the narrative seems to be that online streaming services were adopted for their convenience and consumer friendliness, but there’s something to be said for the reliability of a box receiving a signal in a standard format and just dumping it onto a display.
while i don’t use any online streaming services personally, i am the designated Computer Guy for some people who do. they wanted to know what their best option for streaming hardware was that wouldn’t be an outstanding privacy nightmare or an outstanding security risk (and breaking other devices on your network non‐maliciously is evidently also a concern). the best option i could think of was an Nvidia Shield TV, an Android TV device by Nvidia of all people which seemed to have overkill hardware for streaming purposes, had just gotten a hardware refresh in late 2019 (the year it was purchased), and had an ethernet port. surely this was the premium hardware option that would easily satisfy their needs with minimal trouble.
recently, i was told that it was complaining its storage space was too low. this surprised me because 8 GB of internal storage should’ve been plenty for just having a few streaming apps installed, and there were no new apps or anything installed recently. going into the device settings showed only 5.4 GB of total internal storage space, which is a significantly smaller number than 8. there was ⁓900 MB of cache data i could clear, but that’s obviously a temporary solution, and none of the other suggestions in this support article were relevant or helpful. where did 2+ GB of storage go?
some people online said a factory reset helped temporarily, but i refuse on principle to factory reset a device to fix a problem unless it’s well and truly hosed. is it just a partitioning issue exacerbated by years of in‐place software upgrades? well, it’s an Android device, so i can’t just run a disk management app to look at its partitions, because god forbid we’re allowed to fix our own computers! i mean, what if you used unfettered access to your own device to screen‐record copyrighted video?? don’t you know about how VCRs with record functions were illegal and permanently destroyed the film and broadcast industries??
further investigation revealed what could be the issue: a bug where WiFi logs fill up the storage (which would be remarkable given that this device has always used a wired network connection). because the system storage where these logs reside isn’t user‐accessible, the end‐user has no options besides installing a system update that fixes the problem. as it turns out, Nvidia put out a “hotfix” release that resolves this and a dozen other issues, but you have to manually “sign up” to receive it by entering your device’s serial number into a Google Form. there are also other concerning caveats to installing this, presumably because it’s not a Google‐certified release: its installation cannot be rolled back, and at least the Disney+ app specifically cannot be updated or installed anymore. that sounds like too much risk of stuff going even more wrong!
surely these fixes will be put into the stable channel soon though, right? well, that hotfix was “released” 11 months ago. there is a post on Reddit made 3 months ago by apparently someone working at Nvidia, which said “The release is still in development” but is “going to take a little longer”. so who knows! maybe it’ll be released tomorrow, or a year from now, or never. i really could not have less agency or information here.
off the top of my head, some other fun problems the users have had with this device which i cannot fix include:
- specifically with Netflix, when playing loud music (and especially music with pronounced violins), the entire audio output starts artificially and sporadically ducking, sometimes continuing even after the music stops and only being fixed by an app restart.
- specifically with Crave, occasional periods of significant frame drops, sometimes lasting for more than a second which also causes audio and subtitles to cut out.
- complaints about how subtitles look different in every app.
- sporadic app crashes and logouts.
at this point, with this being the latest in a series of issues with this Nvidia Shield TV, they’re interested in getting a new device that works better, but there’s truly no way to know what options in this ecosystem are the most functional. would some other Android TV device magically have better compatibility with the same apps?? how could i possibly assess this?? people still promote Roku even though they’re shoving ads into everything now too. people still promote Nvidia Shield TVs even though they stopped getting hardware refreshes every 2 years back in 2019 and so are probably being neglected to die a quiet death now. does Google even make their own Android TV device?? ok apparently the latest Chromecast released in 2022 runs Android TV, but it also only has 8 GB of storage space (which clearly hasn’t been enough for the Nvidia Shield TV), and it doesn’t even have a microSD card slot or ethernet port (which both see use on the Nvidia Shield TV). will Google even support this thing for a measly 5 years after launch?? god maybe i should just tell them to plug a PC into the TV and use that. but the last time they tried to use Netflix on their laptop they said it was unwatchable because the audio was super out of sync…
what’s the point of an “it just works” ecosystem where nothing works?? these people are desperately trying to pay for access to media but are being thwarted at every turn. they would without question have a better experience actually watching this stuff if they just pirated everything and fed it into the same open‐source media player. they’ve been frustrated with how much more ass YouTube Music sucks ever since Google Play Music (which was excellent) was killed off and all the purchases they’d made there were forcibly moved to YouTube Music. forced video previews on Netflix immediately received strong and justified scorn. recently they tried their damnedest to legally stream the latest Adventure Time series season or something, and the only option they found was paying for some “extension” to their Amazon Prime subscription, only to find that this inserted 5 ads into every 20‐minute episode even after spending money on it.
idk i would just like to fix my own computers please. thanks