

Q: How does the Amazon Fire TV Cube compare to the Nvidia Shield TV Pro?Īmazon's highest-end Fire TV Cube ($120) will handle all the same video formats, but its audio support is inferior to the Shield. The OS doesn't have as many features, and you won't be able to play uncompressed audio. The Chromecast with Google TV is only $50, but it's much less powerful. Q: How does the Chromecast with Google TV compare to the Nvidia Shield TV Pro? Nvidia's own base-model Shield TV ($130) supports almost all the same features, but it doesn't have a Plex server, and the 32-bit app limitation makes some high-bitrate content (like Blu-ray rips) unwatchable.

You couldn't care less about high-end audio and HDR formatsįAQ Q: How does the Nvidia Shield TV compare to the Nvidia Shield TV Pro?.You mostly watch free or low-quality streaming services.You're a GeForce Now subscriber, and you want to game on your TV.You need a media streamer that supports every audiovisual format.That's something most TV interfaces simply don't have.

On the other hand, you actually can multitask with the Shield. Its age does show a bit at times-apps might hiccup while loading, and multitasking is sluggish. While the company has made a few newer Tegra models, they've all been development kits or automotive modules, so I'm not sure where Nvidia can go from here. As far as a piece of AV equipment goes, this is a monstrously powerful chip with its Maxwell-based GPU and capable but aging CPUs. The Tegra X1+ in the Shield has eight CPU cores, but they're the relatively ancient Cortex A57 and A53. The move from 20nm to 16nm is the only significant improvement for the Tegra X1 line since its 2015 debut in the original Shield (current Qualcomm and Apple parts are 4-5nm). The current Shield Pro runs the Tegra X1+ SoC, the original version of which was a real hot chip back in 2015. It doesn't happen on all DV content, so I'm not certain what the cause is. The Shield seems to lag behind adjusting the HDR profile on Dolby Vision content, which can make the brightness changes quite distracting. Unlike HDR10, Dolby Vision prescribes brightness profiles for every shot instead of using one for the whole movie. The only AV format that seems to have issues is Dolby Vision, which was new on the 2019 Shields. Heck, you can even run a Plex server on the Shield Pro. I host Blu-ray rips on my Plex server, and the Shield is the only device I've found that reliably plays everything without transcoding. The Shield is prepared for anything you throw at it, even uncompressed True HD Atmos, DTS Master Audio, and Dolby Digital Plus. Most online media streams with Dolby Digital sound, which plenty of devices can understand. Support for high-end audio-video formats is a major strength for the Shield TV.
