Tuesday, October 29th 2019
NVIDIA Launches the New Shield TV
NVIDIA today raised the bar higher still for streaming media players — unveiling the next generation of SHIELD TV, which delivers unmatched levels of home entertainment, gaming and AI capabilities right into the living room, starting at $149.
The two new SHIELD models — SHIELD TV and SHIELD TV Pro — provide exceptional visual and sound experiences. Their new Tegra X1+ processor, delivering up to 25 percent more performance than its predecessor, helps bring to life Dolby Vision for ultra-vivid imagery and Dolby Atmos for extraordinary audio. Its computational prowess dramatically improves picture quality by using AI to upscale HD video streams into 4K resolution.
"These new models provide a big step up for SHIELD, which has consistently delivered groundbreaking innovations in the living room since its introduction five years ago," said Jeff Fisher, senior vice president of the Consumer Business at NVIDIA. "They deliver unquestionably best-in-class entertainment, supported by Dolby Atmos, Dolby Vision and our breakthroughs in using AI to improve video streaming playback."
The SHIELD additions offer options that will appeal to everyone, from casual streamers to media and gaming enthusiasts.
SHIELD TV has a slim, stealthy design meant to disappear by blending in with, or behind, entertainment centers. It also has Gigabit Ethernet and dual-band Wi-Fi for lightning-fast connectivity.
SHIELD TV Pro takes entertainment to the next level for the most demanding users. It is based on the previous generation's iconic, sleek design and comes with additional memory and storage, plus two USB ports for running a Plex Media Server and connecting high-capacity hard drives or other USB devices.
Both come bundled with an all-new remote control, powered by two AAA batteries, that features motion-activated backlit buttons, a built-in lost remote locator and a mic for voice search.
SHIELD, as an Android TV device, provides access to over 500,000 movies and shows and more than 5,000 apps and games through Google Play. The Google Assistant enables users to quickly access entertainment, control smart devices and get answers on screen with their voice. SHIELD now supports "routines" — with one command, the Google Assistant will complete multiple tasks.
"NVIDIA pushes the boundaries of how media and entertainment are consumed in the home," said Shalini Govil-Pai, senior director of Product Management for Android TV, at Google. "By bringing together Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos with Android TV, users of the new SHIELD TV media players receive an unmatched experience that well represents our platform's rich content and capabilities."
Spectacular Visuals and Sound
Dolby Vision transforms entertainment experiences with ultra-vivid imaging — incredible brightness, contrast, color and detail that infuse movies with refined, life-like images. It can deliver colors never seen before on a screen, with dramatic contrast, highlights that are up to 40x brighter, and blacks that are 10x darker.
Dolby Atmos represents a leap forward from surround sound, transporting listeners into an extraordinary experience with moving audio that flows around them. Listeners will feel like they are inside the action as the sounds of people, places, things and music come alive with breathtaking realism.
AI in the Home
SHIELD benefits from NVIDIA's AI leadership to offer features lacking in competing devices. In addition to built-in Google Assistant and Amazon Echo connectivity, the new streamers use an AI upscaler to bring HD content to life. Trained on a deep neural network, the upscaler lets SHIELD owners watch 720p and 1080p content in beautiful 4K.
Amazing Games
SHIELD boasts the widest range of gaming content on a streaming media device with support for cloud gaming, local streaming and advanced native games. Gamers can enjoy hundreds of supported games in the GeForce NOW beta, including many recent releases and top free-to-play games like Fortnite.
Pricing and Availability
SHIELD TV and SHIELD TV Pro are available now and ship in the U.S., Canada and select European countries. SHIELD TV starts at $149 with remote. SHIELD TV Pro with remote, 3 GB of memory and 16 GB of storage is available for $199. More information, including where to buy, is available at https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/shield/.
The two new SHIELD models — SHIELD TV and SHIELD TV Pro — provide exceptional visual and sound experiences. Their new Tegra X1+ processor, delivering up to 25 percent more performance than its predecessor, helps bring to life Dolby Vision for ultra-vivid imagery and Dolby Atmos for extraordinary audio. Its computational prowess dramatically improves picture quality by using AI to upscale HD video streams into 4K resolution.
The SHIELD additions offer options that will appeal to everyone, from casual streamers to media and gaming enthusiasts.
SHIELD TV has a slim, stealthy design meant to disappear by blending in with, or behind, entertainment centers. It also has Gigabit Ethernet and dual-band Wi-Fi for lightning-fast connectivity.
SHIELD TV Pro takes entertainment to the next level for the most demanding users. It is based on the previous generation's iconic, sleek design and comes with additional memory and storage, plus two USB ports for running a Plex Media Server and connecting high-capacity hard drives or other USB devices.
