Shield (£190) or ? (Media player)

Kuva

Having a load of probs with various Android boxes, Was gonna get the shield. Pretty expensive.

Is their a build that can beat that? That will just WORK with no problems (plug and play), it's for the parents.

Recurve360

Fire TV stick? Can sideload apps onto it. Thats what im using with no problems. Simple to use aswell.

KilOit

One of my best buys yet, no regrets. I've used those crappy Kodi boxes and so called powerful android boxes but nothing comes close to this. I use it to game also so get a lot of use out of it. Plays everything super smooth at 4k hdr and the controller is very responsive with zero lag and virtualy no ui lag

Matt Simis

Both the Fire TV (not stick*) and Shield are excellent and just work, though sideloading Apps on the new Shield OS is getting hard. Still havent quite cracked it over Wifi TBH. Shield has a native Kodi app where the Fire TV doesnt tho (you can sideload it, but putting it on the main dashboard requires faking another App to launch Kodi instead).

I got my Shield used and sold the Fire TV as I wanted to use the native gamestreaming app, better controller etc.



* The stick works fine but its way too slow for my liking.

Asmodean

I'm seriously considering getting a shield for xmas, both for the android functionality and as another gaming console. I've heard its possible to stream my steam library from my PC? Only thing is that they would be a couple of rooms apart. I reckon that you'd need a pretty hefty internet connection to get full use out of any game streaming? I'm only getting 30-50MBPS at the moment but will be upgrading to SIRO in March hopefully. Would ye recommend I hold off on the shield until then?

Matt Simis

Game streaming doesn't use the Internet connection, its pretty much contained within your home Wifi. The Shield' GameStream is waaay better than Steams inhome streaming (but you can test that out in the meantime). I can stream 4k to my TV from 1.5rooms away, usually hitting around 30Mb/s. I use 802.11ac Wifi, devices "connecting" around 380 to 500Mb/s (obviously not delivering that type of performance).

Steam in home was taking up double that and was all over the place in terms of visual quality and jitter and stuff. Sound lagged a bit on Steams solution too.

Mickeroo

If you have an Nvidia GPU you can use an app on the FireTV called Moonlight Game Streaming which uses the shield streaming. I wired my PC to the router then put the FireTV on the 5ghz wifi. Works flawlessly.

Snake Plisken

Just in terms of media watching I would recommend the Shield great support from Nvidia even for the original Shield still getting updates. I picked mine up on Cyber Monday 2 years ago from Amazon the price dropped to around £130 so I jumped. Keep an eye out this year it might be on special during Cyber Monday.

Matt Simis

Mickeroo wrote: »

If you have an Nvidia GPU you can use an app on the FireTV called Moonlight Game Streaming which uses the shield streaming. I wired my PC to the router then put the FireTV on the 5ghz wifi. Works flawlessly.

Yeah I used to use that on my FireTV, but sold it as I wanted to try out the Shield. As expected the Shield implementation is more polished by comparison to the open source app, but yes Moonlight works on a sideloaded FireTV. Their x86 Linux support is non-existent (as Chrome Linux doesnt do HW Video decoding) which soured me on them.

Asmodean

Might consider picking one up so, if even for a new media center. I don't have an NVidia GPU at the moment but I was going to upgrade my PC in a few months anyway. Has anyone used their actual game streaming service?

Gehad_JoyRider

Ive. Minx, there a little more expensive then most, but there fine for net flix and stuff like that. Ive a steam link for gaming on.