Android TV Device Comparisons

[stuckless]

I saw this posted on my G+ feed today...

https://shield.nvidia.com/blog/media...eld-difference

It might be biased, since it's produced by NVidia, but, I have to say, I'm very happy with the NVidia devices that I have.

I've been using the NVidia Shield TV unit as my primary viewing device for about 2 weeks. A few times I had to switch over to the HD300... but this week, I've been using it daily, and I haven't had to switch to the HD300 at all. It's been working pretty good for me.

[Fuzzy]

Picked up the 2015 Fire TV for my mom for her birthday and played around with it a bit - I was very impressed, with the exception of the limited remote (which one would get used to). Planning on getting over there sometime this week to sideload the miniclient onto it and try it out, though don't know how much testing I could do until transcoding is enabled.

[stuckless]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

Picked up the 2015 Fire TV for my mom for her birthday and played around with it a bit - I was very impressed, with the exception of the limited remote (which one would get used to). Planning on getting over there sometime this week to sideload the miniclient onto it and try it out, though don't know how much testing I could do until transcoding is enabled.

I have a firetv as well, and I have it hooked up, but I haven't don much testing with it yet. I plan on doing more testing this weekend with it, since while it's remote is limited, it's actually has more buttons than the Shield remote

Some things to keep in mind... The android tv remotes, because they are limited (in buttons), operates in a "stateful" mode (which can be disabled in the preferences).

What this means is that when video is playing, and you hit select it will pause play the video. Also when video is playing, if you hit right or left, it will skip forward and backward. One probelm is that when a dialog pop up, the remote it still in "video" mode, and then right/left/select are not mapped well for the dialog. I will have a build, likely this weekend, that will address this, since I've modified the core sagetv to pass "hints" the client as to which menus/dialogs are being shown, and I can use that to update the remote state.

Also, if you long press select, you get the on screen navigation items which can be used to trigger the OPTIONS menu, etc.

All in all, the dumb remote works pretty when it knows the state of the UI.

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by stuckless

I have a firetv as well, and I have it hooked up, but I haven't don much testing with it yet. I plan on doing more testing this weekend with it, since while it's remote is limited, it's actually has more buttons than the Shield remote

Some things to keep in mind... The android tv remotes, because they are limited (in buttons), operates in a "stateful" mode (which can be disabled in the preferences).

What this means is that when video is playing, and you hit select it will pause play the video. Also when video is playing, if you hit right or left, it will skip forward and backward. One probelm is that when a dialog pop up, the remote it still in "video" mode, and then right/left/select are not mapped well for the dialog. I will have a build, likely this weekend, that will address this, since I've modified the core sagetv to pass "hints" the client as to which menus/dialogs are being shown, and I can use that to update the remote state.

Also, if you long press select, you get the on screen navigation items which can be used to trigger the OPTIONS menu, etc.

All in all, the dumb remote works pretty when it knows the state of the UI.

I actually just ordered a FLIRC for her so she can use her Harmony 700 to control the Fire TV, so it's the same remote as she uses for everything else. I like the idea of RF/bluetooth remotes - but no consumer AV equipment should ever be sold without an IR receiver. The ability to add the FLIRC is really the only reason I bought her the full Fire TV instead of the Fire TV Stick.

[stuckless]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

I actually just ordered a FLIRC for her so she can use her Harmony 700 to control the Fire TV, so it's the same remote as she uses for everything else. I like the idea of RF/bluetooth remotes - but no consumer AV equipment should ever be sold without an IR receiver. The ability to add the FLIRC is really the only reason I bought her the full Fire TV instead of the Fire TV Stick.

let us know how you make out with FLIRC. I have a flirc, and I haven't been able to get it to work well, yet. The FLIRC part works fine... I just can't get it send the keystrokes that I think it should be sending.

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by stuckless

let us know how you make out with FLIRC. I have a flirc, and I haven't been able to get it to work well, yet. The FLIRC part works fine... I just can't get it send the keystrokes that I think it should be sending.

