Nvidia Shield Or The New Apple TV?

Megalith

Megalith

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If you are deciding on whether to adopt a Shield or an Apple TV as your next set-top box, Nvidia has written a post to help you better come to a decision.

The choice is yours. With two high-end streaming options on the table, it’s decision time. While the new Apple TV is a definite improvement over its predecessor, the fact remains that would-be streamers and cord cutters also crave truly high-end experiences. SHIELD, Boasting 4K streaming, voice search, voice commands, and a gaming ecosystem that not only includes a full-blown App store but also the same amazing titles that are currently available on PCs and next-gen gaming consoles.
 
Tech specs wise yes the shield much better than the apple TV, Feature wise, wins most and looses a few.

But Apple is going to sell tons of them anyway. At least compared to the shield.
 
given the ecosystem I've bought into (and being a fanboy) I'm getting the new apple tv.
 
Hmmmm....looks interesting.

4k Support, which is nice. Would love to stream 4k to my 55ju7100

XBMC support out of the box. Also very nice.

The question is, and it may have been answered somewhere already, is it certified as a media center extender? As in, will it play copy-once DRM channels from my cable provider, say from an HDHomerun Prime?

I have a FireTV box, and it does ALMOST everything I need. That is one thing it doesn't do. I still have to use my Xbox 360 for TV viewing/recording. It's a PITA.

I'd love to do it all from one box.

(yes, I know the HDHomerun DVR app is coming out, which will supposedly support DRM channels, but until I see it, I can't count on it)
 
Stoly said:
Tech specs wise yes the shield much better than the apple TV, Feature wise, wins most and looses a few.

But Apple is going to sell tons of them anyway. At least compared to the shield.
Click to expand...

Apple TV is essentially a Airplay machine for me. I have used it almost everyday for mirroring or streaming. Much more useful than nVidia Shield to me.
 
Depends what you want to do. If all your shit is on iTunes and you play music off your iPhone/pad then AppleTV is the way.

I am planning on moving our Apple TV3 and replacing it with the Shield. I love my Shield portable but sometimes I want to play GTA on the TV while sitting on the couch. The Shield can also do anything the AppleTV could so might as well have 1 box rather than 2.

Plus the portable is getting a little long in the tooth for newer games.
 
Fire TV has been sold out for a while on Amazon, have a hunch they might be releasing a new version soon that will blow both of these out of the water in terms of price/performance/features.
 
I see a lot of games I'm familiar with on the Shield, but are there any must-haves?
 
Ticker305 said:
Fire TV has been sold out for a while on Amazon, have a hunch they might be releasing a new version soon that will blow both of these out of the water in terms of price/performance/features.
Click to expand...

Some new Fire TV information:

http://www.aftvnews.com/possible-next-gen-4k-fire-tv-surfaces-in-fcc-filing/
 
gigatexal said:
given the ecosystem I've bought into (and being a fanboy) I'm getting the new apple tv.
Click to expand...

I'm honestly not trying to troll - but what do you get from [H]? Your sig is all prefigged (TM) Apple products when most everything on this site is "IBM Compatible" enthusiast mods.

I hope you don't take that as a shot, I'm truly curious.
 
nVidia needs to drop the price by $50 or include the remote for free. I would love to have one for a media player, but $250 is a bit expensive for me to switch from my current media player. Personally, I have no interest in the new Apple TV because I don't buy into the Apple ecosystem/walled garden.
 
Definitely Shield for me because it is one device which can handle gaming and streaming much better than the Apple TV.
 
Rather get a Xbox 360 or PS3 over a Shield or Apple TV.

Or build my own HTPC
 
Or offer packages without the gaming remote and instead the streaming remote. Or best drop the gaming remote and reduce the price. Then people can choose how they want to use their box.

OregonLAN said:
nVidia needs to drop the price by $50 or include the remote for free. I would love to have one for a media player, but $250 is a bit expensive for me to switch from my current media player. Personally, I have no interest in the new Apple TV because I don't buy into the Apple ecosystem/walled garden.
Click to expand...
 
They're both redundant if you already have a decent phone or tablet. If forced to choose between the two a smart consumer would pick the Shield TV but Apple will still sell a lot to dumbsumers.
 
haste. said:
I'm honestly not trying to troll - but what do you get from [H]? Your sig is all prefigged (TM) Apple products when most everything on this site is "IBM Compatible" enthusiast mods.

I hope you don't take that as a shot, I'm truly curious.
Click to expand...

