There are so many options on the market, but I feel like they all miss one thing or another. As my current setup is about to kick the bucket, I’d appreciate some input on your experiences and thoughts on the future.
Below are my thoughts and opinions, that are completely open to scrutiny!
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The Nvidia Shield (and 2019 Pro) are aging and overpriced. Lacking software updates shows Nvidia’s priorities on other product lines. Will there be a new version now that the Switch 2 is launched, or are the possible profits pocket change for them?
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Apple TV seems to be a great alternative, but it’s a locked down ecosystem. Tailscale is available here now, which is great, but there is no way to side load apps AFAIK. I am not giving up ad-free Youtube. Other than that, I see very few downsides with it.
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Google TV Streamer 4K is basically a Chromecast with more memory, storage and a slight bump to the CPU. It does finally support AV1, but lacks support for many audio codecs and several relatively common DV-profiles. It has also more than doubled in price.
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We don’t have Amazon, so I know very little about the Firestick, but I imagine it would be like the CcwGTV? Probably same with the Roku?
To be fair, I’m looking for something with a bit more snappiness and punch than a stick for future proofing.
What are your thoughts? Waiting for the Shield 2 Pro? Happy with Apple TV or Google Streamer?
I wanna know how you play your obviously perfectly legal content on your TV’s, but it needs to have the WAF (Wife Acceptance Factor).
The server is a N100 NUC, so transcoding is no issue but I prefer not having to do it for everything.
Cheers!
I would go for an Apple TV 4K box with ethernet (don’t burden yourself with wifi when you can have gigabit ethernet for $20). No ads, simple, works, looks really nice, apps are very responsive, I can fly through my home media collection’s wall of posters using the remote without any delays in loading images. Compatible with all the major streaming services. Has infuse for streaming local media as well as Plex and Jellyfin apps.
If you’re interested in spending some money and want something better without the Apple ecosystem (be warned, Google seems to be cracking down on sideloading so who can say how much longer that lasts but do as you feel right) I’d recommend something from Dune-HD.
Considering how old the Nvidia Shields are at this point, the disinterest from Nvidia in refreshing them periodically as Apple does, the insertion of ads, framerate switching issues, etc I think Dune-HD makes the superior product for upmarket non-Apple TV streaming. People have been waiting for a Shield update for 4 years now. In that time Apple dropped their own prices to make Nvidia look like even bigger clowns still selling old hardware and chips all these years later at such mark-up.
They support AV1, dolby vision, atmos and 2 of their 4k models have a dual OS set-up. One is Netflix certified Android which gets you full support for 4k streaming, DV, atmos, etc from all major streaming services, the other is a special virtualized container running a customized version of linux with a media center which you can install Kodi, Plex, Jellyfin, etc onto.
People who say “just run it off a PC you install Linux on” are not very serious or not very discerning (or more hardcore than me in their refusal to ever pay for any streaming services). Quality from such non-certified devices is capped at 720p without dolby atmos, dolby vision, etc from nearly all the major streaming services.
If you don’t want to drop as much as Apple or Dune-HD charge I’m not sure what to say. Walmart’s onn USED to be a great choice as you formerly could root them but they changed that and locked them down since 2024 I believe. Just get something beefier than a stick that plugs into your TV IMO, any kind of box is going to be superior in terms of ability to deal with heat.
Honestly, if YT didn’t up their prices for Premium over and over I would have gone with Apple TV in a heartbeat.
Right now it’s a bloody principle to not pay for that shit, but I live with tiny tiny humans who use it a lot more than myself.
I ended up with the streamer, but not entierly happily. If Valve or Nvidia drops something proper, it will be sold fast.
Thanks for your input!
Just get a mini computer. Doing everything with an app is annoying. So many things you can’t stream, and logging into anything using a remote takes forever.
This is my plan once we move out of here and I can clean up the setup a bit. Right now we’re just using the Jellyfin app sideloaded(?) onto Samsung’s OS. The UI in the app is abysmally slow. May as well just plug in a mini PC and basically just use it as the TV
I have 2 streamers.
