Android TV Device Comparisons

[drewg]

Originally Posted by jm9843

To add to what stuckless said: the Shield has a big advantage on ports/interfaces with Gigabit Ethernet, USB 3.0 x 2, Micro-USB 2.0, MicroSD slot, and an integrated IR receiver.

If you require ethernet, a "full" remote, or want to expand the storage, the Shield can handle it out of the box without dealing with usb->lan adapters and usb hubs.

I've had the ADT-1, Nexus Player and the Shield (as well as a Fire stick). The Shield is a bit snappier than the Nexus player. However, the big disadvantage I see with the Shield is that its IR receiver has some kind of flaw where if you hold down a key for a while, it only repeats a limited amount of times. That makes scrolling in really long lists a pain. I've been meaning to convert it to use an MCE IR receiver, but, well, that would mean touching the Harmony software (shudder).

A Nexus player with a USB-OTG cable, USB hub, IR receiver, and 100Mb/s USB ethernet adapter is actually pretty nice. Especially for $50 + random junk from the bottom of the drawer vs nearly $200 for the Shield.

Its funny ... I actually got the Shield because I was hoping it would do really well for 4K content. It turns out that my Samsung JS8500's Netflix is just as good as the Shield's, and that the upscaling of 1080p sucks when done by the shield, so I finally just hooked the Shield up to a 1080p HDMI switch to force it to output 1080p.

PS: Kudos on the Android client. I tried it, and video playback (on the Shield) was superb. The things holding me back from retiring my HD300 are mainly the lack of Android support for native output resolution switching (I hate having 720p scaled twice, once by the shield to 1080p, then again by the TV to 4K), and the lack of audio pass-through for surround.

Drew

[jm9843]

Originally Posted by drewg

The things holding me back from retiring my HD300 are mainly the lack of Android support for native output resolution switching (I hate having 720p scaled twice, once by the shield to 1080p, then again by the TV to 4K), and the lack of audio pass-through for surround.

If I'm not mistaken, Android TV devices on Marshmallow (e.g. Nexus Player, Shield) should pass-through audio when ExoPlayer is being used.

[drewg]

Originally Posted by jm9843

If I'm not mistaken, Android TV devices on Marshmallow (e.g. Nexus Player, Shield) should pass-through audio when ExoPlayer is being used.

Hmm.. I'm not sure which player I used. For my 1080i and 720p US OTA recordings, the default one seemed to play video really well, and didn't do surround sound. The non-default one lit up the dolby 5.1 light on my receiver, but only showed a few frames of video as if they were still pictures. Perhaps I need to try a newer version..

Drew

[stuckless]

Originally Posted by drewg

Hmm.. I'm not sure which player I used. For my 1080i and 720p US OTA recordings, the default one seemed to play video really well, and didn't do surround sound. The non-default one lit up the dolby 5.1 light on my receiver, but only showed a few frames of video as if they were still pictures. Perhaps I need to try a newer version..

Drew

The default player (IJK) is certainly a more reliable player. It seems to do a decent job parsing the streams, but no pass-through, yet

For Exo, you need to enable it in the preferences, and it does support pass-through, but I do find the player to crash more often

If you are not running the latest RC, I would try it... there were was a new version Exo in that version that also supports PS files.

[something fishy]

Hi
Do these Android boxes offer 50Hz output. I live in PAL TV land.

Also what is the quality of their deintelacing. At the moment I send 50i (HD300, I get sparklies at 50p) to my TV which does a less good job of deinterlacing than Openelec does (Fritsch build, VAAPI hardware assisted deinterlacing sending 50p).

For deinterlacing in hardware which Android box would do the best job

Thanks
Eric

[stuckless]

Originally Posted by something fishy

Hi
Do these Android boxes offer 50Hz output. I live in PAL TV land.

Also what is the quality of their deintelacing. At the moment I send 50i (HD300, I get sparklies at 50p) to my TV which does a less good job of deinterlacing than Openelec does (Fritsch build, VAAPI hardware assisted deinterlacing sending 50p).

For deinterlacing in hardware which Android box would do the best job

Thanks
Eric

Those are all great questions... that I unfortunately cannot answer

[NetworkGuy]

I was thinking about getting an Android TV. After reading this thread, I went looking for a Nexus Player and found they are now going for $100.

Where are you finding the ones for $50?

Thanks,
John

[stuckless]

Originally Posted by NetworkGuy

I was thinking about getting an Android TV. After reading this thread, I went looking for a Nexus Player and found they are now going for $100.

Where are you finding the ones for $50?

Thanks,
John

That is the standard price for a Nexus Player... but sometimes, Best Buy and other places will have them on sale for $50.

[EnterNoEscape]

Originally Posted by NetworkGuy

I was thinking about getting an Android TV. After reading this thread, I went looking for a Nexus Player and found they are now going for $100.

Where are you finding the ones for $50?

