I'd upgrade my Shield Pro to something else but there's nothing to upgrade to that doesn't have some compromise on formats or capabilities.
Unless you prefer an Android TV device, I don't get the appeal of the Shield Pro. I bought one years ago and resold it a few months later. For me the only things it did better than an Apple TV (playing certain ripped blu-rays) are better done by the Ugoos AM6B+. So those are the two devices I use nowadays.
It's frustrating that nobody else seems to care about attempting to be the all-in-one box given how much Shield is showing its age now. It's really sluggish
I don't get why Apple just refuses to allow audio pass through or DV Profile 7. They're clearly on board with DV in general and don't hesitate to play Dolby's branding games, so why not profile 7 support???
Fair, but I just wasn't willing to put up with Android TV. And the Shield doesn't handle FEL so there's still some ripped content it won't play.
For me it's easy enough to use my Apple TV for streaming and even most ripped blu-rays, and the Ugoos for the blu-ray rips that benefit from it. Flashing the AMB6+ was a one-time thing. After that, updating the OS is just dropping a tar file into a folder and rebooting it.
> It's frustrating that nobody else seems to care about attempting to be the all-in-one box given how much Shield is showing its age now.
It's a niche market and any all-in-one box is likely to run afoul of Dolby Labs licensing restrictions.
> I don't get why Apple just refuses to allow audio pass through or DV Profile 7.
I don't even care about pass through audio if it could just use Dolby MAT to playback decoded DTS:X / Dolby TrueHD Atmos w/o losing the spatial channels.
DV Profile 7 is very likely Dolby licensing issues.
When I bought my Shield TV's I actually liked Android TV. Very nearly every update since then has just slowly made it worse and worse.
Now it's absolutely disgusting as it shows straight up advertisements (not "recommended shows", like literally ads for car insurance or whatever).
So I guess there's really just not much to choose between regardless. It's spyware + adware regardless of price vs. Apple's lack of local backup support :/
Oh I learned it the hard way when my device failed and I I had to replace it and log in and configure each and every app from the start. Half a day gone.
Lack of pass-through could probably be argued the same way, although it is a bit more surprising.
Whether or not this matters or you notice will depend on the specific Blu-ray and whether you have a Dolby Atmos capable sound system.
https://community.firecore.com/t/dolby-vision-profile-7-8-su...
https://community.firecore.com/t/help-get-more-dolby-atmos-o...
https://old.reddit.com/r/appletv/comments/1789et4/does_infus...
Honestly I don't think I've ever been as happy/satisfied with a consumer electronics device as I am with the Shield. It does everything I wanted it to do and more. It's a shame there will probably never be another model.
Yes, really - switching cables instantly got rid of any stuttering in the UI no reboot or setting could fix for me - if I wouldn’t have experienced it myself I probably wouldn’t have believed it..