In the main room I just use an Xbox console. It streams all the services and I use it for gaming.
In the other room I built my own LibreElec, basically omsc, on a raspberry pi. It plays all my home content and can do Netflix and Amazon prime with some work. It also services as a retro pi box where I can do retro gaming emulation.
The problem I always had with the home boxes is the lack of support for Hulu and HBO. Netflix worked with an API key. It does the job even if the interface is a little wonky.
I actually just set my living room tv up with a new Google streamer thing yesterday. Super easy to add Jellyfin and it’s basically the same as the Chromecast that my wife and 4 year old are used to. I even bookmarked Overseerr in my wife’s phone and she’s able to download things for the 4 year old where as before it was a very manual process that involved me having to do everything and then put it on a Plex server. Fuck Plex though, I have seen the light. Everything about Jellyfin is better.
Yeah I just came home with one. I dislike the small upgrade from the CCwGTV, but I needed something now to keep the peace.
I’ll stick with it untill something much better turns up. Cheers mate
Lol I hear that man. When Jellyfin isn’t working or starts stuttering my son is very vocal about his feelings on the matter. I agree with you, i feel like the hardware upgrades were paltry compared to the price hike from Chromecast to “Streamer box” or whatever.
My other complaint is the stupid thing expects a spot somewhere to take up space on an entertainment center or shelf instead of dangling from the HDMI port like a good little dongle.
If something better does turn up you gotta come back and let us all know about it lol Good luck out there, brother!
The Shield just works, and is certainly still getting updates. Frankly, the only thing I learned about unlimited streaming is just how bad Hollywood is. All they do now is rip-off any film that was a success for decades. How many ripoffs of Aliens will people watch?
You’d be surprised. I worked for Blockbuster Video multiple times, and there was a population of customers who LOVED the ripoff versions of movies. Snakes On A Train for instance.
I asked one of these customers one time what the draw of these movies was because he knew that they weren’t the originals. He told me that they served as something he could put on in the background and not feel guilty about only half paying attention to it.
I guarantee that guy is streaming that same garbage constantly today.
Those movies from asylum productions are so funny to riff on with friends like mst3k style
- snakes on a train
- transmorphers
- Titanic 2
- etc
Definitely. Perhaps the only good use of those movies.
In that case, I stand corrected!
I still couldn’t justify the price tag for a new one, but I will if they release something with the Switch 2 SoC !
I got a Xiaomi TV Box S 2nd Gen.
They advertise 4K, Dolby Atmos, Dolby Vision HDR10+, something some other but honestly I couldn’t tell you much about any of that. My TV is old as heeeelllll, 1080p is plenty for me.
Where I live it was comparable in price to a Fire Stick, and since I heard Amazon doesn’t let you switch the stock launcher (and broke all previous workarounds) I choose this instead.
It let me install Projectivity Launcher and disable the stock Google TV Launcher with no fuss.Performance is not bad. Don’t expect to be flying in and out of apps at the speed of light but I can jump between home, YouTube, Twitch and Jellyfin without much delay. Things might stutter while they load but nothing too bad.
All in all, pretty competent little box, I’m happy with it.I’m glad that you’re happy with it, but you couldn’t pay me to use a Xiaomi product.
My phone is Xiaomi 😅
They’re pretty nice hardware wise, retaining long gone features like SD Cards and IR Blasters, but the stock software is really eh, now that they’ve started cracking down on bootloaders unlocking I can’t reccomend them anymore.
At least the TV Boxes are basically just stock Android.
I have a raspberry pi 4 (8gb) running osmc (an alternative to libreelec). It’s been a champ for several years now. Kodi is great.
This, we have a pi with a NFS drive with all the films that are in jellyfin
I just use an old Chromecast and my phone. No complaints.
I’m using the shield non pro (tube) with the wolf launcher and it works fine overall. Occasionally it’ll freeze up and I need to hard boot it.
I’m fairly confident the shield line is dead at this point so I’m not waiting on it. When my tube dies out on me I’ll figure something else out. I’m here checking out what others are doing so I can slowly research and set a game plan in advance.