Thanks,
John

I bought a refurb off eBay for $46.99. It needed lots of updates applied, but so far it's working very well for my miniclient testing. They bumped the price up to over $80 now, but I'm sure if you keep your eyes out, you can get a good deal.

[ThePaladinTech]

Originally Posted by EnterNoEscape

I bought a refurb off eBay for $46.99. It needed lots of updates applied, but so far it's working very well for my miniclient testing. They bumped the price up to over $80 now, but I'm sure if you keep your eyes out, you can get a good deal.

They've upped the price to $80? wow - I bought 4 of them when they were $46.

not sure how 'refurbed' they are- they had varying degrees of plastic wrap on them (from none - to complete) and one of them had a cryogen mod load on it, finally in my case all but one failed to upgrade to marshmellow. I wound up reloading the factory software on all them (not a factory reset... but a full reload) - but they are all working great now, overall a good ebay experience.

edit: got mine from ebay seller nbhddseller and they are indeed $80 now, nbhddseller used to have a 'b-grade' option that was a little less as well

[stuckless]

FYI... If you are looking for a reason to NOT buy a FireTV... this would be it.

http://www.aftvnews.com/tag/blacklist/

Basically Amazon has started banning apps. That seems really shady, and is enough for me to put them on them on my own "Banned" list with a "Do Not Buy" recommendation. It would appear that they are banning the apps even if they are side loaded, which is even more disturbing.

[EnterNoEscape]

Originally Posted by stuckless

FYI... If you are looking for a reason to NOT buy a FireTV... this would be it.

http://www.aftvnews.com/tag/blacklist/

Basically Amazon has started banning apps. That seems really shady, and is enough for me to put them on them on my own "Banned" list with a "Do Not Buy" recommendation. It would appear that they are banning the apps even if they are side loaded, which is even more disturbing.

That could easily become a cat and mouse game since I'm sure they only need to change a few things to get around the blacklisting. Eventually development could require so many hoops it won't be worth it.

[reggie14]

Originally Posted by EnterNoEscape

That could easily become a cat and mouse game since I'm sure they only need to change a few things to get around the blacklisting. Eventually development could require so many hoops it won't be worth it.

Sure, it's easy to bypass, both because it's (apparently) blacklisting by app name and because the Fires are rootable.

But it Amazon is really serious about this, they might decide to lock out sideloading on the Fires completely. Rooting to bypass those options may or may not always work, but even if it does, it's not going to be a good option for most users.

[scoful]

Whenever I customize settings it reverts back when I reboot. Am I missing something?

P.S. - My Adesso media remote works pretty well on my FireTV!

Also - is there a trick to getting the MiniClient to show up in recent apps? I swear it was on my FireTV stick but performance wasn't so go - so I got a regular FireTV but can't seem to get it to show. FiredTV says it's not compatible and another launcher I just installed yesterday that was working today says it's not compatible and I need to update it!

[stuckless]

Originally Posted by scoful

Whenever I customize settings it reverts back when I reboot. Am I missing something?

Do you mean configuring the Android MiniClient settings, or do you mean configuring the sagetv settings after you've connected to a sagetv server? And by reboot, are you rebooting the server or the Android device?

[scoful]

Originally Posted by stuckless

Do you mean configuring the Android MiniClient settings, or do you mean configuring the sagetv settings after you've connected to a sagetv server? And by reboot, are you rebooting the server or the Android device?

Sorry for the vagueness - when I reboot the client any settings (like remote command mappings) seem to revert back to defaults. Do I need to 'exit' to get it to save or something?

[stuckless]

Originally Posted by scoful

Sorry for the vagueness - when I reboot the client any settings (like remote command mappings) seem to revert back to defaults. Do I need to 'exit' to get it to save or something?

Settings should be saved as soon as you change them. There is no manual step here. I don't know is this a firetv thing... I've rebooted my shield tv many files and it keeps the settings.

[scoful]

Originally Posted by stuckless

Settings should be saved as soon as you change them. There is no manual step here. I don't know is this a firetv thing... I've rebooted my shield tv many files and it keeps the settings.

It's a little strange - it appears that on first launch the remote buttons trigger a search popup on the top level screen and the remote's equivalent keyboard letter (I'm using Gemstone - haven't tried switching to default interface). If i select SageTV recordings the button mappings seem to work after that.

[stuckless]

Originally Posted by scoful

It's a little strange - it appears that on first launch the remote buttons trigger a search popup on the top level screen and the remote's equivalent keyboard letter (I'm using Gemstone - haven't tried switching to default interface). If i select SageTV recordings the button mappings seem to work after that.

Which remote is this? And what buttons are you pressing that triggers the search. I use gemstone as well.

[scoful]

Originally Posted by stuckless

Which remote is this? And what buttons are you pressing that triggers the search. I use gemstone as well.

It's an adesso ir USB media center remote.

I'll do some testing with my keyboard to see if it does something different.