NVIDIASHIELD Android TV Pro Streaming Media Player; 4K HDR movies, live sports, Dolby Vision-Atmos, AI-enhanced upscaling, GeForce NOW cloud gaming, Google Assistant Built-In, Works with Alexa

I've owned the Shield for several years. While it is now an older product, in my opinion it remains the best consumer/residential entertainment streaming box one can purchase. Why? (1) It continues to be well-supported from a huge company that is not going anywhere. It still receives periodic system software updates! How many cheap streaming boxes have you thrown away because they haven't been updated since Android 7.0? (2) It has a complete Android app store with every streaming service you might want. (3) The hardware is powerful. Streaming is smooth, and the box can run various servers if you are so inclined. (4) It has been rock-solid reliable the entire time I've owned it. (5) It runs fairly cool and is physically small and unobtrusive, requiring little room on a shelf or entertainment unit. I've owned LOTS of other small streaming boxes, and the Shield is the first one without any significant flaws. I'm not sure what Nvidia has planned, or if there are competing units that are catching up to the Shield, but if you're looking for the best box right now, this is a no-brainer.

Hands down the BEST streaming box I've used!! I've had Firestick, Mecool, Superbox, & a couple more low end boxes. This is well worth the extra coin. No lag, easy setup, many options for personalization. Easy to download 3rd party apps. GREAT picture & sound, works well with soundbar, the remote controls everything with CEC mode. Buy once, cry once. Super quality! I have two more TV's & will buy two more of these to replace Firesticks.

Love this stream box, I replaced my Roku with it and couldn't be happier. No buffering issues, the new remote is awesome. A nice little surprise I didn't expect, when the box comes on it turns on my TV and the remote was able to be programmed to operate the volume on my surround system. I think that's great

If you’re looking for the cream of the crop - this is it. AI up scaling and incredibly snappy compared to a native tv of course - and significantly faster than the brand new Roku I just bought two months ago. The Android setup lets you customize - or go even deeper if you enter developer mode. With the price absolutely!

A couple of weeks ago, my Western Digital Live TV Media Player (almost 20 years old) gave up the ghost. I had been prepared for this eventuality, and was thinking I could replace it with a customized Raspberry Pi, the Roku Ultra, or the Nvidia Shield TV Pro. When the WD Media Player died, I called a couple of online audiophile dealers to determine what were their options -- and their recommendations were twice or more the price of the Nvidia Shield option.I looked again the helpful Amazon pictures and though the Shield Pro had not optical output for my much higher priced (and very musical) DAC, it did have two USB ports, which would possibly work with the USB port for my DAC. I am not very technical or good with hardware, so instead of taking on what might be a challenging Raspberry PI project, I decided to roll the dice on the Nvidia Shield TV Pro.It was delivered next day, and to my disappointment, no sound came when hooked up to my DAC. This was after going through the settings and enabling the USB out option.Time for additional searching on Google, and eventually I came across a post titled "HOW TO SETUP THE NVIDIA SHIELD PRO AS A BIT PERFECT AUDIO STREAMER/PLAYER." Now there may have been other, and even better or easier options, then what the article recommended, but I did as it said, and searched for the Sony Music Centre in the Google Play Store on my Amazon Fire tablet, installed an app called Side Launcher on the Nvidia Shield Pro as well as the tablet, and then sent the downloaded apk (a term I had not previously heard) from my tablet to the Shield via the Side Launcher App. With the Sony Music Centre/Center installed, I plugged in the DAC chord from DAC to Shield, the Music Center recognized it and gave me the option (as indicated in the article) to allow pass through audio. I then went to play something via the X-Plore file manager I had just installed on the Shield.I was prepared for no sound -- and that is what happened the first couple of seconds -- but, to my delight, the sound went from the Shield to my DAC to my amplifier to my speakers! This worked for files on my attached 4 hard drives (attached via a hub to the other USB port available in the Shield) to my PC, to the streaming on Youtube, Peacock and Plex TV which used the Plex Server on my PC for the files there.Next steps, was to expose those 4 attached drives to the Shield so I could see them in the PC which I was able to do with some trial and error, after watching a youtube video on how to set up a the Shield as a Network Attached Storage Device. (This had taken no effort to do with the WD TV Media Player, but was not so easy for me with the Shield. I did this so I can move files back and forth from PC to those drives attached to the Shield, just like I was able to do with the WD Media Player.)Sound was as good (or better -- I couldn't, to A to B comparisons since the WD player was inoperable) as my old WD Media Player solution but the file manager I was using (X-plore) couldn't work with cue files like the WD Media Player. In addition, though the WD Media Player didn't support .ape files, it could sometimes play them and always see them, but not so with the X-Plore app.After more googling, I found out about Kodi (yes, I was pretty clueless about all this stuff) and installed that. It also has an option for audio pass through, which I enabled, and unlike X-Plore, I could see the individual tracks on single flac files that had associated .cue files. And an improvement over the WD Media Player, it could play not only .flac files, but also .ape files!So at this point I am happy with the sound of the Nvidia, happy with the ability to play my audio files and how well Kodi works, and even find that it has made my old Roku redundant. (I had considered replacing the old Roku and WD Media Player with the Roku Ultra, but didn't after Roku support indicated that it wouldn't work with a USB hub with multiple drives -- maybe it really would have, but not sure it wouldn't have allowed me all the functionality that I have with the Shield.)So at this point very happy with the Shield, particularly the quality of pictures when watching streaming channels (I set the AI video enhancement option -- a great feature) and most importantly happy with the quality of the audio! It was great listening to Gentle Giant's remastered Power and the Glory with the sounds appearing from multiple parts of the room (my setup is traditional stereo but this effect happens with two well placed speakers) and some Haydn Keyboard Trios on original instruments (each note of the fortepiano is so clear, and most importantly the humor in the music, so well interpreted by the musicians, is so effectively conveyed.) At first I had thought I had wasted $200 on the Shield, but after taking the time to learn some of what it is capable of, found it to be a great audiophile-level solution!

Awesome device!! Best tool for streaming period! Interface is killer, very fast to respond, simple to select and navigate everything! I can't wait to add the plex feature and add my own media library. I haven't even scratched the surface of what this device can do, but everything up until now is amazing! The only negative is the Netflix button, haha!! That thing will activate just looking at it!! All kidding aside, if you don't fat-finger the Netflix button, you'll be good, but you will, haha!!

Excellent product, really, really good. I think NVIDIA earned top marks for the internal requirements and the excellent functionality of this TV Box.

The SHIELD Android TV Pro works well for streaming 4K HDR movies and live sports. The picture is sharp, the sound is good, and it’s easy to use. I like that it has Google Assistant built-in and supports cloud gaming. Overall, it’s a solid device for home entertainment, though it didn’t quite blow me away.