Zidoo Z9X vs Nvidia Shield

Now there's optimism

 

If if it would rise the price of the New Zidoo coming due to the ransom Netflix would charge $$$ Zidoo for the privilege.

 

If you build it ………he ( Netflix ) will come .

 

To be honest, I think the market for STBs with netflix is quite narrow - every TV under the sun now includes a Netflix app so that only really leaves projector owners, and only speaking personally of course, but I can't remember the last time I watched Netflix in there with it's abysmal new "Optimised Shot Based Encodes" which they touted as an improvement but in reality was just a cost cutting exercise after they discovered no-one really cared when they reduced bandwidth during the first Covid wave.

 

True
But …..
My Monitor is app less .
So stick me in the projector owners club .
and the latest Netflix Subscribers have dropped due to competition of late and a price Hike coming to all very soon .

 

I’ve had shields since 2015, but the old model and the new model. I recently got a Zidoo Z9X this week. So far I can say the shield is definitely a lot nicer to navigate as it’s much much more responsive. The local playback on the Z9X does seem to be quite a bit smoother and works better for that overall. I’ll likely keep the Zidoo for most local playback and use a Fire Stick or something simple for streaming. Overall I do prefer the shield due to its flexibility and snappiness but the local playback on the Zidoo is a big improvement! If HT 4 gets Trakt support I’ll be very happy with it overall. I’m hoping future firmware updates will improve and polish the overall experience.

 

You can be an honourary member

 

Nvidia Shield TV Pro has great AI upscaling and is better than Zidoo in upscaling 1080p content to 4k. That is about the Only reason I bought it. I use my Shield strictly for Anime with Emby.

 

I've never got the AI Upscaling to work on anything I actually watch lol. But the Shield is a great streaming device and I used to use it for local playback. Apple TV probably has the best picture quality but it strictly a streaming box and it doesn't play Atmos/DTS:x. The Shield is powerful enough to be a general purpose media device and Kodi handles frame switching, resolution and audio passthrough very well. But when I compared the picture and audio quality to a top of the range device there was a difference. There was nothing wrong with the Shield but the audio in particular sounded fuller on the other device.

I have the z1000 which has very simple home theatre friendly navigation and is at least as responsive as my Shield. But for those who don't want to spend extra on a dedicated media player the Shield might be the best overall device.

 

The Shield won’t really be a relevant streamer much longer because it lacks AV1 support which is what all the services will eventually migrate to. Netflix and YouTube are already using AV1. That said I’ve had Shields since 2015 and there are good and bad things about it, although it’s not really worth the $200 asking price anymore. For local content a Z9X with a cheap streamer like the Fire 4k Stick Max (supports AV1 and wifi6) would be a better combination.

The AI upscaling on the Shield is neat, but it tends to oversharpen everything. It’s good for animation tho. The Shield definitely needs a hardware refresh. And a real one, unlike the 2019 version which just slightly bumped up the clock speed and added software licenses for Dolby Vision.

 

As i mentioned earlier there well overdue a new Shield and may slowly start treading on the x box ps5 toes a little more on the gaming side with a new type Tegra chip geared towards gaming more as well as updating the streaming side of things maybe going back to internal storage ?

 

Yes, i use this combination. The Z9X is very good for my all local content. And i think the MAX is the best stream player now (DV, Atmos, HDR10 : it plays all sound and picture format)! And i have an Y-USB cable to my MAX, so i might even use it for local media contents. I accepted that the Z9X is not a stream player, so I bought the MAX.

 

Interesting thread. I was dumbfounded that I couldn't run Netflix on my 1000 pro, eventually I found a way to piggy back Shield with the Zidoo, use a single HDMI output to my PJ and a single SPDIF output to my old non-HDMI enable Yamaha receiver. I managed to use Pro's HDMI in and connected it to my older Shield. In order to overcome the HDCP errors that the Zidoo complained, I routed the Shield HDMI through a HDMI splitter. Ran HDMI in app and maximized the window and got myself a Netflix pass through enabled Zidoo. The only thing bothering me now is that audio is 2 ch through the SPDIF. Appreciate help on enabling 5.1
Scheme:
[ Shield.HDMI.out] --> [HDMISplitter.In.Ch1->Out]-->[Zid00.HDMI.In][Zidoo.HDMI.out]-->[Projector]
............................................................................................[Zid0o.SPDIF.out]-->[YamahaReceiver]