Nvidia Shield v Firestick 4K for full frontend

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cliveb
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Nvidia Shield v Firestick 4K for full frontend

Post by cliveb »

OK, I'm just about ready to give up trying to make a Raspberry Pi4 work properly as a frontend. (It's so very nearly there, but still has occasional picture glitches that I'm unable to solve). So I'm thinking of trying out one of the Android options. I want to run a full-featured Myth frontend. (Have tried leanfront on a non-4K Firestck but it just doesn't float my boat).

Bearing in mind this is for playback of UK Freeview HD recordings (which I believe are 1080i), is there any advantage in getting the Nvidia Shield over a Firestick 4K?
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jfabernathy
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Re: Nvidia Shield v Firestick 4K for full frontend

Post by jfabernathy »

While this is not your exact picture source, I have both the FireTV 4K stick and the Nividia Shield TV (2017) and on USA OTA 1080i (1920x1080@30) and 720p (1280x720@60)

I find that Mythtv-Frontend on android is much better on the Shield than the FireTV 4k stick. but since my wife uses the FireTV 4k and only watches with Leanfront, she thinks it's great, which I do as well. I use both Mythtv-frontend and leanfront and both are good for me on the Shield TV.

The Shield TV has issues with matching frame rate still being beta. For example I can't stand watching Netflix on Shield TV for UK or European content since that is not at 60/30 fps. Can't compare Mythtv content at anything other than ATSC 1.0 which is all 60/30 fps.

My worse frontend now is a brand new 11th gen Core i7 with Xe GFX in a Nuc 1165G7. I think the gfx drivers need some serious work.
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Re: Nvidia Shield v Firestick 4K for full frontend

Post by jksj »

I agree with Jim's points as raised above. They are just as valid as a UK viewer (Freesat - I have done limited testing on Freeview).
If you need surround sound go for the Shield. I have to use ffmpeg decode for sound on Leanfront.

The Shield has more processing power than firetv 4K which shows on some apps but the F4K is much better value for money.
Leanfront on Shield plays back perfectly.
Leanfront on Firetv4K is almost perfect, much better than Pi.

The Shield is better than the F4K if you can live with setting the frame rate according to the Medea as Jim mentions.
The F4K is good value for money and playback is far better than Pi.

Leanfront is an Android native application and as such works faster and is more stable than mythfrontend.
cliveb
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Re: Nvidia Shield v Firestick 4K for full frontend

Post by cliveb »

Thanks for the feedback, guys.
I think perhaps I should give leanfront another go to see whether we could live with it. If we can, then presumably a F4K will do the job.

(I have two issues with the Shield: (i) it's almost 3 times the price of a F4K, and (ii) the remote that looks like a Toblerone is daft - why make it that shape?)
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pgbennett
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Re: Nvidia Shield v Firestick 4K for full frontend

Post by pgbennett »

If there are specific problems with leanfront let me know by opening a ticket on github https://github.com/bennettpeter/android ... -Leanfront
cliveb
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Re: Nvidia Shield v Firestick 4K for full frontend

Post by cliveb »

pgbennett wrote:
Mon May 10, 2021 4:46 pm
If there are specific problems with leanfront let me know by opening a ticket on github https://github.com/bennettpeter/android ... -Leanfront
I don't have any problems as such - it's simply that I don't much care for the user interface. Maybe it's because I've spent years being used to the standard MythTV frontend.

I just gave it another go and the other issue I have is that it's not especially responsive - in particular when skipping forward or back in a recording. I'm used to being able to jump pretty much instantly. But perhaps it could be because I'm using a non-4K firestick?
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Re: Nvidia Shield v Firestick 4K for full frontend

Post by gedakc »

I too found video playback (on 1080i) not quite perfect when using MythFrontend on the RPi4.

From my perspective the best combined MythFrontend/MythBackend solution is still an Intel x86_64 computer, though not too new as mentioned by @jfabernathy because the graphic drivers might not yet be fully developed for newer chipsets.

I don't have a Firestick 4k so I can't comment on that.

I do have a 2017 NVidia Shield and it works great with both MythFrontent and LeanFront. One advantage with my Shield is that it has two USB ports on it. This enabled me to add a wireless keyboard/remote with many more keys that make using MythFrontend way better than with the overly simplified remote that comes with the Shield. I just plugged in the keyboard USB dongle and I was good to go. I don't think that the Firestick 4K has USB ports, but I could be wrong.

