Buy the Shield, install Plex, sit back and enjoy how much it absolutely destroys your Bravia and a Pi.

What about MP4 and M4V? Quite a few of my movies are in these formats.

Keep in mind, these are not formats, they're containers. Shield will play them just fine.

Does the Shield stream better than a Sony Bravia?

Not sure what you mean by better but, its a better device overall (faster load times, snappier UI).

Kodi skinning

Yeah stock Kodi is some archaic looking shit. Skins help make it tolerable. You don't need anything external to play with this. Prepare yourself for the rabbit hole of customization though.

Remote

Mostly a convenience/familiarity/form factor thing. The game controller has all the same capabilities.

Gaming

Depends on what you're into I use it mostly for gamestream but there are some great games built for Android (both original and ported). Pricing will range from $5-$15. Here is a link to the exclusive games for Shield.

Lastly, is the Shield that much more powerful than the Raspberry as far as processing and memory?

Resounding yes. 3GB RAM and the X1 chip make it best in class, easily.

The shield will play anything, period - fast.

Comparing the shield to a raspberry pi is like comparing a Ferrari to a piece of fresh shit your dog laid in your grass.

The gaming options - in my option - are not worth it. HOWEVER, if you have an nvidia graphics card on your computer, you can stream games over with zero lag (on hard wired connections).

The remote isn't necessary if you have a newer TV, as your tv remote can control the shield with its native remote via CEC. Alternatively you can just use the controller that comes with it.

If you are looking to record shows, right now it can't do it, but devices like TABLO can record OTA tv and works well with the shield. HDHomeRun can record shows (its in beta now - probably released in the next 6 months). I have a feeling it may come to the shield native in the next year.

Id run Plex or Archos Media Player instead of kodi. Kodi (even skinned) is not a great experience to have on AndroidTV. It uses a completely different way to navigate and and operate and uses no android api's. So unless you already love kodi id say it breaks your platform immersion too much to bother with.

I'm a bit worried about one section of specs. It states that it supports the following formats: MPEG-2/ MPEG-4/ Xvid/ DivX/ WMV9/ ASF/ AVI/ MKV/ MOV/ M2TS/ MPEG-TS/ H.263/ H.264/ H.265/ VC-1/ VP8/ VP9. What about MP4 and M4V? Quite a few of my movies are in these formats.

MP4 and M4V are container formats, not codecs. Most of your videos are probably in the formats supported, since they cover about 90% of the video you can get.

Does the Shield stream better than a Sony Bravia? I know part of the answer depends on my network and internet speeds, but I've found that my newer small Vizio smart TV runs Netflix way faster and with less errors than the older Bravia, so I'm wondering if the Shield would be even better.

The Shield is probably the most powerful set top box out there short of game consoles like the PS4 and XB1, so I'm sure it would be. I know I've had zero problems with it.

To do what I want, I'm pretty sure I need to download the Kodi app so I can hook up my 2 hard drives. Simple enough, but I've been told reskinning it is a must. Is that an in-Kodi option or would I need to get a MicroSD card to load options to?

You probably won't need Kodi. The Shield has Plex baked in (both the frontend and Plex Media Server), so not only can it play your media from your hard drives, it can stream it to your other TVs as well as your phones and tablets (even outside your home if you set up a MyPlex account).

Is the Shield Remote really necessary? I'm having a rough time finding out what it really does other than allow voice commands and a headset jack.

The Shield gamepad already enables those as well, so the remote is completely redundant unless you're just married to the idea of having a remote. The Shield can also be controlled using your TV remote via CEC, so that's an option as well if your TV supports it.

Are the gaming options really worthwhile? How much extra money are we talking to get a decent game or two?

I haven't done much with Shield-specific games (I usually just stream my games from my PC -- oh yeah, that's another thing you can do), so I'm not sure I can give you a good answer to this question. But the prices seem to be pretty decent.

Lastly, is the Shield that much more powerful than the Raspberry as far as processing and memory? Also will either have issues playing "non-perfect" files? I ask because I have files that play perfectly fine on my PC but when I try to play them on the WD TV Live box, it chokes on any tiny bit of bad data. What might be a small blur or stutter on the PC becomes a situation where the WD chokes and kicks you out of the file. You have to restart it and fast forward past the bad sector and then move on. Of course it has a bunch of other bugs to so I chalk it up to not having any process power.

Yes, the Shield is way more powerful than the Pi. I haven't had any real hiccups with playback yet.

Get the Shield Console. Not only does it have the Plex App, but it also will act as a Plex Server. Map the network drives that house your content, sit back and enjoy.

Thanks for all the replies. One other quick question. Is the base worthwhile to mitigate heat issues?