Nvidia announces Shield TV with support for 4k HDR content

Nvidia has announced a new version of its Shield TV. The set-top box supports streaming of 4k HDR content. There is a Pro version available that comes with 500GB of storage.

Nvidia reports that the Pro version comes with a built-in version of Plex Media Server. This version is also slightly larger than the regular Shield TV, which comes with 16GB of storage. Both variants have a Tegra X1-soc on board in combination with 3GB of RAM and a GPU of 256 cores. The storage of both devices can be expanded with external USB 3.0 hard drives. In addition to a gigabit Ethernet port, the devices have two USB 3.0 connections, a micro USB connection, a micro SD card slot and an HDMI port with support for HDMI 2.0b.

The appearance of the devices matches images that appeared online at the end of December. For example, the controller has a new appearance with more geometric shapes. The touchpad is also no longer present. It seemed then that there are two different sizes of the Shield TV, with the larger one now turning out to be the Pro version. In terms of connectivity, the set-top boxes have WiFi with 2×2 mimo and support for 5GHz, in addition to Bluetooth 4.1.

Both devices run on Android 7.0 and are capable of streaming 4k hdr content, with the Pro version appearing to be more of a media server. In addition, the two versions will be equipped with the Google Assistant in the coming months, as the company previously announced. The new features of the announced Shield TV set-top boxes are coming to existing models via an ota update. According to Nvidia, this will happen in the course of this month. One of the functions is voice control via the Shield controller, which requires the new model.

In addition to the Shield TV, Nvidia comes with the Spot. That is a microphone that can be used for Google Assistant in combination with a Shield TV and that allows users to give voice commands. This device will be available later in the year and has a price of fifty dollars.

The normal Shield TV costs 229.99 euros and the Pro version has a price of 329.99 euros. Both devices should be available at the end of this month.

The Pro version