I've had plenty of [H] approved systems. I had a 3930k heavily overclocked with 64GB of ram and two titans. Played a lot of crisis 3 multiplayer. Before that I had a number of systems. I am now a bit more mature in my tastes and have a quad opted on system for development and another opted on system for virtualization.

I'm here for the reviews. And this forum. I've gotten a lot of good advice here. Many of my parts were purchased from members in the for sale and trade sub forum.

I've just come to like the apple ecosystem a lot. Will be building a system for doom 4 soon.
 
Zarathustra[H];1041851457 said:
How about neither? Build an HTPC and run Kodi?
Click to expand...

It'd be hard to build an HTPC cheaper than the Shield (which can run Kodi).

But between the two (Shield and Apple TV) obviously I'd pick the one that isn't a locked-down proprietary trainwreck closed-platform mess.
 
jwcalla said:
It'd be hard to build an HTPC cheaper than the Shield (which can run Kodi).

But between the two (Shield and Apple TV) obviously I'd pick the one that isn't a locked-down proprietary trainwreck closed-platform mess.
Click to expand...

I don't know how much the shield costs, but my Linux HTPC is a hacked ASUS Chromebox.

Full fledged x86 Broadwell dual core Celeron, 2GB of RAM and 16GB SSD for $199, and it is easy to hack so it will boot Windows/Linux

If you need storage on it, you can replace the m2 drive, or plug stuff into the USB slots. Personally I just stream everything from a shared folder on my NAS.
 
Zarathustra[H];1041852021 said:
I don't know how much the shield costs, but my Linux HTPC is a hacked ASUS Chromebox.

Full fledged x86 Broadwell dual core Celeron, 2GB of RAM and 16GB SSD for $199, and it is easy to hack so it will boot Windows/Linux

If you need storage on it, you can replace the m2 drive, or plug stuff into the USB slots. Personally I just stream everything from a shared folder on my NAS.
Click to expand...

But you said "build" an HTPC, not buy a Chromebox off the shelf. Either way, the price is about the same, though I suppose the Shield is able to do more.
 
jwcalla said:
But you said "build" an HTPC, not buy a Chromebox off the shelf. Either way, the price is about the same, though I suppose the Shield is able to do more.
Click to expand...

I did, partially because I assume most of us have spare low end parts kicking around to do something like that with. Just bringing up yet another option :p

You feel a closed ecosystem Arm device is able to do more than a full x86 computer? :p
 
That being said, if the MythTV plugin can run on the Shield in Kodi, I'd be willing to try it. I doubt it will, seeing that it is ARM based though.
 
Shield is literally the garbage heap where all the smartphone chips Nvidia couldn't sell ended up.
 
Zarathustra[H];1041852145 said:
You feel a closed ecosystem Arm device is able to do more than a full x86 computer? :p
Click to expand...

Yeah, because ISA doesn't mean jack unless you're on a Windows platform.

The media / codec capabilities are far better in the Shield than anything Intel has.
 
Nasgul said:
Oh! That's an easy one.

nVidia of course. Anything made by Apple is overpriced exclusivity crap
Click to expand...

Ironic given that the only things differentiating on the SHIELD are exclusives that NVIDIA paid for (Portal, Never Alone, Half Life 2). You can't get them anywhere else on Android because NVIDIA won't allow it.

..............and it puts AMD closer to put its second knee on the ground.
Click to expand...

Don't you like competition?
 
4K on the Shield is interesting. Performance should be roughly the same on AppleTV though. The biggest thing is that the iOS ecosystem will be much better after several months. There's already a huge app gap in phones and tablets, and I won't be surprised to see developers support iOS in the same way. There's just a lot more money there.
 
haste. said:
I'm honestly not trying to troll - but what do you get from [H]? Your sig is all prefigged (TM) Apple products when most everything on this site is "IBM Compatible" enthusiast mods.

I hope you don't take that as a shot, I'm truly curious.
Click to expand...

If you don't use at least 3 different OS's on a regular basis, you are not [H] at all.

How can you be [H] when you only use 1 OS? What kind of insight can you have?
 
Until they get 4K and so 7.1 on AppleTV, I'll stick with our AppleTV 3's. Gaming was the last thing I needed out of my ATV.
 
Stoly said:
Good luck playing ANYTHING on a brix or NUC.
Click to expand...

Uh, why?

They are essentially desktop PC's


That's like saying "good luck playing anything on your desktop".

I'd argue that they are far superior to any of these ARM based toys.
 
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