2017-08-14, 06:11
(2017-08-13, 23:19)wabbajack Wrote: I currently own 1080p screens only but I'd like to future-proof a bit since it's likely I'll get something 4k next year...Have a read of the following and make up your own mind - it concerns the lack of Auto 1080p/4K Resolution switching found on 99% of Android devices.
I narrowed the selection down to Vero 4k and nVidia Shield but I'm not able to choose between them. AndroidTV seems really painless and the Shield is a hardware beast but with a Chromecast it also seems redundant. On the other hand the Vero seems to be really complete for a Kodi box.
Another factor is price, from where I can buy them it would be 229,99€ for the Shield vs approximately 136€.
What could be the deciding factor here?
NVIDIA Shield - picture quality problems when upscaling @ 4K
Especially when you take into account that when you get a 4K TV, it will very likely have 4K and possible HDR Android TV / Smart TV - copy protected video streaming Apps anyway that will have no picture upscaling quality issues when used on the actual 4K TV.
Yes the Shield is a beast - it is all about speed, ease of use and convenience and that is what the mainstream market wants - but demanding Kodi users are not mainstream.
What the Shield is NOT however is a highly optimised OSMC or LibreELEC Kodi Krypton media player and it comes with Kodi audio as well as video limitations for those that value high quality Kodi A/V output. The Android OS itself and HDMI 2.0 / HDMI 1.4 / HDCP also causes issues for some users.
An upside of Android TV devices like the Shield is SPMC (Kodi fork) voice searching of a scraped Audio/Video library. Depends on how highly you value such features.
OSMC/LibreELEC running from eMMC flash storage is not slow on cheap AMLogic S905/S905X devices either - its all about degrees of speed. Wireless remotes make a hell of a difference to device responsiveness.
Some people will then say what about HDR ?
Well show me the flood of widely available self rippable 4K HDR content that does not consist of test clips or dodgy re-encodes or screen captures.
There is 4K HDR Netflix and Amazon on the Shield but you get that on modern 4K HDR Smart TV's when you purchase anyway - TV's that can also support legacy Dolby Digital only Audio equiptment when used with those Apps.
