There are so many options on the market, but I feel like they all miss one thing or another. As my current setup is about to kick the bucket, I'd appreciate some input on your experiences and thoughts on the future.
Below are my thoughts and opinions, that are completely open to scrutiny!
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The Nvidia Shield (and 2019 Pro) are aging and overpriced. Lacking software updates shows Nvidia's priorities on other product lines. Will there be a new version now that the Switch 2 is launched, or are the possible profits pocket change for them?
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Apple TV seems to be a great alternative, but it's a locked down ecosystem. Tailscale is available here now, which is great, but there is no way to side load apps AFAIK. I am not giving up ad-free Youtube. Other than that, I see very few downsides with it.
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Google TV Streamer 4K is basically a Chromecast with more memory, storage and a slight bump to the CPU. It does finally support AV1, but lacks support for many audio codecs and several relatively common DV-profiles. It has also more than doubled in price.
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We don't have Amazon, so I know very little about the Firestick, but I imagine it would be like the CcwGTV? Probably same with the Roku?
To be fair, I'm looking for something with a bit more snappiness and punch than a stick for future proofing.
What are your thoughts? Waiting for the Shield 2 Pro? Happy with Apple TV or Google Streamer?
I wanna know how you play your obviously perfectly legal content on your TV's, but it needs to have the WAF (Wife Acceptance Factor).
The server is a N100 NUC, so transcoding is no issue but I prefer not having to do it for everything.
Cheers!
I got a Xiaomi TV Box S 2nd Gen.
They advertise 4K, Dolby Atmos, Dolby Vision HDR10+, something some other but honestly I couldn't tell you much about any of that. My TV is old as heeeelllll, 1080p is plenty for me.
Where I live it was comparable in price to a Fire Stick, and since I heard Amazon doesn't let you switch the stock launcher (and broke all previous workarounds) I choose this instead.
It let me install Projectivity Launcher and disable the stock Google TV Launcher with no fuss.
Performance is not bad. Don't expect to be flying in and out of apps at the speed of light but I can jump between home, YouTube, Twitch and Jellyfin without much delay. Things might stutter while they load but nothing too bad.
All in all, pretty competent little box, I'm happy with it.
I'm glad that you're happy with it, but you couldn't pay me to use a Xiaomi product.
My phone is Xiaomi 😅
They're pretty nice hardware wise, retaining long gone features like SD Cards and IR Blasters, but the stock software is really eh, now that they've started cracking down on bootloaders unlocking I can't reccomend them anymore.
At least the TV Boxes are basically just stock Android.