Nvidia renewed its Android TV device earlier this year, reducing its size (or maintaining it to increase the available storage space) and improving the ergonomics of its controls. Nvidia Shield TV 2017 is a very practical platform for those of us who are not content with what the Smart TV on our television offers us halfway.

This is done by having privileged hardware, the Nvidia Tegra X1 chip, and the Android TV operating system, with which we have Android apps and services to have game and multimedia features such as GeForce Now and Plex.

Nvidia Shield TV 2017 + PLEX: A streaming to see them all

With the Nvidia Geforce Now service we can play demanding titles with graphic quality that only a current gaming PC can give us, because Nvidia is actually running the game on its servers, and it shows us the image and sound on TV through the Shield.

Also installing the applications of Netflix, Movistar +, Wuaki.tv, Amazon Prime Video … Of course we can watch series and movies online through the main services, and HBO Spain will be added soon.

In our case we have used:

40-inch Full HD TV and Samsung UE55KU6000K TV (4K HDR PRO)

Plex

But it is not the only way to watch content on our television. Those of us who have and acquire movies, music and series to buy them ( and not pay only for the right to see them while the seller offers them to us ) have this content in digital or physical format. Normally we have to go through a device such as a Blu-ray player that lets us see it on only one television in the house, which is sometimes busy showing Dora the Explorer, Survivors (the reality show) or other masterpieces against which our humble tastes cannot compete.

And Plex, among other things, comes to fix this. Below we will show you the possibilities that Plex offers us, and in a series of forum tutorials we will show you in more detail how to configure them.

Plex as Media Server

As we have explained, Plex allows us to have our music, movies and series on TV and our smartphones and tablets. On our computer (stored on the internal, external disk or on a NAS server) or smartphone we install Plex and configure it as a server. So the content we want will be accessible to other devices from the same Plex account, on the local network (same Wifi and router) or from other places.

Streaming Movies

The first thing we ask a multimedia streaming service, be it our content or online, is that it allows us to watch movies on our devices. Movies, in addition to series, are the content that will need the most bandwidth between the server and the client device from where we will see them. If the server PC or smartphone does not have the best communication with our router, Plex may have problems sending a 1080p movie that due to its format and quality requires a lot of bitrate . Plex will warn us of this, and we can do two things: create an optimized copy and maximize the connection quality between our PC and the NVidia Shield TV.

It is best to start by checking that both the server and the Shield have good Wifi coverage, transfer them to a 5GHz Wifi connection and, ideally, connect them to the router via Ethernet . If the connection still does not allow Plex to celebrate our senses, it offers us the possibility of creating an optimized copy.

In that case, it will make a copy of the file that we want to see in a format that reduces the bandwidth necessary to send it, and we can specify whether we are going to play it on a TV or a smartphone / tablet to choose more or less quality.

Series Streaming

When it comes to video, when we want to see series episodes they take advantage of all the advantages that we have in the movies. But Plex gives them special attention, ordering series, seasons and chapters if we give them the right names . It will also search online for cover, title and description information. In content that consists of many files, it is especially convenient for the interface to make it aesthetically ordered and see what we have seen and what we want to see.

So that Plex can know that a video is a chapter that belongs to a series, we can make life easier by naming it with a code that they explain to us (although it is flexible). It is best to have one or more series folders, and that inside we order each series in a folder. Let's launch all the chapters of the series inside the folder and, you can also sacrifice a few seconds to fix a crooked picture, let's put each season of the series in a subfolder and put “Season X” (or season, if you also see better with a monocle). Then Plex will find it, recognize the videos as chapters and search for metadata on the internet. Thus, browsing our series library on Nvidia Shield TV will be a joy.

Music Streaming

Being able to listen to music on any of our devices without taking up space on all of them does not make or sweat our streaming system. As in the movies, we point on our Plex server where the songs are and we will have them available immediately. If we put the names and artists and / or the basic metadata, Plex will also find them for us.

This is perfect if we already have a wide catalog, for example, of purchased CDs that we have ripped on our PC, and it seems to us that having to pay € 15 / month for a streaming service is wasting what we have. In a world where the possibility of recording in 4K is already beginning to terrify the 64 GB of smartphones, having the entire library on the device is avoidable. The best option is to have the selection of songs that we like the most on our devices, and the rest to have it available on our main Plex server. So we have locally available those songs that we listen to most often and, when we want something different, Plex will serve it to us online.

Plex DVR and how to watch your TV using Nvidia Shield TV 2017

First, comment that it is currently in its BETA version and we can find some type of bug during our use, but little by little they are optimizing and improving the Nvidia guys. Among its most interesting functions we find the possibility of watching TV live without leaving our Nvidia Shield TV. Having the program guide active and the possibility of managing the entire recording schedule.

All channels are available in HD (even if they are called SD by the application). While recording allows us to adjust quite a few points: Resolution, replace lower resolution items, allow partial emissions and their periodicity. It is a luxury not to miss our favorite television program if we are away from home.

It is important to know that in Europe we must acquire the exact model: WinTV DualHD - Dual HD TV USB tuner. Since not all are compatible with PLEX and the new Nvidia Shield TV 2017. With it you will go to fixed shot.

Conclusions

The Plex streaming system is one more way to enjoy content on Nvidia Shield TV 2017. Unlike services such as Netflix, in which we only have the movies and series for which Netflix has obtained the rights, with Alex We can enjoy a greater range of content that we already have and we are acquiring. Fill a gap of needs that the other new platforms were not achieving.

Although it is true that local streaming is possible with other software options, in very few cases we achieve the simplicity of installation, configuration and support that Plex offers us.