Shield TV rant.

by die-microcrap-die

Hello everyone.

I just wanted to share my experience and frustrations with the Shield TV and perhaps have a conversation about it.

The setup was amazing, asked me if I have an Android phone and a couple of clicks after, it was configured.

Installed a couple of apps and hit my first snag, the TV compatible apps is very limited.

Granted, this is not necessary Nvidia or Google fault, but still inconvenient to the client.

Then, noted that none of the music apps have any type of screensaver, this is a big no no and needs to be addressed.

The YouTube and other suggestions at the home screen are not great and should be removed, any way to do this?

A proper file manager is needed, ES File Explorer is not 100% compatible, need to try to find a better one.

A browser should be available from the app store, without jumping thru hoops to get it installed.

Lastly, the remote is nice, love the volume strip, but the damn thing needs to be more responsive. Once it goes to sleep, it is a pain in the royal ass to make it wake up.

PS A little middle finger to Amazon. Even though I'm a Prime customer for many years, they did shit for me. I bought the Shield and the next day, they dropped the price by 30 and when I reached to customer support, they told me to cancel the order, return the device and order another one, instead of giving me credit. that just doesn't make sense.

Thoughts?

Edit: So by the downvotes, looks like this sub doesnt accept anything but blind praises for devices?

Really sad state of fanboism...

npaladin2000

There's a Settings option to disable recommendations from specific apps. And XPlore file manager works much better on the SHIELD.

Max_Roc

Puffin browser is in Play store and has voice search. Love it.

Max_Roc

Forgive me if you were the guy i already gave this too recently lol. But this reset from customer service helps alot of people:

Assuming you already tried re-pairing your remote, you can try this:

  1. Reset remote by holding back button and home button together for about 15 seconds.
  2. Go to Settings-->Apps-->System apps-->Bluetooth Share app Force stop,Clear cache and data and restart Shield TV.
  3. After reboot, you may need to repair remote again. Then test remote.

If that fails, ask for them to replace it. They've been super easy to deal with for me

Which remote do you have? I also forgot to add that having your stv on a good 5ghz signal can help some issues.

nacho_addict

Fanboism?

No, your rant is a shit rant. 99% of it has to do with the ATV interface and the way Google has basically ignored ATV. I'll give you 1% and say that you're absolutely right about the remote. What a pile of shit.

Nvidia sells an epic piece of hardware that for years has been able to deliver shit that manufactures like Apple are just now catching up to. They also take the time to actually support it with a fairly responsive team of staff members. There isn't a single other ATV manufacture that supports their device like Nvidia does. That does warrant a small level of fanboism on my part. It's refreshing to have a company as large as Nvidia actually give a shit about their products.

Not entirely relevant - Do you know how many times the users of the WDTV got told to fuck off by Western Digital? They only budged when the community of users started tearing the hardware and software apart for themselves.

What would you want Nvidia to do? Design an entire operating system from the ground up or even worse, force something like TouchWiz on us. Go complain to Google about ATV.

CakeBoxOneX

The Recommendations menu at the top is cancer to anyone running integrated Android TV (Sony TV or other lower powered Android TV hardware).

Disable it immediately by removing all of the apps from the listing in the Recommendations settings menu.

Sped up my TV dramatically. Android TV hardware wasn't meant to provide a decent user experience and cater to bloatware. The manufacturers need to get their acts together.

Also I agree that the app selection sucks. Spotify needs visualizations. Kodi will be your friend as far as media players go.

kousi

Edit: So by the downvotes, looks like this sub doesnt accept anything but blind praises for devices?

Really sad state of fanboism...

Look, you bought an Android TV device, you got an Android TV device. You don't want to do research? Fine. Doesn't do what you want? Fine. Return it and plug your fucking laptop into the HDMI port and do whatever you want. But spare us the ranting.

partytime71

Chrome browser should be pre-installed. If it's not shown on the screen then press the mic button and say "Launch Chrome". However, Puffin TV browser is very good and is available in the google play store.

Personally never cared about having a screen saver for the music apps. We use Pandora and it has a decent display for the name of the song, artist, and channel.

I never have had a problem with the responsiveness of the remote. Fine for me. However, with recent updates several people have noticed the microphone on the remote has gotten flakey.

Sling, hulu, and amazon prime all work very well, as does the tablo app if you get a tablo (which is not perfect, but is a pretty good solution if you have good over the air availability). Eventually there will be more consistency among streaming apps, but we'll have to see which of the many designs wins out.

DeskReference

Here's some advice. Return it and go to apple or some hacked Android Box. You complain and you don't even do your own basic research. This subreddit has answered most if not all of your questions if you used the search function.

EKEEFE41

I bought a visualizer for music

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.psperl.projectMTV&hl=en

I had a credit on my play account, so it was free. I agree that the app should have something built in, but this is not an "Nvidia shield" thing, it is a music app thing

You can customize the "suggestions" screen

Not sure what you are looking for in a file manager, I personaly mount the Shield drive on my pc and manage it that way.

Browser is a personal preferance, I don't want one.

Remote blows ass chunks, 100% agree. I use a FLIRC and a programable IR Remote. This way it is one remote for everything, so I do not really deal with the piece of shit that is the remote, voice search... I will just grab the game controler.

I think the Down votes are more because many of your complaints have nothing to do with the shield, but some how you are like blaming the shield for things like a music app visualizer.

taxi_drivr

I haven't been able to get Amazon Prime Video working at all in the last few weeks, have an open case with Nvidia still no fix/solution.

Anyone else experiencing this?f

oZiix

I don't really see what conversation is to be had? A lot of what you mention is kind of nit-picky stuff that you will either return the device for or not.

It feels a lot like you want people to talk persuade you that it's a good device? Hit up Nvidia leave feedback wait for the next iteration or buy a different device.

I know how to turn off recommendations because it's not hard to find combing the menu if you care about it that much.

The rest of the stuff you said I don't care about. My TV has a better one and interface for it. I never rarely browse the web on my TV anyway just pull out my phone.

I've sideloaded a APK once for Amazon before it officially released.

I use my TV's remote to control my shield and have a sound bar that handles sound.

Hocka_Luigi

There are still no perfect streaming devices on the market. The $200 Shield doesn't even let you add a custom background to your home screen.

That is why I bought a Fire TV. It's cheap and it's good enough. I'll consider spending more when I see a streamer that doesn't force a bunch of compromises on me. And the Shield's remote looks terrible.