The NVIDIA Shield TV is currently on sale for $169.99 on Amazon. This is the latest model that was released at the start of the year. It’s the package that includes both the remote control and game controller which normally sells for $199.99. This sale is the lowest price that the Shield TV has ever been. There have only been two other sales that I know of and they were both $10 more than this current sale price. The $179.99 package without the game controller and the $299.99 Pro model that includes a large hard drive are not on sale. The Shield TV is a very capable gaming and streaming device that runs Android TV and is a great alternative to the Fire TV if you’re looking to do things beyond basic content streaming, like running a Plex server on it or using it as an OTA recorder.
back in Dezember 2015 (that’s roughly 2 years ago) i bought my NVIDIA Shield TV (2015) with Controller AND Remote for 158 EUR / 183 USD from Amazon here in Germany :)
i’m still happy with it, still Up-To-Date with hardware and software.
I ordered one earlier this morning, figuring a real nextgen FTV doesn’t appear to be close, and I need something with HDR. Assuming I can get a few bucks on ebay for the controller, it not too terribly expensive. And now that it has Amazon video, not sure there’s anything I can’t do on it that my FTV does.
Is this more powerful than a Raspberry Pi 3? Is it easy to set up emulators like RetroPie is for the Pi?
It is WAY more powerful. As for ease of retropie, it has retroarch. The frontend scene is not as polished, but it is there.
BTW, it seems Amazon is matching a lot of Best Buy’s BF prices.
https://www.bestbuy.com/site/nvidia-shield-tv-16-gb-streaming-media-player-with-controller-black/5709686.p?skuId=5709686
Sold. AFTV has been pretty stagnant lately. Looking forward to audio passthrough from Plex.
I just tried link and I was only able to find item listed for $209.99, unless you want a used/open box.
I passed on FTV3 since it is a downgrade, but need something for my new 4k hdr tv. The built in Roku app doesn’t cut it for me. So I picked one of these up, and will ebay the controller to recoup part of the cost.
Does anybody know if you can use the HDHomerun record engine on this model, when using an external drive. I know Pro version can, this does not have an sd card slot either only the pro on 2017 has it. Also it seems Amazon is not offering this anymore, used and refurb now. Best Buy does though.
Sold out but I picked up one at Best Buy. Thanks for the poster for the link. Finally going to get 24p and HD Audio. Interface wise I think Fire TV wins hands down but you can’t deny the speed and hardware features on the Shield. Btw so insanely lame IR isn’t on the 16GB model….
Seems to be gone from Amazon. I’ll check out Best Buy
why would you bother to pay that kind of cash when you can get all that from the new 3rd generation fire tv 4K ?? I don’t get it..
Fire TV 4K is very much locked down to the Amazon echo system.
The Shield is multiple times more powerful than any other streaming box. It also runs official Android TV and is a lot more open as a platform. It better supports refresh rate switching out of the box compared to Fire TV. Something like Kodi runs much smoother in 4k on the Shield compared to Fire TV. It also performs better as a gaming system too if you are into that.
Is frame rate switching that important? I’ve been watching video on several different streaming boxes for prob a decade now, and I never noticed things seeming off with the frame rate. Do you need a very trained eye to notice this “issue”?
Depends what kind of post-processing is enabled on the TV. Some TVs have film mode interpolation which corrects judder on 24p content delivered at 60hz.
If you had 24p@24hz and 24p@60hz playing on TVs side by side you’d definitely notice. Personally I can tell without a side by side comparison. If you’ve always watched 24p@60hz then that’s what you are used to so it can be a non issue for some.
I wonder why more boxes don’t handle this. Seems like people have been complaining about this issue for years, but it goes unresolved for the most part.
While I prefer my Shield TV to my Apple TV 4K the Apple TV is technically more powerful.
Is the new Apple TV really more powerful than the Shield? Is there a specs comparison or something out there? For a while the Shield was SO much more powerful than anything else out there.
Gamestream, chromecast support, better kodi experience, better live tv support……
The Shield TV is so much better. The Fire TV is very good but there are too many ads and it has stagnated for a while. In addition, my Fire TV (Gen 2) has the blank screen HDCP problem after sleeping. Both the Shield and Apple TV, but especially the Shield TV, are superior.
“blank screen HDCP problem after sleeping”
I wonder why Amazon has not fixed this issue. I’m pretty certain it is not hardware related, since I never used to get it, and now I get it all the time. So annoying.
Believe me, save money buy this Shield, you wont look back or anything else.
*Ecosystem*