The NVIDIA SHIELD Android TV Review: A Premium 4K Set Top Box
by Ganesh T S on May 28, 2015 3:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Media Streamer
- Home Theater
- TV
- 4K
- Shield
- NVIDIA
Netflix in 4K and HEVC Decode
The NVIDIA SHIELD is currently the only Netflix 4K-certified set-top box in the market. This certification involves two important requirements:
- Presence of a HDMI 2.0 port with HDCP 2.2 capability
- Presence of a hardware decoder for HEVC Main and Main10 profiles
NVIDIA was the first in the PC space to bring HDMI 2.0 together with HDCP 2.2 support as well as a hardware decoder for HEVC in the GTX 960. They are also extending this lead to the SoC space with the Tegra X1. Thus, the NVIDIA SHIELD Android TV has turned out to be the first set-top box to meet Netflix's criteria for 4K certification.
The UltraHD-capable Netflix streaming plan is the highest-end one, coming in at $11.99 per month before taxes. If the SHIELD is connected to a HDMI 2.0 4Kp60 sink supporting HDCP 2.2 and the Netflix account is on a supported plan, the Netflix app's UI presents a row of Ultra HD 4K streams in addition to the generic categories. We tested out Netflix 4K on a Samsung HU6950 without an AV receiver inbetween.
Netflix has a special test stream that shows the characteristics of the currently playing stream. As expected, the SHIELD had no trouble in getting to the 4K encode.
In the adaptive streaming process, we came across a host of different encodes. They are listed in the gallery below.
Regular readers of our HTPC reviews might remember that the Windows 8.1 Netflix app tops out with a 5.8 Mbps 1080p H.264 stream. On devices with HEVC support, it appears that this is replaced by a 5.16 Mbps HEVC Main10 stream at the same resolution. There is also a higher bit-rate version (6.96 Mbps) with similar characteristics. Beyond that, we have the 4K stream at 9.6 Mbps. Unfortunately, we don't know the exact characteristics of the encode, but, based on the immediately preceding lower bit-rate streams, it is probably a HEVC Main10 encode too.
The Netflix app gives us an indication that the SHIELD has no trouble with HEVC. In order to confirm this, we put our HEVC test suite through Android's native Video Player.
The video shows perfect playback of 4Kp24, 4Kp25 and 4Kp30 HEVC Main and Main10 profile streams. For 4Kp60, we only have Main profile videos, and the SHIELD has no trouble with that.
On one hand, it is nice to see the SHIELD Android TV's 4K Netflix capabilities as well as support for high frame-rate HEVC playback in a power-efficient system. Though the 4K TV adoption rate is still very low - it's the start of what will be a long process - of anything and everything NVIDIA needed to do to secure their spot as the set top box to have for 4K TVs, getting Netflix 4K support in place is it.
On the other hand, it also reminds us of the sorry state of HTPCs with respect to HDMI 2.0, HDCP 2.2 and HEVC playback. For enthusiasts, it is imperative that PCs catch up soon, given that local media streaming is not a focus point for the SHIELD.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
167 Comments
View All Comments
maxpower47 - Friday, May 29, 2015 - link
There is now: https://github.com/foo86/dcadecZeDestructor - Friday, May 29, 2015 - link
@maxpower47: ah yea, I saw that a few weeks ago. afaik they' re waiting on it to get merged into libav so eac3to can toy with it with minimal changes.ganeshts - Saturday, May 30, 2015 - link
Thanks! That looks interesting.. Looking forward to it getting integrated with Kodi and LAV Filters..ZeDestructor - Friday, May 29, 2015 - link
DTS-HD MA is getting there. The mad boffins behind libav got Dolby TrueHD done sometime in the last 2 years, and now DTS-HD MA is left. Of course, this still requires you to decrypt the BR, but that's another story entirely.slashclee - Thursday, May 28, 2015 - link
What I really want to know that the review doesn't cover: will Plex on the SHIELD Android TV decode HEVC video or will it still end up streaming a transcoded copy from the Plex server? If it decodes it using the SHIELD hardware, I'm buying one. If not... I might still buy one, eventually, I guess.SleepModezZ - Thursday, May 28, 2015 - link
Should not that be up to the Plex app? On an Android tablet Plex does often unnecessarily re-encode video. The reason is probably that the included video player is limited in its playback capabilities. It is possible to use some other more advanced video player (like MXPlayer or VLC) so that Plex only hands the video stream to the player and skips the unnecessary re-rencoding.Ask the Plex developers how their app behaves on Android TV.
jeffkibuule - Thursday, May 28, 2015 - link
Plex has to build a profile that specifies what a device is capable of. Seeing as how they probably didn't have a unit in for testing, it probably won't be enabled just yet.savagemike - Friday, May 29, 2015 - link
I would guess they might have a unit for testing. Nvidia gave the Kodi devs a unit or two for testing apparently.jjj - Thursday, May 28, 2015 - link
The gaming onscreen tests are at 1080p i assume, wish you would have done them at 4k too, seems odd not to.On the power consumption side, data on some more devices would have helped. Maybe you can add some power data and 4k benches, would be helpful.
The price is gonna limit this one, they'll sell 10s of thousands of units per quarter by pricing it at 2x the 99$ max price allowed instead of going 99$ and competing with Chromecast and Apple TV. Hope GRID is just not ready for that kind of scale and that's why they price it not to sell.
Since the storage is extremely limited, especially given the PC ports they advertised at launch, some data on SD card/external storage perf might be useful.
savagemike - Friday, May 29, 2015 - link
I think the pricing is kind of reasonable at the moment. You can't buy anything with a processor this capable for $99.Will be interesting to see what Apple does with a next gen Apple TV device though.