Apple TV 4K vs. Nvidia Shield

[BODYBUILDERPAUL]

I have all kind of issues with my Chromecast. I have done a "factory reset" few weeks ago and only partly solved them. It doesn't like much my Plex server (on macOS), getting stuck when subtitles (SRT!!) are on, I have to close and reopen the apps to have the Chromecast icon showing in my Xperia X Compact (with Android 7.1.1 and monthly security updates), the apps loose the connections to the device, with the videos keeping playing by themselves and no control. And it seems to get worse with time instead of improving.

Which is in line with how Android TV works in my Bravia. Bugs everywhere. Sure the Shield has much better hardware and support, but I am tempted myself on buying an ATV 4K, use the TV as a display, and forget about that awful (and slow) Android TV. Although I would still use the Android part for YouTube 4K (no HDR, yet. Although the HW is ready) and TIMvision here in Italy. Kodi is cool but is too heavy and I just use it as a media player, being the only one working (on Bravia) with all video and audio formats. Plex keeps transcoding for no reasons. But I read the ATV has Infuse and that should solve my LAN streaming problems.[/QUOT

Being honest, that's what i've always done and thought about TV ever since I bought ATV in 2010. I've always though as the TV as a monitor screen with speakers. Surely if you're going to use computer technology with it, you buy a separate box from the computer company that makes the absolute finest hardware and software in the world and IMO, always have done - Apple It's stress free! You don't waste your precious time. I read a B&O site where pretentious fools spend £2000 on a cheap £90 Android tablet 'thing' and guess what, three years on, it still doesn't work properly and that's purely a simple music streamer at £2000 (the price of a maxed out MacBook Pro TB 13")!!!
An example is our Thursday night film night. 7 to 10+ friends come for a late dinner and then at midnight after chatting and laughs, we watch a film and enjoy the experience. The Apple TV performs flawlessly with it's beautiful user interface, mind blowing screen savers which come on as I make espresso and cake for everyone and its sheer performance with no freezing, buffering or problems. Why would I ever want to move from that???

 

[Macalicious2011]

Speaking of Plex. I've used it to play 5-8GB 4K videos by Digital Foundry videos and they work like a charm. There is the odd stutter or buffer for some videos that are not transcoded. I wonder whether it's because my laptop isn't 100% optimal for 4K playback.

When a video is streamed from my Mac, is it streamed locally or does the Mac run the video through Plex servers before it reaching the ATV?

I have zero issues with casting. Start, stop, I can navigate away on my phone and casting continues no issues.

Most chromecasts are run wirelessly though you can purchase a wired kit for them. Is your ATV wired? I wonder if your buffering issues are really just a wifi problem.

My Chromecast 2 didn't get along with 5Ghz that well but worked reliable 2.4Ghz with the exception of the odd connection problem.

Once I bought a TP-Link AV1200, for other reasons, and hardwired the Chromecast it became stupendously fast. No connection drops, casting takes a split of a second and playback controls on any device in the house are instant

 

[priitv8]

When a video is streamed from my Mac, is it streamed locally or does the Mac run the video through Plex servers before it reaching the ATV?

Which Plex servers?
The only one I know, is that I am running on my Mac Mini. So it is local. Would not be possible to play back such high-bitrate videos if it were looped through public internet.

 

[Macalicious2011]

Which Plex servers?
The only one I know, is that I am running on my Mac Mini. So it is local. Would not be possible to play back such high-bitrate videos if it were looped through public internet.

Ok. So Plex videos played from my Mac to the ATV are not routed through the internet? Even when both are connected to Ethernet there is the odd stutter or buffer for some of the most demanding videos. I guess it's my Mac that's struggling a bit.

 

[priitv8]

Ok. So Plex videos played from my Mac to the ATV are not routed through the internet? Even when both are connected to Ethernet there is the odd stutter or buffer for some of the most demanding videos. I guess it's my Mac that's struggling a bit.

I seriously doubt they are routed through internet. Causes for stuttering - Plex server may be transcoding and your server's CPU can't keep up.
Or the network is having tough times with the bitrate. Or the Plex client on aTV is short of resources - have you tried to kill background tasks?

