Its my question to everyone who uses a shield or the mi box...what made u guys use a streaming box rather than the built in apps in your tv ?
Its my question to everyone who uses a shield or the mi box...what made u guys use a streaming box rather than the built in apps in your tv ?
Yeah, don’t own a single smart tv. All my TVs are just old enough to have come out right before smart TVs were a thing.
I used to be one of those people. Mostly it's because I used Kodi almost exclusively, and I thought the Nvidia Shield was the pinnacle of perfection.
Lately, though, I learned android boxes don't deinterlace anywhere near as well as the native Apps on my TV, and apparently the colors look much better (vivid... darker...) on the native apps. Maybe it has to do with Dolby Vision, but I think it's not that.
I've gone one step further and put my TV into hotel mode, in that way I can choose to default to HDMI1.
I'm a cord cutter anyway, so there's no use for the tuner or other functionality of my TV... it's just my monitor with speakers.
So I could counter with the question: Why do I have to pay for features/functionality when all I need is a monitor with a DAC?
Silly thing is that if you want monitors at TV sizes, they cost more than TV's because volumes.
On the exact opposite side of the coin of this thread, I do use my Smart TV primarily and do not have another streaming box hooked up. It is a Sony Bravia with Android TV (Nougat).
I don't do anything crazy with mine. Mainly streaming apps like PS Vue, Plex, Prime Video, Youtube, Live Channels/HDHomeRun, Netflix, etc.. No gaming, no Kodi. If I wanted to do game streaming I can use the Steam Link app which, from experience using it on a Nexus Player, works fantastically well and a Steam controller can be paired via BT and used natively.
While this set has been slow out of the box, it is easily pared down in cruft enough that it is decently responsive in day to day use.
The only worthwhile streaming box is the Shield TV which is still a bit of an outlay financially in one go.
The one advantage I did have at least when we still had cable is I had an HDHomeRun Prime and could natively include those channels in Sony's TV and Guide apps which had direct launch buttons on the remote for convenience. Technically I still do use it but mostly for just locals now that we use PS Vue.
Short answer: because I don't have a smart TV, nor do I want one.
I bought an Android TV device (Nexus Player) before Smart TVs were ubiquitous. I had a perfectly good 37" TV (it was only 720p as I recall) that I'd had since 2008. Then I'd go to friends houses and see how much poorer the interface is on Smart TVs. After that I heard the horror stories about how slow and buggy smart TVs are, and how the manufacturers drag their feet to patch them. My 720p TV finally died in 2015 (my fault, not the TV) and I managed to find the last model of 42" TV still selling at Best Buy without Smart features. So now I have that as well as a non-smart 32" TV in the bed room, and a Shield and Nexus Player hooked up to them, respectively.
So I can't use smart TV apps, because I have none.
In my experience the apps onboard a smart TV are not updated frequently, run slower (CPU in TV are usually doing "double duty" vs streaming box just focuses on streaming) , and are limited to what the manufacturer decides are important (or getting kickbacks).
Getting a "top notch" display and adding a dedicated streaming box has gotten me better results.
In all fairness, I haven't purchased a new TV in a while. Hopefully will be getting an LG 55" OLED around Black Friday. But I will still run my Shield TV on it.
Some Sony TV's ATV built into them. This would probably be the most nimble of the smart TV solutions, however I'm still not sure that the processing power would be on the level of a Shield TV and/or MiBox. Or allow side loading of apps as easily as a streaming box.
A lot of times the technology of the streaming needs changes faster than the quality of the display panel. I have a 40" Samsung TV in my living room that I purchased 9 years ago. It's a true 120hz panel. My next door neighbor got a top line Vizio 4k last year. And he swears that my 9 year old 1080p Samsung has a much better picture than his new(ish) 4k...
Because my TV apps are slow,as opposed to the Shield apps which are lightening quick
Not everyone is a rich person who can afford a brand new smart TV...
My TV is from 2003...
smart tv apps are good for people like my dad. Not tech savvy, easy to get back to cable when done, and it plays the show on netflix he wants to play. He does complain that the UI is laggy, but its easy for him. For me, id rather control, better UI and experience over easy"
Faster, lossless audio passthrough support (especially important for dolby atmos/dts-x), gamestreaming, better software support (Shield has had over 20 updates, many being feature rich, enhancing my original purchase).
I honestly don't get the hangups people have with shelling out a bit of extra $ for something they will probably spend HUNDREDS OF HOURS using. Why not buy something that will improve the quality of that time spent?
