(2017-01-18, 18:11)wdpcpa Wrote: I hope I am in the right spot. I want to migrate to the Shield. But I want to make sure it works in my existing setup. I am only familiar with Windows Desktop.
1. All my movies are on external drives - will I be able to hook up my external drives?
2. My current media center is on my Home Group. I move movies from one computer where I rip them to this one over my network. Will the Shield show up in my home group?
3. My movies are backed up with a backup routine nightly to MyBooks. Can I do that with shield?
4. The sound from my media center goes through my Pioneer Theater Center and then to my 5.1 speaker arrangement. It hooks up with HDMI - good with shield?
5. My control is a Logitec Harmony - it controls my media center but other things as well. Compatible with shield?
I figure people here know the answers to all of the above and if this works just like my windows media center then it looks like this is the box for me.
1. Yes, there are 2 USB 3.0 inputs. These will have to be used as external storage only and not adopted storage.
2. Yes, it can connect via Samba (SMB)
3. Not sure. Is the backup handled by the drives, a windows app?
4. Yes, however keep HDCP 2.2 in mind. If anything in the chain is HDMI 1.4 (or not HDCP 2.2) you wont get 4K content.
5. Which Harmony? If its a hub based remote, they are wifi/bluetooth/IR enabled. You shouldnt have any problems with a hub based remote. If your Harmony is standalone and IR only, the new Shield does not have an IR receiver, so unless you add something like FLIRC it wont work. TBH, I have a Harmony Smart Control with the Hub and I like it WAY more than the old standalone IR. The bluetooth alone makes it worth it, but also a recent update gave me timer abilities where at a certain time each morning I can have it turn everything on downstairs and tune to the channel I want so when I go down everything is already running.
I was on the verge of building a brand new HTPC to do Kodi, emulation, Netflix and Amazon but ran into a huge hurdle with Netflix and Amazon and 10ft UIs and wife friendliness. The shield does 99% of all that Im looking for, including Netflix and Amazon, with a couch/remote friendly interface, and all for $200. It was going to be a pain getting a cpu/motherboard/case for that price alone with current hardware not counting other things like gpu/hard drive/memory, etc