Nvidia Shield TV (2019)

Nvidia Shield TV (2019)

Editor Rating: Excellent (4.0)
Nvidia Shield TV (2019) - Nvidia Shield TV (2019)
US Street Price$149.99
  • Pros

    Excellent media features. GeForce Now game streaming is surprisingly responsive. AI upconversion works wonders with high-definition cartoons.
  • Cons

    Expensive. AI upconversion doesn't do much for live video or animation lower than 1080p. No USB ports. Many features will only appeal to PC gamers.
  • Bottom Line

    While its price and features will likely only appeal to certain gaming enthusiasts, the Nvidia Shield TV is one of the most impressive media streamers you can buy.

Nvidia's Shield TV, Shield Tablet, and Shield Portable never set the gaming world on fire, but they've managed to garner cult followings among some enthusiasts. The new Shield TV brings the price down to its lowest point ever, while offering the Shield line's most polished media and gaming experience yet. At $149.99, it's still one of the more expensive media streamers out there and it isn't capable as a standalone game system. But thanks to excellent media features and surprisingly responsive GeForce Now game streaming, it's a very appealing item for PC gamers looking to enjoy some TV time.

Simple Design

The Shield TV's design is a pretty massive departure from previous versions, as well as every other media streamer on the market. It isn't a small box you set in front of your TV, but it also isn't a stick or dongle that hangs out of an HDMI port on the back. It's a 6.5-by-1.6-inch (HW) black plastic cylinder that almost looks like a flashlight at first glance. One end of the cylinder holds a connector for the included power cable and an Ethernet port. The other end holds an HDMI port, a microSD card slot, and a reset button.

That's the whole device: a plastic tube you plug into a power outlet from one end and your TV from another, and let it sit on the floor or behind your TV. It sounds strange, but using both ends of the device for connectors is a clever twist that lets you position the Shield TV just as if it were a section of power cable.

Nvidia Shield TV

The tube holds an Nvidia Tegra X1+ processor, a more advanced version of the Tegra X1 used in the previous Shield TV. It features 2GB of RAM and 8GB of storage, though you won't find any USB ports on it. If you want wired accessories or better performance, you'll need to upgrade to the $199.99 Shield TV Pro, which uses the same chassis as the previous Shield TV and features 3GB of RAM, 16GB of storage, and two USB 3.0 ports, along with gameplay recording and broadcast to Twitch.

The remote is also completely redesigned, though not to the extent of the Shield TV itself. It's a 6.1-inch black plastic wand with a triangular cross section that makes it feel vaguely like a Toblerone. A circular navigation pad sits near the top, with power and menu buttons above it and a pinhole microphone above them. Back and Home buttons, along with volume and playback controls, sit below the pad, with a dedicated Netflix button below them. The button labels are gently illuminated, not so bright that they'll distract you in a dark room, but bright enough that you can easily identify them.

Nvidia Shield TV (2019)

Android TV

Android TV powers the Shield TV, offering an Android-based core built around a lean-back interface filled with media-streaming apps and features. All major streaming services besides Apple TV are here, including Amazon Prime Video, Amazon Music, Google Play Movies & TV, Google Play Music, Hulu, Netflix, SiriusXM, Sling TV, Spotify, Tidal, and YouTube. Android TV also supports Google Cast, so you can stream video from your phone or tablet from any compatible app.

You also get Google Assistant, which you can access by pressing and holding the microphone button on the remote. Google Assistant can answer general questions, search for content to watch or listen to, open apps, and control smart home devices by voice. It isn't hands-free like the Sony Master Series A9G TV; you need to use the remote. However, you can enable hands-free access on the Shield TV with the optional $60 Nvidia Shield Controller, a gamepad that features a far-field microphone array.

Nvidia Shield TV (2019)

Gaming Features

The Shield Controller isn't included with the Shield TV. In fact, it isn't included with the Shield Pro, either. If you want to game with either Shield, Nvidia assumes you already have a game controller of some form, so the streamer supports Bluetooth connections with the Microsoft Xbox One wireless gamepad, the Sony PlayStation DualShock 4, and the Nintendo Switch Pro Controller.

