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pickettd | 10 years ago

I picked up a $50 Nexus Player (Android TV OS) last month for this purpose. It replaced a first generation Raspberry Pi B that was actually pretty decent as a Kodi box (I used the Xbian distro).

So far I'm really happy with the Nexus Player. I like that it gets Android TV apps (like Kodi and Moonlight for game streaming from my desktop) and also supports Google Cast. It also has a usb port that supports things like keyboards, ethernet, external disks, etc with a usb hub.

I also strongly considered the Nvidia Shield TV (also Android TV OS). It's $200 with a lot better hardware, getting good reviews, supports 4k, and apparently can decode H265 in hardware.

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ixnu|10 years ago

The Shield Android TV has just had a price reduction to 179. After trying Chromeboxes, Chromecasts, and vanilla PC's, it's the closest to streaming nirvana - when it works.

The Shield TV runs Kodi as well as any PC. Nvidia's gaming ecosystem runs very well either from the cloud gaming grid or local PC. They deserve credit for taking the platform well beyond what Google could do with it.

However, my worry is that Google will abandon the Android TV OS in favor of Chromecasters and sticks and leave Nvidia to pick up where the Nexus Player has failed. The Android TV OS interface is simple enough, but there are glaring issues that continue to frustrate. Simple things like customizing the launcher are impossible. Also, there are persistent bugs at the OS level like a flakey ethernet driver and unreliable voice commands.

sfjailbird|10 years ago

Why did you leave the Raspberry?

Also, I have similar requirements as you (mostly want to play media off my NAS through XBMC or any other player with sufficient format support), but I want to use a remote rather than mouse and keyboard - is this possible with the Nexus Player or is there another good solution for this?

pickettd|10 years ago

My first generation Pi was significantly slower at Kodi (things like menu traversal, library updates, API consumption, etc) than a second generation Pi (I tried a friend's). So I was already considering $35-40 for a new Pi when I saw the sale price on the Nexus Player. But the bigger deal for me was Google Cast support. I wanted a single device that could run Kodi and also that the family could cast Youtube, Soundcloud, etc using phones.

Regarding remote - the Nexus Player comes with a simple, bluetooth remote (as does the Shield TV now apparently). It works great for simple Kodi interactions but doesn't work for everything (the biggest one that I've noticed so far is the lack of a context button). But as thoughtpalette mentions - I use Android and iOS remote apps when I need more control over Kodi (Yatse is what I use on Android). Also there is an Android TV control app for Android phones that has the same buttons as the simple Nexus Player bluetooth remote.

viraptor|10 years ago

Do you know if there's any way to use nexus player with steam? I mean like their steam link device, or is that completely proprietary solution?

soylentcola|10 years ago

Not to my knowledge but the nVidia Shield TV (more expensive than Nexus Player but better hardware and still runs Android TV) lets you stream from a PC running a supported nVidia GPU.

I've been very tempted to pick one up even if I don't use the game streaming function too often. It'll be a nice bump up from the Chromecast and I'll be able to occasionally fire up a game on the PC and play it on the living room TV (albeit at 1920x1080 instead of 2560x1440)

pickettd|10 years ago

As ixnu mentioned - I use the Moonlight Android app (http://moonlight-stream.com/) paired with Geforce Experience running on my Windows box (Geforce GTX 750 Ti video card) for Steam games.

To be honest though - my Moonlight streaming experience hasn't been as smooth as using a device that can actually run the Steam client (Linux/Mac/Windows). But Moonlight is still really cool.