Movie Streaming - 4K codecs and connectivity

4K HDR playback codecs

Above all things and likely the functionality the Shield Android TV is most used for its excellent capability of being a HTPC, it is a downright lovely movie and TV streaming box. Plex is already preinstalled and you can grab the Kodi app for your DLNA and UPnP needs, well that or other home network media streaming features. The minute you start to stream from your home network or NAS you'll probably start to wonder what codecs and video containers the Nvidia Shield Android TV actually supports. Easy answer, everything we threw at the unit it took, MP4, MKV, TS, AVI, it just did not matter. We also tried 100Mbit/s MPEG4 (H264) 4K by 2K content which again it did not have any issues with during playback. H.264, H.265 or VP9 is all possible. There's plenty on the audio side as well as there's support for 7.1 and 5.1 surround sound streams as well as pass-through and High-res audio output up to 24-bit/192KHz can be transmitted too as well as pass-through support for Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio loss-less audio (obviously requires a supporting receiver).
  

Above an example video recorded on the Shield 2017 demonstrating KODI. The trailers are of their respective owners. Also, for whatever reason the Shield did not record the audio of the trailers. 

Obviously Plex is supported as well, and here a fun fact: it can be either a server or client, so that offers more capability. Hence if you use it as a server at home it can be used for sharing all your music, photos and videos (transcoded if needed) on pretty much any device, all served from your shield. Sawheeeet.
  

 
Dolby Atmos is supported with just the built-in video player (fall under TrueHD7.1 with extra channels) and Kodi. This stuff easily will make any HTPC aficionado giggle a little nervously. When it comes to media playback, it's all about Kodi though. The previous Shield had SPMC, a fork from XBMC which already could be praised into the mighty heavens. But now a fully functional Kodi is available, and guess what .. it's as good or even better. We tested KODI in-depth and it ticks all the boxes you need at 1080P, 2160p and even HDR content (4K 10-bit YUV 4:2:0 Rec.2020). Sound wise I already spilled the beans in the above screenshot, every and any modern age format is supported including Dolby Digital, DTS, Dolby TrueHD, DTS Master Audio and even Dolby Atmos and DTS:X. These will follow the audio pass-through right towards your receiver which does the decoding. This alone makes the Shield really unique.  

Functional playback

For an android box that offers stings like Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD this probably the best hardware supported HTPC your money can get you under 200 EURO while it supports 4k2k Ultra HD HDR playback. For those wondering about 1080p mkv content, you are good to go. Movies and the better tv-series mostly all are 24hz (frames per second), any media player should be capable of that. If you watch 1080P on a 2160P screen, content will be nicely upscaled (albeit not as good as the telly can actually do for itself). Older media boxes are based on HDMI 1.2/1.3 up-to 1.4b, which is limited to 30 frames per second / hz / 30p. If your telly has HDMI 2.0 then the Shield will work lovely with HDMI 2.0 as well, allowing for Ul2840x2160 at 60 refreshed frames per second / hz / 60p. For 24p movies and tv-series that might not really be that relevant, for gaming that however is different. 

You can obviously choose your favorite content player, again we recommend Kodi which works great with and easy to use GUI combined with the included remote as well. We tried the latest build. Before you use it to playback content please go to the settings (select advanced mode) and choose your audio preferences as you'll need to enable DTS support etc. if you connect the unit to a receiver. If you are connecting and outputting audio through your TV (stereo), you can leave the settings standard (PCM). If connecting your HDMI cable to a multi-channel receiver and then to a TV, select pass-through and be sure to connect your TV towards the ARC HDMI connector on the receiver for it to be able to receive the pass-through HDMI signal. I think everybody is familiar with the way KODI works and looks. If you have a NAS, set up UPnP / DLNA and you will be able to directly access your content like movies, photos and music. I tried a few trailers.

Above, the 4K Elysium trailer, playback functions fine, btw the movement in the scene causes the blur. Output video quality is really good. 
 

 
Both Elysium and Interstellar are 4K and playback at 2106p and 1080p is just excellent. With the previous Shield we had some small issue with some stutters, this is now gone. Typically these are audio sync issues or differences in input/output Hz, say 1080p60 with a 1080p24 can conflict. Should you for whatever reason run into stutters etc with a 24p movie in a worst case scenario: Just put both Kodi and the shield in 24p mode and your problems will be gone.  
  

For the final test we see if we can really stress the Tegra X1, a Taipei video recording at 4K @ 100 Mbit, the Tegra X1 processor has no problem with it and chews away into the content properly.