But I don’t expect that time to come soon. Its not like the thing is under high load since my home media is running on a different box. I also suspect if I factory reset my tube it’ll fix my random bugs and negate the need for something new.
Makes sense. If my CCwGTV wouldnt have needed rebooting several times a week, I would have held out a lot longer too.
I just can’t justify shelling out $250+ for the Shield now that it’s this old. Found nothing used nearby.Just picked up the Google Streamer. It’ll do for now and at least I know it works for what I need
Oh, I fully agree the price is too high for 6 year old hardware.
I was looking at the Vero that another comment recommended. That looks promising to me. I’ve only done initial looks but that’s probably the route I’d go if I need to buy today.
Google streamer is cheaper, but paying extra to keep google out of my life is OK by me. Just personal preference.
The Vero.
It’s the only open source offering, works great with 4k and HDR. Does use OSMC which I’m not a fan of but it works.
I’ve never heard of this and it looks pretty good. I’m in the “Boycott the US” mode so definitely will be avoiding Google devices if I can. What is it about OSMC that you’re not a fan of?
It’s kodi I’m not big on, it works fine but the jellyfin addon isn’t fantastic for me, it frequently loses connection when using NFS, if not using NFS, I find it very slow to load media.
@HarngoMan
Does it also run something like Netflix, DisneyPlus etc.?I think the product is really exciting, but I’d have a very hard time convincing by better half and kids that it’s an upgrade, sadly.
I’ll do some more reading on it before I purchase anything else though, so thanks a lot for the input!
Personally I use the 2019 Shield non-pro. Works great. I also have a TV with Google TV built-in. I sideloaded a custom launcher with no ads on it, love that.
My mom uses a Roku Ultra on her home theater. It can handle more formats than anything else, including lossless audio formats from Blurays (Dolby TrueHD and DTS HD: Master Audio). Only downsides of the Roku ecosystem are the lack of SmartTube and the built-in ads. I used to use a Roku myself quite a bit, and the ads can be fully blocked by a PiHole, for what it’s worth. Still, if no SmartTube is a dealbreaker, I would go for a GoogleTV box every time.
I would ditch my Roku in an instant if it wasn’t for my pihole. The volume of ads, logs, etc. that it blocks on Roku is insane…
Yeah, absolutely. With a PiHole the Roku is debatably the best “just works” device, but if no SmartTube is a dealbreaker, it’s gotta be GoogleTV.
I picked up an Intel N100 mini PC and put Bazzite on it. Regular Bazzite instead of the HTPC version that goes to game mode on boot. It works great as a client! I can directly play most everything and it’s very snappy. I use an Logitech wireless keyboard with a trackpad to control it from the couch. It gets the job done.
Yeah it’s been suggested by others and I’d love it myself, but it won’t fly having a keyboard in the living room.
The server is a N100 running Proxmox and working like an absolute champion! Love these things.
Thanks for the input anyways. We totally agree, I’m just not in charge anymore
What about something like this? I haven’t tested it personally, but it has been suggested elsewhere. https://a.co/d/gp4BIEV
Is there an OS or software around that could run LIKE a Google tv, firestick, etc? I have an Onno Google tv (it’s just Walmart’s brand) but it’s slow. I like using a remote, but if I could throw a mini pc or something small and only use the remote to interact with it after setup that’d be ideal.
i used a mini PC (old x86 Chromebox actually) with Debian and plasma bigscreen and it worked pretty well. not a perfect replacement, but it made it easy to launch jellyfin, steamlink, etc.
edit. oh and I used it with one of those remotes that is also a magic mouse or whatever. like 10 bucks off amazon and all the buttons worked with plasma!
Never seen this, pretty cool!
It still needs to be app based for the family to approve sadly, so it’s either Android og Apple. Super advice for those with less stringent “rules” though, hehe. Cheers!
