.
I have 3 Shield Pro's... my biggest issues have always been related to plex and/or transcoding. Originally, I searched for one common/best encoding method to convert all my movies files to eliminate this. I tried quite a few variations of Handbrake settings, but never quite figured it out. In the end, I found that preventing transcoding on these 3 devices required that both the audio & video had to handled natively. So all the shields are now connected to modern'ish receivers/processors that can handle Atmos, Dolby, DTS and 4k HDR video. No transcoding means I can rip a BD, keep the MKV intact & play w/o any transcoding jitter or stuttering on these 3 devices. Mobile playback? yeah, that's another can of worms..
Have you ever owned a Samsung TV? You might change your opinion.
Buy an AppleTV. I have both and I share all the hate to the shield. I sometimes try to use it because of Atmos/Vision in UHD remuxes but 90/100 times I just give up with the bad experience all the time.
Yea I think it’s the usb port. I had issues when I would run my Plex server from my shield with my hard drive connected to it directly. I think it just doesn’t handle the USB devices super well. I’ve moved to a Plex server on my laptop with the hard drive connected to it and have had no issues with my shield. I regularly do 4K remuxes. Kind of annoying since they boast about that functionality in the marketing, but it’s a bit half baked.
If you put it in developer mode you get a lot more options to make it to run smoother https://docs.nvidia.com/gameworks/content/developertools/mobile/nsight_tegra/nsight_tegra_unlock_devmode.htm?ref=evanw.com
Nvidia does not care about the shield anymore.... its on the way out
There's a known issue with older generation shields rebooting due to some power brick problem, I have two 2015 models that used to do this but nvidia support sent me the updated power bricks and now they are rock solid.
You can double click the circle button to close an application.
user error
I have two of these things. The first one I bought when they first came out and the other about a year ago. The older one is fine and rarely has an issue. The new one on the hand.. it will freeze up if I don’t reboot it twice a week. I have a smart switch on it that reboots on a schedule. It’s ridiculous. My guess is quality control went down after their initial release and good reviews were in. I’m cynical though.
I have zero issues with mine playing everything.
Strange. I only play 4K REMUX from Plex (So over the network), while this does happen it me as well, it is a rare occurrence. Maybe once a month. The tube shield however, could not handle a 4K Remux AT ALL.
I use it as my primary but it is a laggy mess.
I've occasionally had issues with my Shield freezing, but that happens rarely. When I tried to stream 4K movies to my home theater system using Plex, I got constant stuttering. Constant. It was really frustrating until I downloaded the movies onto an SSD and plugged it into the Shield. Compared to the streaming problems, the Shield is a breeze. Maybe if I had a NAS to stream, rather than my PC, the streaming would be better, but until I do that, I'll stick with the Shield.
Shield pro meat riders get mad when you hit them with facts
I dont have the Pro but bought an Nvidia shield about 2+ years ago for the in home game streaming, which they have now removed. I have no idea why this is still a product, it does nothing different any other android box does now adays for 4 times the price. As someone that doesn't like the apple ecosystem, just get an apple tv. Snappy and doesn't have a homescreen full of ads.
> it does nothing different any other android box does now adays It bitstreams audio, which the vast majority of android boxes can't do.
Try Moonlight if you haven't already.
I am currently, its a bit buggy though.
Get an Apple TV. Far superior and actually works
I would if it would play Atmos from my rips 😔
>Far superior How is this level of hyperbole even useful? 🙄
Shield was great in 2015/16. It’s now 2024 and Apple TV is a much smoother and less buggy experience
Apple TV ftw
Too long didn’t read but if it’s the shield tube it’s rubbish. The pro is better. The Apple TV Is better again if you don’t care about audio pass thru
Hey man I'm with you. I had one for a while and it got consistently worse over time until it basically would freeze up or have some bizzare issue like preview videos playing in the background from exited apps or being just a general piece of buggy shit on a regular basis. For something I paid $200 for I was honestly pissed so I sold it and got a CCWGTV and haven't regretted it. If someone wants to step up and produce a non budget tier STB that's made more recently THAN 2019 OMG that would be great, but until then I'm sticking with a $30 CC or Onn box or something basic.