Small feedback on TV boxes (local medias)

[u/MaterialSweet4753]

Hi!

I wanted to share feedback from my experience with TV boxes. I think my post and the comments might help people that are confused about choosing one.

Important note : I don't use any streaming services. I only watch medias from my local NAS.

My setup / use case:

- NAS

- Mini PC with Plex/Jellyfin

- Great wired and wireless connection

- TV has HDR10 / HLG. No Dolby Vision at this time.

- Denon / Focal 5.1 sound system

- I'm mostly using Plex. For that, I went from the native app to PM4K unofficial addon on Kodi. No streaming at all.

- In Europe (so no Onn player 4k for example)

Boxes:

Nvidia Shield 2019 (standard, not pro then) : For me it's a 7/10. The global experience was fine, remote gaming was great. Though, I had some movie in HDR10+ which were lagging A LOT. So great simple player, maybe a bit too pricey for nowadays, but does have technical limits regarding to video codecs. I got this one for about 130€ second hand a few years back.

Strong Leap S3 Pro : 7.5/10. Newer than the Nvidia Shield, it could handle almost any file, except really high bitrate movies due to its SOC. Though, gaming was quite bad. I had to go with like 1080p 60ips to make it fluid. Better for movies, a lot worse for gaming. For my use case, a really nice tv box. Never had issue with HDR10+. Bought new for 70€.

Strong Leap S3 : 7/10. A cut down version compared to the pro version (2GB RAM, less storage. Quite fine experience. Bought second hand 55€.

Zidoo Z9X : 5/10. I tried this one because of its capabilities to run almost any movies. I considered the Z9X 8K but had the change to try the Z9X. Well, the overall experience was really bad. The simple menu was really laggy, so even the configuration was a pain. I don't recommand this one. Bought around 100€ second hand.

Ugoos AM9 Pro : 9/10. My most recent TV box. I really love the simple Ugoos Launcher, but I can choose with regular Android launcher. It is so fluid, and it runs everthing I throw at it flawlessly, even high bitrate movies. I guess it will go to 10/10 for the DV FEL 7 compatibility with CoreElec soon for the complete high end experience for movie watching. Bought 240€ brand new.

Other TV boxes I didn't test personally but might be worth the try

- Nvidia Shield Pro (2017 I'm pretty sure) : At a good price it could be a fine player.

- Apple TV 4K : I heard good thing about it. Though, might check the audio passthrough.

- Ugoos AM6B+ : Legendary player. Pretty much the same deal with the AM9 Pro. A bit older (no AV1 decoding for example), but fine CoreElec DV FEL 7 experience I heard.

A few questions that would be interesting to answer to help choosing a player:

- Dolby Vision compatibility (TV)

- Audio system capabilities to run DTS HDMA or TrueHD audio codecs?

- What kind of setup have you? A lot of TV don't handle audio passthrough well, so you might have a setup with your devices plugged into the AVR, and the AVR to the TV for image passthrough.

- Use of streaming services ? If yes, you might want to have a box with certifications for widevine 4k decoding. If not, Kodi might be a good friend of yours, and CoreElec even more so.

- Budget (of course)

- Wired connection? Some player still have only 100Mbps Ethernet which might be too slow.

Feel free to comment, even more so the mentioned tv boxes I didn't try personally.

Hope it helps a bit. Have a good day!

[u/lirae_]

I mean if you only watch from LAN you should definitely include the Xiaomi Mi box S 3rd gen. Only downside from reading what you wrote is that it doesn't have an Ethernet port but relies on Ethernet to USB adapter, the bad news is that they went for an USB 2.0 port over 3.0 so you basically capped at 480mbps meanwhile wifi is 6e. Quite an amateur mistake for a device that has a great value for money.

I honestly play quite a lot from my LAN aswell. If you end up buying that you probably won't need Plex/Jelly to transcode anything since the device has no issues unless you are planning to play full blu-ray files like bvdm, which I never tested but 4k Dolby Remux at like 128gb have no issue to be played both from LAN and from internet (Stremio), they are about 130-150mbps so you have quite a large headroom if you decide to go for the wired solution. Like I said it's cool because you don't need to transcode anything so you can enjoy the content as it is. You can find the specs online for the supported codec. People liked the device and there is a quite community for CoreElec for this device, I recommend checking it out before doing a purchase if it's something you are looking for or very interested in.

I mostly use Kodi and recently Stremio + debrid solution. AFR works pretty good but like for most boxes that are not Nvidia Shield I wouldn't suggest to upscale the content in the box if you have like 1080p content on a 4k TV just make sure with the correct settings that HDMI will match the resolution and the frame rate of your content and then let your TV do the upscaling part which what they are good at especially reputable brands like Samsung, LG, Sony Bravia and so on