Live data from Hacker News

Nvidia's 10-year effort to make the Shield TV the most updated Android device

arstechnica.com

91–100 of 218 posts

Re: Nvidia's 10-year effort to make the Shield TV the most updated Android device

#91
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, I've seen instructions, most of them start with "enable dev mode, then use adb to run ton of inscrutable commands that may or may not break the system over time". Overall, it seems like a recipe to end up in an unknown state where you can no longer easily get updates and the only recovery is to wipe the system. I've seen similar methods to "Clean up Windows 11", and it always seems like you're just putting the de…

Friend, you are #11 on the leaderboard here on HN and you stated that enabled dev mode is too scary. I promise you, you have the skillset to research that your worries are false and you can accomplish this easier than rebutting me on this. I believe in you. Once your find your comfort, you might even find other items of joy that are being gatekept from you like SmartTube.

Friend, I never said it was scary, only that it was not maintainable and would put your system in an unknown state.

How different is this from say installing Debian, then picking out a bunch of globally installed software that supports "make install" and spraying files all over the root filesystem, then expecting the next run of "apt update" to work properly without things breaking?

Maybe my concerns are unwarranted, but the vast majority of Android mangling I've done over the years has not generally resulted in long-term stability, for a variety of reasons. Recall that the point of this article is that it's 10 year old hardware still in support!

Re: Nvidia's 10-year effort to make the Shield TV the most updated Android device

#92

Everyone is missing the why here, this only happens because the whole stack is vertically integrated. Even if say LG wanted to make a box like this and update it for 10 years they couldn’t, they don’t make the chips. Qualcomm straight up refuses to support chips through this many Android releases. Even if device manufacturers want to support devices forever it won’t matter if the actual SoC platform drops support.

> Even if device manufacturers want to support devices forever it won’t matter if the actual SoC platform drops support.

Yeah, so that's not a why, that's a how (and it's not necessary or sufficient anymore, see the Samsung and Pixel reference).

The why seems very much what the article covers.

Re: Nvidia's 10-year effort to make the Shield TV the most updated Android device

#93

The Shield TV's cylindrical form factor could use a rethink. It is hard to find a good spot for it on a shelf when cords are connected at both ends (HDMI and MMC slot at one end, power and LAN at the other) and the ports are too close for all cords to use right-angle-heads. Leaving it invisible by placing it on the floor or behind other gear sometimes impedes Bluetooth signal, so there it sits, well apart from the AV…

That is the new Shield TV design from 2019. The original Shield TV and the Pro were flat design. Strange that they changed it when old design worked well.

I have a 2019 and it's flat.

Re: Nvidia's 10-year effort to make the Shield TV the most updated Android device

#94
Unfortunately it doesn't seem to extend to the other Shield products. My Nvidia Shield tablet hasn't had an update in many years.

Then again, this is probably why it is still fast :-P

I'm using it pretty much daily as an ebook reader and sometimes i use it to watch videos on bed by transcoding them on my PC (the hardware isn't that good to decode modern formats). Amusingly, these days i use it much more than back when it was new :-P. I keep it offline though (mainly to avoid wasting battery, there isn't anything in it i'd care if it caught malware by net osmosis somehow) and transfer files via a USB cable.

Re: Nvidia's 10-year effort to make the Shield TV the most updated Android device

#95
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Apple TV's pretty good. I imagine I'd have a hard time switching to a Shield TV unless it gets a CPU bump, whereas Apple still keeps making newer models with modern-ish phone SoCs.

What makes the Apple TV desirable? It’s $185. Why would I choose it over a Roku $30 or Ultra $80?

The rest of these Roku/Amazon/Google devices are full of advertising and underpowered hardware that results in cluttered and laggy interfaces. The Apple TV interface is completely free of advertising, responsive, and easy to navigate.

Re: Nvidia's 10-year effort to make the Shield TV the most updated Android device

#96
post #58
post #9

I've got the OG model, and it's still the main device hooked up to my TV. All my TV streaming goes through it (mostly Jellyfin these days), and it can stream games no problem via Moonlight. It's hooked up to a 4k LG TV, and I have no idea about how it does the upscaling, but 720p content looks perfectly fine on it. Best (worst?) of all... it still gets updates.

Yeah I just loved the one where they forced ads on the homescreen. Now I use ProjectIvy

+1 for Projectivy.

After the ADHD-inducing default Android TV interface, Projectivy is just beautifully clean and simple.

I have quite a few Android TV (or are they called Google TV these days?) devices, and they all get the Projectivy makeover. The TCL TV running Android needs some 'adb' commands run so that the users selection of launcher is maintained across reboots, bit other than that it's been smooth.

Re: Nvidia's 10-year effort to make the Shield TV the most updated Android device

#97
No thanks. Downgraded to 8.2.3 years ago and going strong with a custom launcher. Has absolutely everything I need and nothing that I don’t.

This was the guide back then, possibly still works. [0]

[0] https://florisse.nl/shield-downgrade/

Re: Nvidia's 10-year effort to make the Shield TV the most updated Android device

#98
post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Friend, you are #11 on the leaderboard here on HN and you stated that enabled dev mode is too scary. I promise you, you have the skillset to research that your worries are false and you can accomplish this easier than rebutting me on this. I believe in you. Once your find your comfort, you might even find other items of joy that are being gatekept from you like SmartTube.

Friend, I never said it was scary, only that it was not maintainable and would put your system in an unknown state. How different is this from say installing Debian, then picking out a bunch of globally installed software that supports "make install" and spraying files all over the root filesystem, then expecting the next run of "apt update" to work properly without things breaking? Maybe my concerns are unwarranted,…

It’s a single app. several are open source. I recommend flauncher. Once again, you are overly complicating a process that you do not know and are arguing from a point of ignorance. As you point out, it’s a 10 year old platform. It’s very stable and known. I am done trying to let you see what you are not interested in.

Re: Nvidia's 10-year effort to make the Shield TV the most updated Android device

#99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is the new Shield TV design from 2019. The original Shield TV and the Pro were flat design. Strange that they changed it when old design worked well.

I have a 2019 and it's flat.

I think that's because you have the Pro version.

Re: Nvidia's 10-year effort to make the Shield TV the most updated Android device

#100
I have one of them, and been using it daily since I bought it in 2016. Bought a cheap Bluetooth remote control from AliExpress which was an upgrade over the Logitech Harmony crap I had earlier.

If it were to break, knock on wood it won't happen, what options are there? I have tried to look but haven't really found anything that is free of Chinese backdoors and has decent hardware. For just Plex or Jellyfin a N100 box or similar could do, but I want easy launch of HBO, YouTube etc. And I need that remote control option.

Post reply on HN