I'll let you know. There is a harmony config for it, and it supposedly is even preloaded with the right keystrokes for the Fire TV - of course, keystrokes can be changed with new fire tv firmwares, so only time will tell. Even if it still only does directional navigation and simple transport control - it's still better for her to do so with her Harmony than the FireTV's remote.

[dranockcir]

I just tried Sean's Android MiniClient on RemixOS. Now I have a USB thumb drive (yep it's USB 2.0 even though Jide recommends USB 3.0) that I can boot from that I can use as a Sage placeshifter on a desktop computer. :-) Fun to mess with for sure.

Look here for RemixOS if ya wanna mess around with it

http://www.jide.com/en/remixos-for-pc

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by dranockcir

I just tried Sean's Android MiniClient on RemixOS. Now I have a USB thumb drive (yep it's USB 2.0 even though Jide recommends USB 3.0) that I can boot from that I can use as a Sage placeshifter on a desktop computer. :-) Fun to mess with for sure.

Look here for RemixOS if ya wanna mess around with it

http://www.jide.com/en/remixos-for-pc

Why do this?

[stuckless]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

Why do this?

Because you can

[dranockcir]

Originally Posted by stuckless

I saw this posted on my G+ feed today...

https://shield.nvidia.com/blog/media...eld-difference

It might be biased, since it's produced by NVidia, but, I have to say, I'm very happy with the NVidia devices that I have.

I've been using the NVidia Shield TV unit as my primary viewing device for about 2 weeks. A few times I had to switch over to the HD300... but this week, I've been using it daily, and I haven't had to switch to the HD300 at all. It's been working pretty good for me.

Another Shield user here and I love it. It's fast as heck. I'm not a gamer but my youngest son (21) is and he likes it, says it would be cool if it could be used as a Steam extender. I have a Harmony 700 I use with it, I found the Shield in the Harmony database and it works pretty good with the Android MiniClient. AndroidTV needs better support for media playing controls or is it just Shield that's lacking media playback controls?

[dranockcir]

Originally Posted by stuckless

Because you can

LOL Exactly!

If RemixOS develops into something I would use everyday on a laptop, I'd definitely want placeshifting on it for when I was travelling.

In the attached pictures the windows are resizeable and the miniclient can be run full screen.

[stuckless]

Originally Posted by dranockcir

Another Shield user here and I love it. It's fast as heck. I'm not a gamer but my youngest son (21) is and he likes it, says it would be cool if it could be used as a Steam extender. I have a Harmony 700 I use with it, I found the Shield in the Harmony database and it works pretty good with the Android MiniClient. AndroidTV needs better support for media playing controls or is it just Shield that's lacking media playback controls?

It's likely the remote mapping for shield that is the issue here. ie, AndroidTV supports all the standard remote actions, ff, rew, pause, pause/play, etc, if the remote can send it. Which actions are you missing?

[Dargason]

I also picked up a 2015 FireTV for $75 last fall. A very nice device, though I admit the SageTV miniclient performance isn't quite what I'd like yet. (Though I haven't had a chance to install 0.06 yet). Skipping forward and backward just don't work very well. It might be partly that I'm viewing OTA recordings so the format might not be as ideal as what some others have. I'm a little curious if the Shield would be any different.

[stuckless]

Originally Posted by Dargason

I also picked up a 2015 FireTV for $75 last fall. A very nice device, though I admit the SageTV miniclient performance isn't quite what I'd like yet. (Though I haven't had a chance to install 0.06 yet). Skipping forward and backward just don't work very well. It might be partly that I'm viewing OTA recordings so the format might not be as ideal as what some others have. I'm a little curious if the Shield would be any different.

Unless your recordings are MPEG2 and not in a MPEG2-PS format, then Shield will likely not work much better. FireTV doesn't have any MPEG2 hardware decoding support, so, any playback of mpeg2 is using software only. The shield might do that a little better, but not likely.

