We review a lot of TV boxes on the channel.. In fact TV boxes are about the only thing that performs well on my YouTube channel these days. So I thought it might be fun to show you what I have plugged into my TV! See it all here.
The TLDR is that I’ve really embraced the Apple TV 4k over the last couple of months primarily because it does a few things that I’m looking for quite well. On my bedroom TV it works pretty seamlessly with my Airpods for private listening, and on my home theater TV it can switch into 24p mode better than anything else out there.
For a long time I was relying on the TV’s built in apps, but my aging LG C7 is running rather slowly and doesn’t have all of the apps we’re using these days. The television from a viewing perspective is still perfectly fine (it’s the best TV I’ve ever owned) but it definitely needs to be supplemented by a device these days.
The Nvidia Shield is still my go to for Plex Pro home media serving but the Apple TV is doing everything else. See more in the video!
The Nvidia Shield TV is one of the longest supported Android devices ever made. The original 2015 Shield TV is still getting updates and support from Nvidia. But it will be losing its Gamestream feature in February of 2023.
Gamestream allows for streaming PC games to the Shield from a PC running with a Nvidia GPU. You can learn more about it in my latest video.
Gamestream is a free feature that works in conjunction with the GeForce Experience on Nvidia GPU equipped PCs. The GEforce experience scans hard drives for compatible games irrespective of where they were purchased from and automatically optimizes the game’s settings for streaming. The game reverts back to its prior local settings after the game quits.
The only officially supported Gamestream client is the Nvidia Shield TV and their now defunct handheld and tablet Shield devices. But the open source Moonlight app has for many years worked with Gamestream to allow this to work with just about any device. To their credit Nvidia did not do anything to restrict Moonlight from doing this even though the feature was designed to sell more Shield hardware.
The Moonlight team is now putting some resources in to help the Sunshine project get its open source server up and running. Once that happens Moonlight won’t be dependent on Nvidia’s software any longer and non-Nvidia GPUs will also work.
For alternatives Nvidia suggests subscribing to their GeForce Now subscription streaming service. The service connects to a subscriber’s Steam, Epic and Ubisoft accounts and streams some (but not all) of their game library from Nvidia’s cloud data centers to the Shield and many other devices. Not every game works with GeForce Now as many publishers restrict streaming of their titles – even for purchased games.
For a free alternative Nvidia suggests installing the Steam Link app that allows for streaming games from a PC’s Steam library. But Steam Link has its limitations and requires additional work to load non-steam games from the Shield.
My gut on this is that Gamestream was not a heavily used feature and a bulk of those who were using it did so with the Moonlight app vs. the Shield TV. Hopefully progress on the Sunshine server will be swift over the next couple of months and we’ll have a better alternative than before. Stay tuned!