We used a firestick for a few years which was more than adequate in my experience once you’d set it up initially. Earlier this year I switched over to a cheap Chinese google box by “mycool”, so far this has been working fine too with no issues aside from the cheap remote (I didn’t like the fire stick remote either but it at least felt a little better quality)
I absolutely hate both Amazon and google but my primary concerns were more about the girlfriend acceptance factor as it had to be something that was easy to use as she does not want to put any effort into it. It also needed “Netflix certification” so that the Netflix app would work as she belligerently keeps paying for and using that despite me providing multiple alternatives.
I added a custom launcher to the googleTV one so it literally displays the 6 icons of the things we use and none of the other shit so the experience is easy and streamlined with no adverts or bullshit and this has passed the test with no complaints.
For my sister I got a fire stick up and running as she is, again, very against using anything that requires any kind of effort and she seems happy with that so far.
I’d like to move away from both Amazon and google at least in my own house but not sure how to yet and still get the A OK from the other users, I tried kodi in the past but they both refused to use it due to the interface, which to be fair is fucking dog shit in my experience.
So for now I’ll be sticking to the fire stick and googletv options I have running.
I think our partners could be sisters, tbh…
My conclusion is pretty much the same as yours, but I still wanted to double check for fresh inputs: I’m stuck with Google for now, unless I want to test a Chinese product.
I just have this feeling that the moment I purchase the TV Streamer, Nvidia or Valve will release something awesome that blows it out of the water.
Maybe that means I should buy it to help everyone else on the fence…I was looking at the nvidia before getting this current one as everyone recommends it but it is so old now and yet still absurdly expensive that I just didn’t think it was worth it, so if you could buy it and force a new iteration for us all that would be great!
Good luck with whatever you buy, if I had my way we would have a PC hooked up to the TV and do everything via that but I would probably be kicked out just for suggesting something so “absurd” xD
I was dumb enough to suggest the same. You are obviously the smarter of us.
Cheers mate! Enjoy your weekend
I own both Roku and Apple TV.
With Roku, The UI is just riddled with ads. Every time I turn it on I feel like they find another new place to insert more adverts. The UI feels sluggish and I had one remote die on me. The experience is largely solid but I feel less comfortable about what data Roku is mining. I’ll probably replace it with another Apple TV in the future.
As for Apple TV. I’m in the ecosystem ngl. It’s obviously a bit more expensive. There are a lot of settings you can customize. No ads in the UI (except where streaming services insert them of course.) Maybe there might be a solution available.
I’ve had some remote issues though. Sometimes it will start scrolling like crazy after hitting a button once. For some reason my tv turns back on after turning the Apple TV and tv it’s self off. And occasionally the volume buttons decide to not work. I’ll note that I’m currently on beta software so that might be the problem. The model of my tv may be causing issues also.
The apps available are definitely a plus. I don’t really watch YouTube on the tv often. Plex works great on both Roku and Apple TV. There’s a jellyfin app too, but haven’t messed with it a ton. The nice thing about iOS is that the developer community is pretty solid. So there’s a decent chance you may find apps that other platforms wouldn’t ever have. You can check the App Store to see what’s available.
Also: I think I saw somewhere that you need an Apple account (or even an iPhone) for initial set up. That may be an issue to consider. That being said, if your wife uses an iPhone, the ecosystem is largely similar with not a huge learning curve.
Yeah the ads are crazy, but at least with Android devices you can often have a different launcher.
The Apple TV is tempting me more and more and would be the perfect device, had it only supported side loading or SmartTube. It’s a deal breaker for me, pushing me towards either Google with Projectivity launcher or trying to wait out a new Shield device.
Glad to see your happy with it though. I think I’ve yet to talk to anyone who isn’t, which says a lot about it as a product.
Get a used Micro Business PC & get your favorite debian based OS on it as the jellyfin-client are available in .deb in the git repo.
You now control your ecosystem and no longer subject to greedy 3rd party.
Hehe yeah, if I could choose we’d have a NUC in the living room, but I’m outnumbered in this house. Apps and remote control are must-haves
i use similar–a laptop with a ulv cpu, configured to run closed (stays cool, even under load) and wake/power-on by keyboard (wireless with trackpad).
