NVIDIA Shield Android TV box may have launched in the first part of 2015, but even at the end of 2016 it’s still one of the best Android TV boxes with a powerful Tegra X1 processor, 3GB RAM, 4K video support, HD audio pass-through, the fastest GPU found in TV boxes so far, Netflix HD & 4K certified, and more. The company is allegedly preparing to launch a new model, and some photos have been leaked to Android Police.
The design of the box looks basically identical to the new model, but it comes in two different sizes maybe because of extra ports and internal storage, and the game controller has been re-designed with a mix of triangular shapes.
What we don’t know are the specifications. The company may have done a simple refresh, keeping Tegra X1 processor, increasing the memory and storage capacity, and possibly adding some extra interfaces, or they went with one of their new more powerful SoC initially targeting the automotive market: Parker SoC with two Denver custom ARMv8 cores, four Cortex A57 cores, and 256-core Pascal GPU, or Xavier SoC with 8x custom ARMv8 cores, and a 512-core Pascal. The latter has only been unveiled recently, and supports 8K video with HDR, so it’s probably way too early for that… Another possibility is that the company designed a new unannounced SoC specifically designed for TV boxes.
We’ll hopefully find out more at CES 2017 in about two weeks time. This could also mean some good deals for the first generation hardware once the box is officially unveiled.
Via Liliputing
Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.
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As a Tegra 4 based tablet owner I wish Nvidia would build a £75-65 TV box. They could easy inject life into the lower market. Just as they have high end and budget range graphics cards.
I was very enthusiastic in the past with nvidia Tegra K1, and I bought 2 Shield tablets for me and my family (not only because it was a great tablet, but because it had real OpenGL (not “ES”) support, Ubuntu support with accelerated drivers, possibly long-term support from the vendor, etc.).
In practice, I am a bit disappointed because
– only very few games take advantage of this powerful GPU (if only nvidia could encourage Steam guys to port SteamOS + encourage editors to recompile “real” games not only for SteamOS/x86 but also for SteamOS/ARM, maybe it would be different…). I still don’t understand their marketing approach and strategy (powerful GPU, yet… they communicate a lot on game streaming where all the rendering is done in the cloud or in the PC ! What’s the point of having such a powerful GPU if the SoC is only used for streaming ? Any Allwinner SoC could do it too !)
– long-term support was not so long (to my knowledge : no Nougat update for Shield tablet, apparently no Ubuntu 16.04 support in L4T…). In the case of Shield TV, it seems there is no support at all for Ubuntu/L4T
– impossible to find hardware replacement parts such as screen (neither on Aliexpress nor anywhere else) in case something breaks
What I want to know is where are all the chromebooks, chromeboxes, and tablets with the Tegra X series processors?
Nvidia announced the X1 at the start of 2015! I’d have expected a lot of devices with it in!
For me both Nvidia and AMD Radeon could improve the TV box market but they seem to leave it to film and TV comsumption.
Lower priced games to tablets, phones and these
http://www.shopto.net/electronics/emtec/GEM106-gembox-ultimate-starter-kit-console-plus-1controller-remote-control-additional-controller
Which are S805 based! and S805 can play Riptide GP Renegade.
Hardly earth shattrring tech. Wonder if it is fear of secondhand Xbox 360 and PS3 market, you could buy one of those for that money.
@Paul M Well it seems there are far more economical choices when it comes to SOC’s to use in your android device. And if you can get good-enough performance with a cheaper product, why go with a more expensive option?
http://www.nvidia.ca/object/tegra-phones-tablets.html
A pretty sad list.
That said, NVidia did manage to get Nintendo on board with an X1 (or better) powered device (the Nintendo Switch), so even if Tegra’s in the Android space are few and far between, it’s being used.
I would love a low cost SBC with a Tegra though. Something under or around $100, and I’m there. I have an ancient Tegra devkit that can run Linux, so I know it’s a thing that can exist.
Take an old Android phone with WiFi and screen casting capability and put it on your coffee table. Plug a “screen casting” dongle into the back of the TV. There is your Android TV box.
What am I missing here?
I bet that new shield will have same HW as new Nintendo.
Tegra X1 SoC/CPU/GPU die is currently manufactured using 20nm (nanometer) manufacturing process, which means you get less chips out of each wafer then you would using a more modern manufacturing method which can produce die at 14nm or 10nm (or even smaller), such as Intel does today. Manufacturing basically the same chip at a smaller size not only lower cost but also lowers the thermal output and doing so gives Nvidia an option to clock a such Tegra X1 chip at a higher clock-frequency.
This it is however probably an economic choice to move to a newer revision of the Tegra X1 processor which is simply manufactured at a smaller size, as moving from a 20nm to a 10nm process would yield Nvidia four times as many chips from each wafer at manifesting, which probably means it would cost them less than have to make each chip than it does today.
Making an assumption here but a such shrunk version of the Tegra X1 could also be the same chip that will be used in the new Nintendo Switch when it is released. They could then choose to move this cost saving to us consumers by lowering the retail cost of each Nvidia Shield device, as this is what Sony and Microsoft have done for each generation of PlayStation and Xbox game consoles about half into their lifecycle.
I also read that the Tegra X1 processor inside the original Nvidia Shield TV did not support 10-bit VP9 so that could be one reason to just update to a newer version of Tegra X1 to get HDR support for VP9. VP9 is at least now the recommended default for YouTube when playing 4K videos, and Netflix is also moving to VP9 for 4K on supported devices to save bandwidth. http://variety.com/2016/digital/news/netflix-offline-downloads-codecs-vp9-1201932502/
Speculating on the two different sized I would guess that one model is with an internal harddrive (so that model can be used for example as a Plex server and DVR/PVR) and one model is without an internal harddrive, but both will use the same SoC/CPU/GPU clocked at the same speed as otherwise you would not be able to play all the same games on both devices.
@Harley While you mention more chips from reduced die are the reduce die manufacturers charging more due to increased costs?
@Harley
You also have to take yields and initial factory costs into account. I’m not sure about the status right now but last year and early this year at least, 28nm process had the best bang for the buck, which explains why some new processors are still being released using 28nm.
Now if you want more performance and/or lower power consumption it makes sense to go to 14 or 10 nm process but costs go through the roof. That’s why eventually it’s expected to have only 2 or 3 actual silicon manufacturers likely TSMC, Samsung, and Intel with all others being bought out or becoming fabless manufacturers.
Well if they will use the same new X1 chip in the Nintendo Switch as well then they might want something with a little more power right now and at the same time will cost less soon, and cost even less as time goes by with the normal lifecycle of a gaming console, which it should given the volume that Nintendo expect to ship their new console for the yeas to come.
NVIDIA unveiled the new Shield Android TV box at CES 2017 -> https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2017/01/04/shield-tv-gaming-ces/
I don’t quite understand what’s new. The old model is now sold on Amazon, but the new model costs $199.99 -> https://www.amazon.com/NVIDIA-SHIELD-TV-Streaming-Media-Player/dp/B01N1NT9Y6/ref=dp_ob_title_vg
One new feature is Google Assistant, but according Google said it will come to all Android TV 6.0 & 7.0 devices -> https://blog.google/products/assistant/coming-soon-google-assistant-android-tv-and-more/
Partial teardown of second generation Shield TV
http://www.aftvnews.com/partial-teardown-of-2nd-gen-nvidia-shield-tv/
Seems new Shield TV rumours are running again
“The evidences of this new model arise when thanks to a ROM developer that has discovered references to two new controllers, “stormcaster” for a new gamepad and “friday” for a new remote control.”
Androidpctv