You can use your controller of choice to play Android games, but more importantly, the Shield also includes GeForce Now games streamed from Nvidia's servers. A wide variety of games are available through the service, both à la carte and through a subscription membership. It also supports streaming many games from your Steam or UPlay accounts, so if you already have a library of PC games on either service, you can play some of them on the Shield TV.

GeForce Now Performance

I've been testing streaming game systems since OnLive debuted eight years ago, and that includes GeForce Now on previous Nvidia Shield devices. I played a few games on the Shield TV over GeForce Now with a 5GHz Wi-Fi connection to our test network (and through it, to Nvidia's North American servers), and I was genuinely impressed by the performance. For platformers, shooters, and even fighting games, GeForce Now on the Shield TV feels natural and responsive.

I played Sonic CD and Ultra Street Fighter IV as part of the Free With GeForce Now subscription. Both running and jumping with Sonic and fighting with Ryu felt felt as if I was playing on a local game system and not streamed over the internet. Even my colleague Jeffrey Wilson, a fighting game enthusiast, was impressed by USFIV's responsiveness.

Nvidia Shield TV

I also linked the Shield TV to my Steam account and played some GeForce Now-compatible games from my library. These games were also run on Nvidia's servers and not my own computer (though local streaming through Nvidia's GameStream system is also available if you have a PC with a compatible GeForce card), but used my account information to access them. Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night and Doom (2016) both loaded easily, and they played very well. As an action platformer, Bloodstained felt tight to control, and aiming in Doom was quick and precise, with no noticeable lag.

It isn't quite as good as local gameplay from a PC, Xbox One X, or PS4 Pro. The responsiveness is excellent, but the graphics top out at 1080p, and graphical quality can get compromised through video compression to keep performance up to snuff. Doom in particular looked slightly fuzzy at times, though still very playable.

Google's upcoming Stadia service might offer similarly impressive performance, but Stadia's pricing structure and game library seems much less forgiving than GeForce Now. While GeForce Now doesn't support all Steam and UPlay games, the ones it does are playable if you already own them in either library, without needing to purchase the game again. It seems you'll need to purchase any game on Stadia separately even if you own it somewhere else, if it isn't free-to-play or included with a Stadia Pro subscription. We'll get a better sense of the differences between the streaming game services when Stadia gets closer to launch.

AI Upconversion

For media streaming, the Shield TV can output 4K video with HDR in both HDR10 and Dolby Vision formats, and it supports Dolby Atmos surround sound. It's very well-equipped for a media streamer, but at $150, it's also more expensive than even the Amazon Fire TV Cube, which supports all of those formats and features hands-free Amazon Alexa (though no GeForce Now, or any of Nvidia's other Shield gaming features).

If your media isn't in 4K, the Shield TV offers its own upconversion settings to bump it up to that level. You can choose between Basic, Advanced, and AI-Enhanced upconversion, the last of which uses deep learning algorithms to improve edge enhancement. It works fairly well with 1080p live action video, sharpening it a bit without creating too many processing artifacts. It works remarkably well with 1080p animation, bringing out the lines in cartoons and making them look super crisp on a 4K TV. Unfortunately, it does very little for 480p and 720p video, often not improving the picture at all and simply creating processing artifacts where there would be low-resolution blur.

Nvidia Shield TV

Toggling AI-Enhanced upconversion when watching later (post-HD) episodes of Pokemon on the Pokemon TV app, and She-Ra and the Princesses of Power on Neflix, the lines of the cartoons really sharpen, and make the animation look better on a 4K TV. Earlier episodes of Pokemon in 480p don't see any change, however, and stay very soft. The Office looks a bit sharper, but it doesn't make nearly as much of a difference as you see with cartoons.

Ideal for Enthusiasts

If any of the features on the Shield TV seem confusing to you or you simply don't want to play games, you should probably stick with the Amazon Fire TV Cube or a Fire TV Stick 4K. Like the previous Nvidia Shield TV, the 2019 version isn't a media streamer for everyone. It isn't even a media streamer for all gamers. At $150, it's more expensive than most streamers, though it's $50 less than the previous Shield TV and the new Shield Pro, and half the price of most game consoles. And if you fall into a very specific niche of enthusiast gamer looking for a good way to both watch video and play PC games on your 4K TV, the new Shield TV is the best option out there.