this post was submitted on 07 Oct 2024
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Just disconnect your TV from the Internet and get an Apple TV.
First yes, second no.
The dumber the device the happier the user.
Apple TV doesn't try to do much other than being a very technically capable passthrough. You get pretty much every streaming service, multiple Plex clients etc. And no ads.
My 1st Gen ATV4K is 7 years old now and was buttery smooth until last tvOS update, now it's only slightly smoother than most high end TVs. That's quite a good run.
You mean the same Apple that was found guilty to artificially slowing older devices with software updates?
Yes. Have you ever used Apple TV? This thing is leaps and bounds ahead everything of else, even Shield in terms of pure performance.
I always found it tough to get upset with them much for that one. They had to deal with battery aging because they were the ones to support their devices long enough for it to matter. Plus I had a Nexus 6P at the time, and when its battery started getting weak the damn phone would just shut off while at 30% or whatever.
Them sneaking it in was obviously bad though.
Why do I doubt this.
Because you hate Apple (for likely justifiable reasons) and thus at a basic level of intuition assume everything Apple does is bad.
But while Apple certainly isn’t good (there is no “good” when it comes to the way corporations monetize their customers), Apple is significantly better in some areas than their competitors (while being worse in others). iPhones are much better than Pixels for privacy, for example.
The Apple TV is a product that needs to do very specific things: show media, and run a few types of apps. This isn’t very computationally heavy. My smart TVs were always great until future updates added advertisements and features that slowed them down. The Apple TV doesn’t get bogged down by shitty advertisements.
My experience with Apple is that it doesn't play nice with other ecosystems. Cludgy workarounds are usually possible but if you are doing that you may as well go for Linux.
Yep. Like I said, likely justifiable reasons to hate Apple. Despite now being thoroughly in their ecosystem, I still hate them for iMessage exclusivity and it being easier for me to confirm than convincing 20+ people across my family and my wife’s family to switch to WhatsApp or something. Fuck them for that.
But there are things they do well. Apple TV is one of them, in my experience.
What other ecosystems do you need your TV to interface with? It has a remote, or you can use your phone to control it. And it has all the major streaming apps you would want in a smart TV.
Plex, cable, ps4, Wii, switch, NAS drive, android phone, PC, DVD home theatre, pi-hole + all existing and future streaming services.
I meant specifically with the Apple TV, since that was the topic of conversation. In case you weren’t aware, the Apple TV is just a box. It’s not an actual screen. So the consoles, DVD, cable, etc are irrelevant as they would be plugged directly into the screen as well. You’d just change screen inputs to use those.
Apple TV has a fully functional Plex app. In fact, it’s pretty widely regarded as one of the most compatible Plex clients, and it’s able to DirectPlay all of the major codecs. It’s better than the apps that come built into the major smart TV brands like Roku, as many of those don’t support modern codecs like HEVC/H.265.
Pihole would happen on the DNS level. It’s not something that would require specific compatibility with the Apple TV. Unless you’re not running it on your whole network, and are manually assigning devices to it via custom DNS for each device? That would be odd, but maybe you don’t have control over your router. But even then, you can just change the network settings on your device to point its DNS at your pihole.
As far as android phones go, are you just looking for screen mirroring? Or looking to use it as a remote? Either way, you can do that; There are apps for remote control on the Google Play store.
Existing and future streaming services will likely be better supported on Apple TV than on something Iike a Samsung TV. Hell, my Samsung TV already doesn’t fully support Plex, because the app hasn’t been updated in literal years. Apple is actually pretty well known for legacy support. Hell, their fourth generation Apple TV from 2015 still has support. That’s almost a decade of support. Meanwhile, my Samsung TV is only ~5 years old, and already has apps that haven’t been updated in literal years.
Apple gets flak from the android users every time they phase out an old model of hardware, but in reality they have a better track record than most android manufacturers. It was always funny seeing the Android users memeing about Apple phasing out a 6 or 7 year old device, when their phone is half as old and is already unsupported. Google has improved with this in recent years, but only because Pixel users raised hell and started complaining to the FTC about getting dropped after only 3 years.
From your description it does sound like a high end TV USB stick, and it's not too expensive.
Now the only reservation I have is that I need to make an Apple ID to use it.
Agree, of all the companies out there, Apple isn't the one I entrust with my data. Pretty happy with my Nvidia Shield instead, the OS is open enough to allow monitoring all telemetry, and I'm happy to say that after switching everything off that Android enabled by default, nothing really gets out there. I've sniffed connections on my router as well, and it only really connects to where it should.
Edit: Aww look, I've triggered the fanboys ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Apple TV 4K:
Nvidia Shield Pro:
Both support 4K, Dolby vision, atmos, etc. Apple’s dynamic frame rate switching actually works whereas NViDIA’s has bugs and been in beta hell for years.
For your average person without very specific needs like running a Plex server off the same hardware the Apple TV4K is as or more private than the shield at a cheaper price and under active development.
I wouldn't really compare the pro version, when the regular one works better and has extendable storage via SD card and comes at $149 retail, with offers as low as $129 around.
Annual hardware revisions are nice and all, but in my understanding they don't actually improve what the end user get to experience.
