2020-05-22, 11:28
Although both Netflix and Amazon use Widevine as DRM, they use different schemes and settings brutality. Netflix is relatively chill, Amazon is a bit of a whiny bitch. In any case, everything I mention about android, 4k or shield might not be 100% accurate or up to date, because I gave up following their moods and I just don't care anymore.
Back to the topic at hand. I know, for a fact, because users reported it, that Nvidia Shield can get at least 1080p in every condition, even for movies, which isn't possible on PC. And, again iirc, 4k streams are NOT encoded nor provided the same way FHD and lower are provided, they use a different codec and HLS instead of the MPD (might be using the wrong acronym though, don't quote me on that). So that's the reason why, pushing the playback request to the native app lets Widevine and the Nvidia Shield sort it out between themselves. Also on android I think it uses libdrm instead of Widevine but that's another topic and I digress.
So, to sum it up: I retell things I heard from other users reporting it to me, everything I say might be outdated or inaccurate due to faulty memory, but afair there are platform/codecs/drm reasons why Kodi and IS.A aren't able to play natively.
Back to the topic at hand. I know, for a fact, because users reported it, that Nvidia Shield can get at least 1080p in every condition, even for movies, which isn't possible on PC. And, again iirc, 4k streams are NOT encoded nor provided the same way FHD and lower are provided, they use a different codec and HLS instead of the MPD (might be using the wrong acronym though, don't quote me on that). So that's the reason why, pushing the playback request to the native app lets Widevine and the Nvidia Shield sort it out between themselves. Also on android I think it uses libdrm instead of Widevine but that's another topic and I digress.
So, to sum it up: I retell things I heard from other users reporting it to me, everything I say might be outdated or inaccurate due to faulty memory, but afair there are platform/codecs/drm reasons why Kodi and IS.A aren't able to play natively.
