NVIDIA has just announced that its SHIELD box running Android TV is getting updated to version 1.2. There are a number of improvements, but the most important ones are (in my opinion) the better Netflix and Google Play streaming experience, the SHIELD accessories faster response time and the ability to share 4K pictures to your TV.
With the fast adoption rate of 4K TV and the relative lack of 4K content, owners will be pretty excited to share ultra-high resolution pictures to their 4K TVs. It is one of the best eye-candy, especially if you shot great photos with a high-quality camera.
Although the remote and game controllers are pretty snappy already, it’s clear that any improvement on the responsiveness of the controllers will be contribute to a far better experience. In fact, slow remotes are my #1 pain point on most TV boxes. While touch devices have improved responsiveness, TV boxes are often far off from their game-console cousins with a 60 FPs and low-latency culture. SHIELD helps closing the gap.
NVIDIA is quite cryptic when it says that the Netflix/Google Play streaming experience will be “optimized”. The official description doesn’t say if the buffering is faster, or if the quality is higher – or maybe a combination of both.
The wording suggests improved performance, but I’ll ask for more details when I have a chance. Since both video service have a massive audience, any improvement is great, but to know “which” is equally important.
Fewer people are concerned by this, but NVIDIA has also updated its GameStream (PC to SHIELD streaming) implementation, but to take advantage of this new version, users will need to install the GeForce Experience 2.25 beta (or above) on their PC.
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