I have my home videos and pictures on a smb network share and I'd like to watch them from my nexus player. What are some of the ways I can do this? I'd rather not cast if possible (would like a native app)

VLC has a network option but it doesn't seem to work yet. Is there something like Gallery for Android TV that can read from the network?

I currently subscribe to Spotify premium and I like the service, except Spotify seems to refuse to add Google cast support on iOS and only supports their own Spotify Connect and has no application for playing music on Android TV. I've been thinking of switching to Google Play Music, or Amazon Cloud Player w/ Prime music. I know Google Play Music will work on the Nexus Player, and I'm sure their Play Music app on iOS will cast to my Nexus Player, but I was wondering if anyone knew if Amazon Cloud Player w/ Prime music on iOS could cast to a Chromecast or Android TV device?

BTW, I have tried TV Player for Spotify, and it's unusably bad and clunky.

I'd love buy some light guns/zappers if I knew there was a way for them to work with MAME or any other emulators that could use them. It makes sense now more than ever since Android TV is a thing.

If I ever cast Netflix, either through the browser or my N5, the next episode never plays when the episode I started finished. Instead, the profile selector is shown.

I don't have any problem when starting the episodes using the controller or remote app.

Using a Shield TV.

I don't see any of the auto playlists in the Play Music AndroidTV app. Are they there?

So, a couple of days ago, I was excited for my Shield TV and posted a thread hoping to get some recommendations for apps.

Well, after trying to set it up all day today, I think I might want to return it if certain things can simply not be fixed.

The main thing I was interested in was Gamestream. My connection test comes out fine and my graphics card says it is compatible. However, trying out a supported game like Evil Within is awful. Even on the lowest settings, the game just hardly works, stuttering and swimming through a slow frame-rate and horrible input lag. Maybe I was lead to believe it would work better with my specs but it won't?

Also, certain games on Steam simply don't work, and I was lead to believe that all games on Steam would work, even if not supported. I tried games like Hotline Miami 2, Grow Home, Toybox Turbos and Super Meat Boy. None seem to work with Gamestream.

Everything else the Shiled TV can do is cool but really not worth the $200 price tag for me.

My specs

• OS: Windows 8.1 64-bit
• Processor: Intel Core i7-4700MQ CPU @ 2.40 GHz
• RAM: 32 GB
• GPU: GeForce 770M (Notebook)
• Internet: 22 down, 2-3 up.

Any help would be appreciated.

I was wondering if the android "live channel" app can be used with my television's built-in DVB-T2 digital HD tuner to view digital broadcasts. Anybody tried?

I am getting my Shield TV in the mail tomorrow and was wondering what apps you guys could recommend to help me get the most out of my system. It's a bit disorganized to look for the right stuff online.

Emulation, media playback or whatever you think would be cool to have, I am open to.

I plan on using Gamestream so anything that could help with that I'd like to know about, as well.

Thanks in advance!

There is a general lack of android tv reviews and websites with articles about android tv so it's hard to learn about it really.

I currently have a samsung smart tv and I think it's good I mostly use it for gaming and playing content from my external hard drive.

I have seen that the Sony bravias themselves are good tvs. But is it worth paying a few hundred extra for android tv?

I am most keen on the fact that with it being android it will keep more up to date than other smart tv operating systems and that will in turn make it worth the investment.

Are there any Youtube app alternatives that will work with a remote/controller?

The official Youtube app (for Android TV) is horrible. It has so many missing features (such as liking/disliking a video, subscribing to a channel, etc) and has really weird organization. One of my biggest problems with it is how it handles playlists. I like to watch through videos in a user's playlist but when I want to get to a video that isn't the first in the playlist I have to start the first video and then click down when the video is playing and find the one that I actually want to play. Sorry for the rant but I can't believe Google thinks this is an acceptable Youtube app.

If you guys don't know of any alternatives I'll probably just end up installing Kodi and using its Youtube addon.

Will the shield TV play mkv files from an external hdd?

Is there any option for playing videos from smb? I haven't gotten VLC to work properly, but I'm assuming that should be able to play files on an smb share. Is kodi on Android TV? I haven't been able to find it.

I purchased the Nvidia Shield TV yesterday (16gb version). I have a 64gb micro sd that I know I can use to move games over to.

My question is about my 500gb external hard drive and whether I can move games over to it as well. I have only seen people talk about moving games to the sd card. I imagine it will work fine but I wanted to see if anyone else had any input. Thanks.

Hi guys,

Just purchased the new Nvidia Shield Console TV as a HTPC frontend.

I use plex (with plexpass) as well as I installed Kodi for test purposes.

No matter what source file I chose (AC3/DD/DTS) I cannot get native audio passthrough to my receiver (Emotiva UMC-200)

It is only receiving Multi PCM, which is AFAIK decoded by the nvidia shield software (plex or kodi) then passed to the receiver to deal with.

I can force surround via 'All Stereo' mode on the receiver, however it has nothing on real DTS/DD.

Just wondering am I missing somewhere to allow native audio passthough via HDMI???

P.S I selected Direct Stream in Plex as well as 5.1 in KODI.

also before I updated Plex Media Server, it was displaying in 'activity' that audio was being transcoded. However after update it is just displaying 'Direct Stream'.

Update (2/7/15):

-So Native video player allows DD/DTS passthrough fine

-Kodi doesn't seem to agree with my receiver in its current form. Digital static is heard when forcing passthough.

-Plex has not implemented DD/DTS passthough yet

-Netflix DD+ works fine, however watching 'Orange is the new black' would lose audio intermittently then start working again, I haven't watched enough other shows to see if it is limited to that show.