Because the TV remote sucks and the apps never update in a timely manner.
Because there is no reason to replace my TV every 2 years.
I buy a TV like once every 5-10 years. I am not going to rely on that shit hardware to run apps I use every day for a decade.
Have a 4K Roku TV, the Roku interface is actually quite good but I simply like Android Oreo experience more. I often use Spotify and Kodi, or plug a flash drive it an play movies off it with VLC, and sometimes RetroArch. All of which Roku TV doesn't have.
Slow, no longer updated and limited options.
Problem with Smart Tv - Slow, far less update both OS and apps. People buy Tv for more than 5 years. With the current pace of changing techs and online services. You never be sure you are going to use only Netflix after 2 years. Will old smart tv going to support it? Even cheaper boxes (Android certified) are way faster. Also, even if a app is not made for Android Tv . You can still install and control using Android remote (MouseToggle App).
However, for very basic user smart tv is favorable with regular remote and simple UI to access internet media.
Well, for me, it's because I'm using a 7-year-old dumb TV. But I'd probably still opt for a set top box rather than a modern smart TV. Smart TVs are problematic in a lot of ways; often underpowered hardware, poorly updated, and sometimes loaded with spyware.
There are exceptions, of course; I got my mom one of the TCL Roku TVs, and it seems to function every bit as well as a separate Roku box. But even that will probably need a STB at some point to continue to function well, which brings up another good point; most people keep TVs far longer than most manufacturers are willing to support the smart components. Just ask the people who have Yahoo TVs.
Smart tv apps get updated much less frequently than apps for other platforms it seems. They are also much more limited. It is also useful to have an Apple TV or Android TV to link to your other devices in that ecosystem.
An exception should be made for Roku TVs and Android TVs (the tv not a streaming box like the shield) as those just eliminate Another device. I don’t like the smart platforms by Samsung or LG or the others that try to do their own.
Personally, I also don’t like amazon’s interface so Fire TVs fall into the wouldn’t touch it category for me.
Sometimes I do, because the built in OS is far superior at certain tasks than any external box. The Shield, for instance, still can't switch color space properly AND its scaler is horrible meaning anything that isn't 4K looks like crap compared to built in apps. If there were TVs with better hardware I would much rather buy that than any box. I don't really care about OS "upgrades" either as long as it works fine.
I had Samsung, Sony and LG. Android embedded in Sony is very slow I assume less memory. Samsung has own slow proprietary os. LG is also very slow but at least apps are fast and well integrated. All in all for streaming Android TV in Sony in okay, Same for LG. I can promote Kodi for Android TV as it works very well. But if you want more like a little gaming or emulators go for extra box. Cheapest one is fire TV 4k. Even for normal TV you can go for extra receiver like Vu + one which is fast as hell compared to all TVs of the last decade. As I watch mainly streaming and some TV I have only my Sony and LG without other boxes to avoid cabling and keep it simple. So it is very up to your use case.
I have one smart tv which is a Sony (2015? The year prior to release of Android TV on Sony TVs) and it has most mainstream apps but lacks support for some apps and/or has outdated apps. I believe the apps are Opera based apps that run on it
The rest of my TVs aren’t smart so no other options but to use a dedicated box until I can budget for a bunch of new TVs.
Because I have a Panasonic Plasma from 2008 which is well before smart features. The only way I'm getting better black levels is by buying an OLED and I don't want to spend that kind of cash anytime soon.
At the size and distance I have the TV more than 1080p is wasted anyway, but HDR would be nice.
Basically the horrible UI performance because TV manufacturers have no reason to put in a decent CPU/SoC into a display. The app library isn't that bad on my smart TV. YouTube, Netflix, Hulu, Plex... that's pretty much all my streaming.
The smart features on my Panasonic TV have pretty much all stopped working as time has gone by. It's still a nice plasma screen, so I don't really feel like upgrading it yet.
Strengths of modern Smart 4K HDR TV's and some of their supporting Apps:
Downsides:
I switched away from my Shield to my TCL Roku built in system.
The new UI on the Shield is hot dogshit, and TCL did a REALLY good job with their TV's. The Roku is snappy, stable, video looks better and it has a better selection of apps, with better support than AndroidTV.
I would like to come back because I like ATV, but they need to do something with the UI first
I use a 2018 Android TV (Philips) and it's a slow piece of shit. The last Android TV I had (a Sony around 2016) was also a slow piece of shit.
I think that's the main reason people prefer using a dedicated box. Because usually the box has a CPU that is ~10x faster.