NVIDIA’s SHIELD Android TV Update Is Something You Should Download Yesterday


NvidiaShieldTvYou know of the NVIDIA Shield TV, correct? It’s an amazing Android-based set-top box for streaming both entertainment and gaming in your living room. Released May of 2015, it’s also the first device from NVIDIA to employ Android TV and apps. You also know of Plex, a collaborative music, movies, videos and photo server that has been growing in popularity ever since its official release in 2015 (Wikipedia tells us before that, it was a freeware hobby project, and then a back-end media server of closed-source code, and some modified open-source code). The great thing about Plex is it’s kind of like the cloud, you can access it from any device that runs the app. You’ve got movies and tv shows collected up? Log into your Plex from any device or any living room and watch em’. You can even share your collection with friends and vice versa.

NvidiaShieldTv1Cool thing is, the two, Plex and Nvidia, have joined hands in a SHIELD Android TV box, where all of Plex’s media are to be shared. The latest news, however, has been a live update, 3.2, where the TV builds-in the Plex Media Server. This means all SHIELD Android TV owners can stream to all their devices via SHIELD’s HD transcode, and gain both app and the Media Server elements. The update brings new use to your SHIELD TV by being able to stream to any device you own, anywhere; in the past, Plex users had to stream their media libraries from either a local or remote computer. You’ve got an Android smartphone? You can now use the PLEX app to access all the media you have stored on your console or network location.

NvidiaShieldTv2Exciting that this isn’t just an app, right? This update also includes other features aimed to make SHIELD owners’ entertainment experiences even richer- like the addition of Netflix in HDR, VUDU in 4K, and 60fps 4K viewing for YouTube. The company’s website explains the transcoding is made possible by the Tegra X1 CPU and 256-core Maxwell GPU thriving inside the SHIELD TV, which is such an advanced processor by the way, it delivers up to 25 times the performance of popular streaming devices. NVIDIA’s update also includes the convenience of drag-and-drop storage access and sharing from network PCs, mounting of a network attached storage device (NAS), a sleep mode, RGB TV quality improvements including 10-bit color, and Dolby 7.1 surround sound. Don’t forget the 50 classic PC game titles (at up to 1080p resolution) included with your membership for SHIELD TV! If you don’t install this update soon, you’re pretty much a crazy person. It’s huge!

Topics: Technology News Display Screen Technology Laptops & Ultrathin Ultrabooks Storage & Cloud

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