Hey guys. Until recently I had moved over to a Roku. The TV I bought a little over a year ago had it built in and it was just dead simple. Yesterday I bought a new Vizio with HDR. Unfortunately the smart cast system I kind of garbage so im now looking for a new media box. What are my options for a box that will do 4k and HDR or Dolby?
Buy a Mi Box from walmart. They should be on sale. Try it out for a week and see how you like it. See if it can do everything you expect it to do. If not, return it to walmart and then buy the shield. Do the same thing and try it out. If it doesn't work out for you, return it and buy another format like a Roku or Fire TV or Apple TV. I heard the new Apple TV is great.
The Shield is going to be your best choice. Amazon is expected to have it on sale for $140 on Prime Day.
This is not what Android TV users fanboys want to hear.... and you did not say "Android only"... ;-)
The Apple TV 4K for $105 with a DirecTV deal is the best value.
It more powerful vs anything Android TV and has proper SDR / HDR colorspace (Dynamic Range) and Frame rate switching baked into it's OS:
https://support.apple.com/en-au/HT208288
A far more stable setup with superior (upscaling) picture quality vs anything Android TV. Better Apps support as well, especially once you get outside the USA.
Set and forget with out the continual fiddling and farting around you incessantly (and annoyingly) have to do with Android devices.
With it's Dolby Audio licence you can remix all audio to be output as 5.1 Dolby Digital too. Has DolbyVision support as well.
The Shield does not even have a Dolby Audio Licence, consequence of that - you cannot downmix Dolby Audio. It all has to be passed thru to a DD+ capable audio receiver. (Otherwise 5.1 DD+ Netflix gives you 2.0 audio only)
If you want local home storage 4K HDR video playback with the ATV 4K you simply use the MrMC or Infuse Apps, installable from the tvOS App store.
Do any of these boxes support Dolby Vision?
Shield
Amazon has all sorts of boxes to choose from. It really depends on your budget and operating system preferences. The far better option that will give you full customization would be an android box. You can grab these for as little as 40$, but honestly the cheaper ones suck. Stick with a box in the 75$-120$ range. And most importantly READ THE SPECS AND REVIEWS! Every system will tell you what they have for specs. Like 4K, HDR, 4g ram, Quad core, octa core.
I currently own the nvidia shield and it is one of the better boxes. I do however miss the full customization of an android box. Runs Android TV OS.
I'll end with this, Android TV OS is not Android OS you would use on a smart phone or tablet. It's android yes, but the app store is smaller and if you want specific apps you will have to sideload them. And good luck if they work the way they were made to work.
Shield.