Vero+ or new nvidea Shield as a Plex client?

General Discussion
1

I have a Plex server now running on a QNAP NAS device, so I use the Plex plug-in for Kodi/OSMC on my Raspberry Pi clients now. I want to be able to direct-play 4k HDR content in my library. I’ve heard good things about the nvidea Shields…they just came out with new versions of the device. But I heard that the Shields can’t play MKV files that are encoded in Dolby Vision…something about a limitation of Android. Can anybody verify if that is actually true?

Would I be better off with a Vero4k+ with the Plex player plug-in? Does the Plex client Plug-In for OSMC take advantage of the OSMC code-base and all of OSMC’s capabilities?

2

It works the same way on the Vero 4k as it does currently on your Pi, just with the ability to do more resolutions and audio formats.

3

Re DV - not supported on Vero. I don’t know if it’s supported on Shield aside from some streaming services.

But Direct Play will play everything else and your Plex library without issue. Just make sure transcoding is disabled for best experience.

4

I’m not aware of any media player that can play Dolby Vision in MKV format. There are one or two that can play DV in MP4 format, but (as far as I’m aware) that involves compromising audio quality, and I’m not sure it will work with Plex.

I’m not familiar with the new Shield, but I own the 2017 version, and it is far and away the worst audiovisual purchase I’ve ever made - the best thing to do with one of those is throw it into a furnace and walk away.

5

Interesting, I’ve heard mostly good things about the Shields. What kind of problems did you have with it?

The new versions supposedly have some sort of AI 4k upscaling capabilities.

6

The worst upscaling I’ve ever seen; the worst chroma upsampling I’ve ever seen; basic colour/luminance errors (the pixels on the screen don’t actually match what’s in the video file); inability to switch between rec.709 and rec.2020 colour spaces on the fly; inability to output 480p or 576p video at native resolution; no 4K on YouTube; no 4K/HLG on iPlayer; countless problems with the Netflix app.