I don't have any mpeg2 files, and I setup the FireTV last night to test everything out connected on WIFI, and I was pretty impressed. I think the shield is a little faster, but, overall, the FireTV performed pretty well.

[dranockcir]

Originally Posted by stuckless

It's likely the remote mapping for shield that is the issue here. ie, AndroidTV supports all the standard remote actions, ff, rew, pause, pause/play, etc, if the remote can send it. Which actions are you missing?

You are right, it was my remote. Last night I deleted my activities and devices using the MyHarmony site and set them up again. I had play and stop but not pause and thought it was because of the Shield. I don't have a Shield remote and it looked limited from the pictures so I just assumed that was the way it worked.

[stuckless]

Originally Posted by dranockcir

You are right, it was my remote. Last night I deleted my activities and devices using the MyHarmony site and set them up again. I had play and stop but not pause and thought it was because of the Shield. I don't have a Shield remote and it looked limited from the pictures so I just assumed that was the way it worked.

yeah, the sheild remote it quite limited, with just navigation, select, back, home, and voice search buttons.

That being said, since I have a shield, with a shield remote, I wanted to ensure that I get the best user experience out of it So, I've been working on adding the "stateful" remote, so that the remote buttons behave differently depending on whether or not there is video present. This actually requires some changes to the sagetv server to send me information about "what" is happening in the UI, but, as of now, on my system, the stateful remote is working great, and I find the shield remote to work quite well (to my own surprise).

As of now, when video is playing, left/right is skip back/forward, and select is pause/play. This basically makes the remote behave similar to Netflix. If a video is playing a dialog shows up, then the remote buttons map back to UI mode, so left/right/select is actually left/right/select.

I also mapped the Voice Search button to be Options (athough I get also get to options by long pressing the select and then selecting options). Eventually I might add in voice search, and if that happens, then I'll have to unmap that button.

Some other remote actions include long press up/down for page up/page down, which can be handy in larger lists, since I don't have repeat enabled on the remote buttons.

[stuckless]

I get "why" Amazon created the busiest launcher/home screen in the world... They want to push as much premium content to you as possible to make money, but WOW, it's busy.

I've only used the FireTV 3-4 times, and I could never use that as a primary viewing device, it's just way to distracting, and cumbersome to use. Fortunately for me, I only use Netflix the SageTV, but still. Amazon really needs to work on this

And, to make it worse, Amazon doesn't make it easy to just use a new launcher

Personally, unless you have an Amazon Prime subscription.... I'd consider getting the Nexus Player, OR, spend a lot more, and get the Shield.

[dranockcir]

Originally Posted by stuckless

I get "why" Amazon created the busiest launcher/home screen in the world... They want to push as much premium content to you as possible to make money, but WOW, it's busy.

I've only used the FireTV 3-4 times, and I could never use that as a primary viewing device, it's just way to distracting, and cumbersome to use. Fortunately for me, I only use Netflix the SageTV, but still. Amazon really needs to work on this

And, to make it worse, Amazon doesn't make it easy to just use a new launcher

Personally, unless you have an Amazon Prime subscription.... I'd consider getting the Nexus Player, OR, spend a lot more, and get the Shield.

You could try FireStarter. I don't have a FireTV so I haven't tried it. You don't havre to root to try it out either.

http://www.aftvnews.com/firestarter-...ton-detection/

[stuckless]

Originally Posted by dranockcir

You could try FireStarter. I don't have a FireTV so I haven't tried it. You don't havre to root to try it out either.

http://www.aftvnews.com/firestarter-...ton-detection/

Yeah, I was looking at this as well... but because I'm only using it for testing, I'm not too concerned about it... but, if I were using this as a primary viewing device for netflix, sagetv, kodi, etc, I'd likely go with firestarter.

[Dargason]

I installed firestarter. I haven't been using it rigorously, but it seems to be very simple to install and use. And you can double-click the home button to get back to the 'stock' home screen when you need to.