While I would prefer an all GNU/Linux solution, the Shield does let me run Mythfrontend, LeanFront, Kodi, and other subscription services like Netflix all from one device. This means less switching from one HDMI input to another on the TV.
Last edited by gedakc on Mon May 10, 2021 9:29 pm, edited 1 time in total.
cliveb
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Re: Nvidia Shield v Firestick 4K for full frontend

Post by cliveb »

gedakc wrote:
Mon May 10, 2021 8:43 pm
I do have a 2017 NVidia Shield and it works great with both MythFrontent and LeanFront. One advantage with my Shield is that it has two USB ports on it. This enabled me to add a wireless keyboard/remote with many more keys that make using MythFrontend way better than with the overly simplified remote that comes with the Shield. I don't think that the Firestick 4K has USB ports, but I could be wrong.
Ah, now this is very interesting. I could use a FLIRC for remote control.

But what's even more interesting: would this also support a USB DVD drive and make it available to Myth Frontend?
At the moment, we use a USB drive to play DVDs instead of a traditional DVD player, for the very good reason that Myth allows you to skip straight to the menu and bypass all that annoying stuff they put at the front and which DVD players insist on playing.
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pgbennett
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Re: Nvidia Shield v Firestick 4K for full frontend

Post by pgbennett »

cliveb wrote:
Mon May 10, 2021 5:15 pm
I just gave it another go and the other issue I have is that it's not especially responsive - in particular when skipping forward or back in a recording. I'm used to being able to jump pretty much instantly. But perhaps it could be because I'm using a non-4K firestick?
This is true, skipping takes a little longer with leanfront, because leanfront does not use the seek table that mythtv builds for recordings. There may be a small improvement with a 4K firestick, but it will not be as fast as mythfrontend.
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jfabernathy
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Re: Nvidia Shield v Firestick 4K for full frontend

Post by jfabernathy »

pgbennett wrote:
Tue May 11, 2021 2:47 pm
cliveb wrote:
Mon May 10, 2021 5:15 pm
I just gave it another go and the other issue I have is that it's not especially responsive - in particular when skipping forward or back in a recording. I'm used to being able to jump pretty much instantly. But perhaps it could be because I'm using a non-4K firestick?
This is true, skipping takes a little longer with leanfront, because leanfront does not use the seek table that mythtv builds for recordings. There may be a small improvement with a 4K firestick, but it will not be as fast as mythfrontend.
My wife uses Leanfront on a 4K firetv stick and she has no issues with the skipping using the arrow keys. In fact when I test on her F4K vs. my Nvidia Shield TV with leanfront, I can't find any speed or picture quality differences worth talking about on USA OTA content.
cliveb
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Re: Nvidia Shield v Firestick 4K for full frontend

Post by cliveb »

Just wanted to bump this thread in order to ask one very specific question. (I asked it earlier in the thread, but I think it kind of got lost while people were commenting on other things. I also asked in the the General Discussion sub-forum, but with no replies)....

Someone here must be running a full Myth frontend on an Nvidia Shield Pro (the one with USB ports).
What I'd like to know is this: if you plug an external USB DVD drive into the Shield's USB port, does it become available within Myth frontend to play DVDs?
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Re: Nvidia Shield v Firestick 4K for full frontend

Post by gedakc »

> if you plug an external USB DVD drive into the Shield's USB port, does it become available within Myth frontend to play DVDs?

IMHO there would be a very low likelihood of anyone using a Shield to watch DVDs via an attached USB DVD drive. Hence I would not expect there to be anyone that can answer this question. Then again I could be wrong.

I do not have a USB DVD drive and have not tested the proposed use case.
cliveb
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Re: Nvidia Shield v Firestick 4K for full frontend

Post by cliveb »

gedakc wrote:
Fri May 21, 2021 5:27 pm
IMHO there would be a very low likelihood of anyone using a Shield to watch DVDs via an attached USB DVD drive. Hence I would not expect there to be anyone that can answer this question. Then again I could be wrong.
Perhaps I should explain why I'm interested in this.
You know how irritating it is that most DVDs have stuff at the beginning that you can't skip or even FFWD over? Play them using Mythtv and you can jump straight to the menu.

Surely there's someone out there who's tried this on a Shield?
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Re: Nvidia Shield v Firestick 4K for full frontend

Post by jksj »

Sorry have not tried it but the Shield can access external network storage
https://www.nvidia.com/en-gb/shield/sup ... ur-shield/ so I would guess you could do something with that.
Or use the video library supported by Mythtv Backend which would also work for F4K
cliveb
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Re: Nvidia Shield v Firestick 4K for full frontend

Post by cliveb »

jksj wrote:
Sat May 22, 2021 8:45 am
Sorry have not tried it but the Shield can access external network storage
https://www.nvidia.com/en-gb/shield/sup ... ur-shield/ so I would guess you could do something with that.
Or use the video library supported by Mythtv Backend which would also work for F4K
Thanks for that, but this way would require ripping the DVD content to hard disk.
I want to be able to play a physical DVD without having to sit through all that guff at the start.
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