 

[Macalicious2011]

I seriously doubt they are routed through internet. Causes for stuttering - Plex server may be transcoding and your server's CPU can't keep up.
Or the network is having tough times with the bitrate. Or the Plex client on aTV is short of resources - have you tried to kill background tasks?

I will check that Safari is closed down next time. This is an example spec of the videos I have played natively:

h.264
3.5GB
3840x2160
59.94fps
51.7mbps
AAC 2.0, 448kbps, 48000Hz

 

[jeffreco]

I am in pretty deep into Apples ecosystem. I have a couple of hundred movies and some tv shows. My family photos are stored in the photos app, and my family all uses iPads and iPhones that we use to Airplay some videos. I've had an Apple TV since the very first one and love the device. I'm about as Apple Fanboy as you can get, and I still don't feel like can quite get rid of my Nvidia Shield (yet). I saw a comment that it really depends on your use case, and I really think that is true. I have a dedicated media room with a projector and full surround that is fed by a Plex server that holds full quality copies of all my blu-rays, as well as a 4k UHD blu ray player. The projector is a little finicky about the 4k signal I send it. The Shield figured how what setting was optimal and worked right away. Even with the update, the Apple TV just says the projector is not 4k compatible. I WAS able to manually set it, but it didn't have the display options that the Shield has. The biggest thing holding me back right now is ATMOS. I know the Apple TV is supposed to be getting that update soon, but for now, the Shield supports nearly all lossless formats. It's a powerhouse Plex client. The other TV's in the house have only an Apple TV attached to them through which we do everything, including live TV. They work great. The voice search is terrific, and I really like the TV App integration with different network apps. I love and appreciate the free upgrade many of my movies get to 4k, and given the choice prefer that UI. That being said, I don't think the shield's is all that bad either for everyday use. To the average consumer who intends to run the main streaming services and is into the Apple ecosystem, I would say that Apple TV is a hands down winner. To the home theater enthusiasts who wants to watch a lot of different media that includes things like projectors and maybe an ATMOS surround system, I think the Shield still has the edge for now.

 

[archer75]

I will check that Safari is closed down next time. This is an example spec of the videos I have played natively:

h.264
3.5GB
3840x2160
59.94fps
51.7mbps
AAC 2.0, 448kbps, 48000Hz

What container? At only 3.5gb and H.264 it's pointless to run it as a 4k file as too much data is lost. However I don't see your mac having an issue unless your container is mkv which isn't support.
If it were me i'd stick with quality 1080p encodes and let the ATV4k scaler handle the rest. It's actually quite good. I also do mine in H.265, smaller file sizes. Or the same file size with more a much better picture.
At my viewing distance, on a 65" LG OLED and the ATV4k or Shield my 1080p h.265 encodes look about the same as 4k. Minus the HDR 4k has of course. HDR is the game changer, not 4k itself.

 

[nebo1ss]

I am totally invested in the Apple eco system with an iPhone, IPAD, MacMini and MacBook Air laptop. However, I moved away from the Apple tv sometime ago first to a ROKU and now to the Nvidia shield. There is nothing i have seen with the latest model that would make me reconsider that decision. My view is that the Nvidia shield is far and away the best streaming device on the market. I run both Plex and Kodi on my shield and use all the immersive audio formats which are fully supported.

Just to add a correction i have seen many on here saying the shield support UTUBE HDR in fact it does not support vp9 profile 3 which is necessary for UTUBE HDR.

 

[archer75]

I have all kind of issues with my Chromecast. I have done a "factory reset" few weeks ago and only partly solved them. It doesn't like much my Plex server (on macOS), getting stuck when subtitles (SRT!!) are on, I have to close and reopen the apps to have the Chromecast icon showing in my Xperia X Compact (with Android 7.1.1 and monthly security updates), the apps loose the connections to the device, with the videos keeping playing by themselves and no control. And it seems to get worse with time instead of improving.