Both come bundled with an all-new remote control, powered by two AAA batteries, that features motion-activated backlit buttons, a built-in lost remote locator and a mic for voice search.
SHIELD, as an Android TV device, provides access to over 500,000 movies and shows and more than 5,000 apps and games through Google Play. The Google Assistant enables users to quickly access entertainment, control smart devices and get answers on screen with their voice. SHIELD now supports "routines" — with one command, the Google Assistant will complete multiple tasks.
"NVIDIA pushes the boundaries of how media and entertainment are consumed in the home," said Shalini Govil-Pai, senior director of Product Management for Android TV, at Google. "By bringing together Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos with Android TV, users of the new SHIELD TV media players receive an unmatched experience that well represents our platform's rich content and capabilities."
Spectacular Visuals and Sound
Dolby Vision transforms entertainment experiences with ultra-vivid imaging — incredible brightness, contrast, color and detail that infuse movies with refined, life-like images. It can deliver colors never seen before on a screen, with dramatic contrast, highlights that are up to 40x brighter, and blacks that are 10x darker.
Dolby Atmos represents a leap forward from surround sound, transporting listeners into an extraordinary experience with moving audio that flows around them. Listeners will feel like they are inside the action as the sounds of people, places, things and music come alive with breathtaking realism.
AI in the Home
SHIELD benefits from NVIDIA's AI leadership to offer features lacking in competing devices. In addition to built-in Google Assistant and Amazon Echo connectivity, the new streamers use an AI upscaler to bring HD content to life. Trained on a deep neural network, the upscaler lets SHIELD owners watch 720p and 1080p content in beautiful 4K.
Amazing Games
SHIELD boasts the widest range of gaming content on a streaming media device with support for cloud gaming, local streaming and advanced native games. Gamers can enjoy hundreds of supported games in the GeForce NOW beta, including many recent releases and top free-to-play games like Fortnite.
Pricing and Availability
SHIELD TV and SHIELD TV Pro are available now and ship in the U.S., Canada and select European countries. SHIELD TV starts at $149 with remote. SHIELD TV Pro with remote, 3 GB of memory and 16 GB of storage is available for $199. More information, including where to buy, is available at https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/shield/.
58 Comments on NVIDIA Launches the New Shield TV
Shield can also do both. It's primarily geared and marketed, contrary to your point, towards online streaming.
Game streaming was the main selling point, but it was also artificially limited by NVidia. There were (and still are) reverse-engineered clients for NV GameStream protocol, which do not require shield hardware and work quite well on Snapdragon, Exynos, and even shitty Mediatek devices for local streaming. Steam streaming pretty much made it obsolete and irrelevant.
GFN can also work on android, but once again - Nvidia. They did an announcement recently, and even released an APK for a short time, but now it's unavailable for any device except their own Shield TV and Shield Tablet (at least none of my SD600/SD800 devices are compatible anymore via PlayStore).It's fairly new feature, so not much info on the actual quality difference. I was only able to find this:
what a awefull waste of money !!!
I'll never buy this as it is now; but in the future I think this is where gaming is headed unfortunately....
All cloud based stream gaming baby....I hate this idea personally. It just doesn't seem right; the idea of my computer not setting next to me. Just this stupid "terminal" that's got no real ballz of its own...
Makes me want to cry or something.
25% improvement from a model that's 2, going on 3 years old...is kind of sad. Can't say I'm inclined to change the ones I have.
memory == RAM == volatile; in other words, it's contents go poof when it loses power. - this is the space the system uses to do work in, and store temp variables, etc.
Storage == NAND == non-volatile; it's contents remain when the power is off. - this is where the all software is stored (OS, programs, etc).
I would not use this for dedicated gaming but this thing is a great streaming/HEVC/H264 box if you don't want to build a HTPC.
I literally ran upstairs and looked at my Shield 2017 and it doesn't even have analog audio output (DC in, RJ45, HDMI 2.0 out, 2 x USB 3.0 type A). In other words, the Shield 2017 doesn't even have a DAC: it's exclusively digital audio.
Point is, this DAC talk has no business in this thread. It's completely off topic.
Edit: Yeah, Dolby Vision is video effect and Dolby Atmos is a sound effect. I would never enable either of them.
Still have my old one somewhere. Collecting dust... :p
I did some digging and it doesn't appear Dolby Vision nor Dolby Atmos are encoded into the stream, they are affects applied to existing streams. There's no circumstance that I'm aware of where they are required. They are optional features. NVIDIA no doubt added them to try to differentiate their product from competitors.I've got video files that I can play via Kodi from my laptop into my receiver and I get Dolby atmos being passed through.
For a technology site, I'm surprised there are lots of uninformed individuals casting their opinion...