The main advantage I see in the shield is the ability to sideload apps, such as SmartTube for adfree youtube with integrated sponsorblock, ftp server, torrent client etc., and not least use VLC as a media player. Plus you can customize the launcher or replace it as a whole to tailor the UI to your exact needs.
I use the pro in comparison because the non-pro version is even more dated on lesser hardware and going to be sluggish, lesser in capabilities than other alternatives in the android space.
For one it can't (reliably) run a plex server or other services so there's really no advantage other than brand loyalty to NVIDIA to buy the non-pro shield over say a Walmart Onn 4k for half that price. (And that's the truth, you can't reliably run other services on the non-pro shield without incurring a noticeable performance penalty and degradation if it's even possible in the first place)
I compare apples to apples here or tried to be honest. ATV4K has 4GB RAM, Shield Pro has 3, there are various other reasons to compare them, they're both the top of the line. Though as I mentioned if you want to compare the non-pro shield then there's the smaller ATV4k which still has without buying an SD card 64GB of storage for $129.
As to "offers". I used retail prices you use this which I consider dishonest and desperate. Not a credit to your side. Apple TVs regularly go on sale multiple times a year via official dealers like Amazon, Target, Costco. Shield's rarely go on sale, if you're talking about used or shady third party dealers then you're not doing an honest apples to apples comparison.
Shield promoters are strange people to me in 2024. I don't think you've taken a proper inventory of the landscape. People call apple users shills and so some of them are, but I see shills for various brands and people unfortunately taken in by them.
Yes it was revolutionary when it came out, now it's not. That's life when a company decides to abandon a product line for all intents and purposes and yes no hardware updates, not even a revision in 5 years signals stagnation. They don't need a major processor upgrade but not bumping a few minor aspects of the hardware like the HDMI ports version or the WiFi for instance just shows they don't consider it an important part of their brand and I'm not sure why you'd buy into something that could be sunsetted without any surprise come January.
And not dropping the price which is rather hefty and high considering costs should have gone down over time is also a not so nice sign of greed and inattention. Apple dropped their prices. No reason NVIDIA with its scale and buying power doesn't have the ability to drop the price if they're not going to at least actively develop it to justify it.
VLC is awful for network playback. It's fine for local fines (though mpv is better) but playing network files you're going to have pixelation, stuttering, all kinds of problems I can say from experience trying it on both wired and wireless connections. I strongly recommend Kodi, Plex, Emby, Jellyfin, etc over VLC for non-local playback that's smoother and better.
Ad-free youtube is likely soon to go the way of the dodo given the aggressive moves by youtube to stop it and most people don't need or want that on their TV because they're interested in paid or FAST streaming services. You have eclectic tastes and needs and that's fine but recommending that to your average person isn't doing them a service. And it's nice to think of others, not your own biases and unusual needs.
And most people don't need an FTP server (an FTP server, serving what exactly given you're talking about the non-pro and SD cards, that's not a great experience compared to an ext hard drive, if you're going to do that, go for the pro and connect an external spinning disk HDD or SSD via USB).
Most people don't need a torrent client (and again on the non-pro you're talking about downloading onto an SD card, major yikes don't do that, again if you want to do that please recommend people the pro for USB drives and use that in your honest comparisons here).
Both the above also require investing in an SD card (or an external drive via USB for the pro which is the better way to go). Reliable non-trash (good brand, good speed) SD cards are going to drive up that cost you stated another $15+ dollars which puts even your non-pro "on sale" (good luck finding it) shield within $5 spitting distance of the ATV4K higher end 128GB model (to get that much storage on the non-pro shield via SD card of a decent brand and speed would absolutely put your costs in line with the ATV4k 128GB model).
You mention alternative launchers, most people don't want to do that. Apple TV is ad free out of the box without mucking about with ADB and other things. Again consider the average user and how they're not going to do that.
Fact is Apple TVs are likely to get better and more features including new ones because they're under active development and most will get 6+ years of tvOS updates with those new features whereas the NVIDIA shield is stuck in time, no new development has been apparent for years.
Unlike AppleTV which is important to Apple's home ecosystem of devices (including homepods, various home devices, iphone integration with on-screen video calling) and thus less likely to have development stopped, the shield is just another androidtv platform among a sea of them and poses no larger risk to NVIDIA products and loyalty if discontinued. And likely the only reason it isn't discontinued is they can sit on it, reap increasingly lowered costs as profit and just sell it at the same price without investing anything in it further.
If NVIDIA shields were at least permanent price-dropped by 30% they'd at least be competitive on price even if stagnant but the asking price is unacceptably high.
If you want expensive, premium non-Apple streaming products then buy a Dune-HD, they at least silo things like a plex install via virtualization away from the androidtv google stuff so privacy is maximized via their customized linux container. They also have excellent support and are constantly and actively improving their products including offering AV1 support, frame-rate switching without flicker, and so on. They have a model at $199 for equivalent product to the shield pro but it comes with WiFi 6, av1 support, and the ability to run all kinds of services with absolute ease as well as an internal bay for a 2.5" hard drive and optical audio outs. It has a linux container which has the ability to install and run a torrent client, various other services, including I believe plex, SMB sharing (already present by default I think). You can also install android apps on the model I mentioned.