Which is in line with how Android TV works in my Bravia. Bugs everywhere. Sure the Shield has much better hardware and support, but I am tempted myself on buying an ATV 4K, use the TV as a display, and forget about that awful (and slow) Android TV. Although I would still use the Android part for YouTube 4K (no HDR, yet. Although the HW is ready) and TIMvision here in Italy. Kodi is cool but is too heavy and I just use it as a media player, being the only one working (on Bravia) with all video and audio formats. Plex keeps transcoding for no reasons. But I read the ATV has Infuse and that should solve my LAN streaming problems.

Oh I wouldn't say plex transcodes for no reason. It has a reason. Whatever client you're playing it on does not support the files you are trying to play. You have to look at 3 things, the container, video file and audio file.
Android TV on your sony is slow because most smart tv's are slow. My LG is the only smart tv i've used that doesn't suck.
Plex does have issues with subtitles. I hardcode all forced subtitles so I don't have to worry about this.

 

[Michelasso]

It is really strange, what prevents it coming to AndroidTV, for Sony at least. YT player on Sony's UHD bluray player plays all aspects of 4K and HDR, so it can not be that Sony does not know how to.

Because the vp9.2 Codec is there (but only on Bravia with MT5891, the ones with Android 7.0) but broken. If I download an HDR video from YouTube, it plays as SDR in all media players but Plex. Plex switches the TV to HDR but then it doesn't use BT.2020, making the image totally washed.

Oh yeah, but we discussed about this a bit in another thread.

I actually prefer the Plex client on Bravia much to that on tvOS. One of the reasons is exactly the display of transcoding cause on-screen (might have had to enable it in settings first). Plex client on tvOS has just plain simple player UI.

I have a MacBook Pro with i5. When the Plex server transcodes the 4K videos it sits down my CPU. It becomes unusable. And also it loses the HDR if transcoding. Oh, and the AAC 5.1 gets a 2.0 output. Then DTS passthrough is broken in the Bravia (actually only DD and DD+ work fine) and so I easily get something transcoding, causing Plex to transcode everything (which is absurd).

The same exact videos play just fine with Kodi, so I wish the developers (all developers) would start a trend of stopping adding useless features and fix the ones they have once for all. Apple devs for macOS included. High Sierra is too heavy for my taste.
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Oh I wouldn't say plex transcodes for no reason. It has a reason. Whatever client you're playing it on does not support the files you are trying to play. You have to look at 3 things, the container, video file and audio file.

The problem is that the same videos play fine with Kodi (via WebDAV) and Sony's Video via DLNA. So I don;t see the reason why it needs to transcode the video. If Plex play them at all. The one good thing about Android TV is that it has nearly all video codecs. I have opened various threads in the Plex forum, even getting answer from the devs but at the end nothing ever changed. Actually Plex 5.10 was doing a better job in terms of NO transcoding (and not getting "Server error).

 

[priitv8]

You have to look at 3 things, the container, video file and audio file.

Also subtitles, if present and important to the viewer.

 

[Macalicious2011]

What container? At only 3.5gb and H.264 it's pointless to run it as a 4k file as too much data is lost. However I don't see your mac having an issue unless your container is mkv which isn't support.
If it were me i'd stick with quality 1080p encodes and let the ATV4k scaler handle the rest. It's actually quite good. I also do mine in H.265, smaller file sizes. Or the same file size with more a much better picture.
At my viewing distance, on a 65" LG OLED and the ATV4k or Shield my 1080p h.265 encodes look about the same as 4k. Minus the HDR 4k has of course. HDR is the game changer, not 4k itself.

The container is MP4. The videos are downloaded from this website https://www.digitalfoundry.net.

I once set one of the videos to transcode but my computer was struggling as MacBooks only became optimal for 4K playback or transcoding from 2015.

 

[priitv8]

I have a MacBook Pro with i5. When the Plex server transcodes the 4K videos it sits down my CPU. It becomes unusable. And also it loses the HDR if transcoding.

I have a Late 2012 Mac Mini with 2,4GHz QC i7. HEVC in itself does not cause a transcode on my setup, even with HDR. And HDR metadata is preserved and the telly switches to HDR mode as expected: