For a certain set of users, it is possible that the SHIELD can replace their HTPC.
That said, it does have support for all major OTT services and Live TV as well as future DVR capabilities (thanks to Android TV). The absence of deinterlacing is an issue, but that should hopefully get resolved soon.īased on our evaluation, the SHIELD Android TV is definitely not a comprehensive HTPC replacement - particularly from the local media playback viewpoint.
Fortunately, despite the lack of MPEG-2 and VC-1 licenses, Kodi's software decode is efficient enough to not cause frame drops. The SHIELD Android TV / Kodi combination has absolutely no trouble with the vanilla H.264 files that people usually rip their Blu-rays to. For software-decoded ones such as our 1080i60 VC-1 clip, the power consumption shot up to 11.5 W. For hardware-accelerated codecs, the power consumption at the wall was around 6 W. HEVC streams played back with hardware acceleration inside the Kodi interface, but Kodi had trouble with TS files.
We played back our test streams from a Samsung T1 portable SSD attached to the USB 3.0 port. On the bitstreaming side, we could only select DTS and Dolby Digital, and Kodi had no problems bitstreaming those streams.
The Kodi 15.0 beta 1 APK is available for sideloading on to the SHIELD Android TV. We tried processing the HQV Benchmark videos on the SHIELD to get an objective evaluation of the SHIELD's post-processing capabilities, but unfortunately the MPEG-2 encoded streams were not processed properly when decoded in software on Kodi. Third-party players will need to work with NVIDIA to ensure that any software decoded streams are correctly hooked up to the post-processing chain. NVIDIA only guarantees video post processing for the licensed codecs that go through their hardwrae decoder. For example, SiliconDust (the vendor behind HDHomeRun) is doing it with their Live TV app in order to get hardware decoding enabled for MPEG-2.Īttempting 480i60 MPEG-2 Playback with the Native Android Video Player Video Post Processingĭeinterlacing and pull-down detection / IVTC are essential for watching certain live TV channels and other interlaced content. It is also possible for app vendors to purchase the license themselves and then work with NVIDIA to get hardware acceleration / support for that. can opt to use pure software decoding when hardware decoding is not available. That said, players such as Kodi, MX Player etc. This also means that the SHIELD Android TV will not be doing any HD audio bitstreaming in the near future unless things chance on the licensing front. This means that the native Android Video Player can only play back the above codecs (in addition to the free-to-decode / play ones such as PCM audio).
Apps such as TVHZ were created to resolve this issue, but needs manual intervention prior to media playback. Obviously, a 24 fps film needs to be pulled-down with a 3:2 cadence to let the display be refreshed at 60 Hz. The Android TV framework forces the interface and most apps to run at 60 Hz. In this section, we attempt to set the expectations right on the various relevant aspects. Given that most of them prefer local media playback to OTT streaming, there has been marked interest in the local media playback capabilities of the unit. The announcement of the SHIELD Android TV box generated a lot of interest amongst media streaming enthusiasts.