NVIDIA Shield Android TV game console review - Movie Streaming - 4K codecs and connectivity

4K playback codecs - Dolby TrueHD, DTS-HD and Atmos

We'll get to the gaming bit in a second, but above all the Shield Android TV is an excellent replacement for your HTPC as it is a downright lovely movie and TV streaming box. Factory installed already is Plex and you can grab the Kodi app for DLNA and other home network media streaming.

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 it 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 SPDIF 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). Though not mentioned, we understand that Dolby Atmos is supported with just the built-in video player and Kodi (previously known as XBMC). This stuff easily will make any HTPC aficionado giggle a little.
  

Before we continue please have a look at the video above I recorded showing the Andoid OS GUI and some Kodi action with Ultra HD trailers.

Media Streaming

We touched on the subject a little already in the previous chapter, but the Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD is probably the best hardware supported HTPC your money can get you under 200 EURO while it supports 4k2k Ultra HD playback and also the latest and greatest audio playback like Dolby TrueHD, DTS-HD Master Audio and (we think) Atmos if your HDMI ready receiver and videoplayer (Kodi) supports it. By the way, Plex is supported and factory installed on the unit already. We however gave it a quick spin with Kodi.

For those wondering about 1080p mkv content, you are good to go. Movies and the better tv-series mostly all are 24 hz (frames per second), any mediaplayer should be capable of that. The trick here is Ultra HD support. We mentioned already that older media boxes are based on HDMI 1.4, which is limited to 30 frames per second / hz / 30p. If your telly has HDMI 2.0 then the Shiled will work lovely with HDMI 2.0 as well, allowing for Ultra HD at 60 refreshed frames per second / hz / 60p. While for 24p movies and tv-series that is not really an issue, for gaming that however is different. 

You can obviously choose your favorite content player, we recommend Kodi which works great with the included remote as well. We tried the latest experimental 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, you can leave the settings standard. So if connecting your HDMI cable to a receiver and then to a TV, select pass-through. 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, I might need to set up the TV a bit better though as the output quality does look a tiny bit more 'washed' opposed to the internal Smart TV player from Samsung (which is a REALLY good one to be perfectly honest).
 

 
It's the same with the Interstellar trailer. Both Elysium and Interstellar and 1080P MKV content show a bit of a stutter every now and then and audio was out of sync.
  

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.

A bit of a stutterfest

We mentioned stuttering - this is KODI at fault, the screen is set to 60p, the movies and trailers are at 24p. Our current build of Kodi does not allow for framerate switching or even a proper 3:2 pulldown. Judder created by 24 frames per second video (also called 24p) makes movement look stuttered, and is especially noticeable with panning shots. The current build of Kodi cannot switch in between 50 Hz / 60 Hz. Ideally you want your media player to switch automatically between 24/50/60 Hz to prevent stuttering. This Kodi feature is Auto refresh rate, and in its current form the Shield is not supported. I'll need to further explore and see what is going on there though but the Shield might need to revert to custom beta (nightly) builds in order to get this solved. A quick fix (if you are all about HTPC functionality for this device) is to set the Shield HDMI to something 24p (2160p24).