[mythtv-users] Anybody using an Nvidia Shield as an FE? Tegra X1, 3GB RAM

[Mark Boyum]

I run Kodi on Shields in a couple places.  I can give you a detailed
> breakdown of why I hate it:
>
> 1.  Remote control interface sucks.
>   - There is support for Logitech Harmony remotes, but there are only
> 11 keys available and they are not easily re-mapped to other than what
> nVidia decides they should be.
>   - The nVidia remotes (handheld tiny remote) definitely lacks on what
> you can do (skip commercials, etc) does not exist.
>   - Game controller works fairly good, but who wants to control their
> TV (and especially only the Shield) with a game controller
>
> 2.  It locks up *a lot* when it syncs with MythTV at startup and is
> pulling guide data or scanning the library over NFS for Videos or
> pulling recordings in.  Kodi is looking for volunteer android
> developers.  There is currently a lack of..
>
> 3.  Sharing MySQL tables - if you have more than one Kodi, it is
> beneficial to share a MySQL database - which in turn shares the
> library between them.  This does not 100% work on Android, and I have
> filled the space up with artwork for Music and Videos.
>
> 4.  Teaching someone how to restart a crashed Kodi on android (iPhone
> users I'm referring to here) is a painful experience..  They are
> accustomed to non-advanced features that Apple just makes work and do
> not like to tinker.
>
> I probably have a few more items, but cannot think of them righ tnow.
>
> -Greg
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Perhaps we have an overly simple setup compared to most on this list, but
we've been using a Shield as our primary media consumption device on our
main TV since December 2015.  I love it, my kids are wizards with it and my
wife can usually get to what she wants to watch.  Her most common complaint
is when the kids have played games on the Wii U and left the TV input set
to that instead of the Shield.

We stream most of our content from Netflix and Amazon.  Sometime last year
I switched to SPMC (a Kodi fork) for MythTV recordings.  Although it is
slow to open for the first run of the day while the PVR add-on syncs all
the info from MythTV, once it is running we have no issues with it.

We manually skip commercials by hitting right on the remote a few times and
don't really miss the MythTV commskipping.  But I have been meaning to try
out Kodi's integration with auto skipping, just not a high priority.  So at
this time the meager amount of buttons on the remote is nice as the unit is
easily controlled with onscreen buttons.  But again, we mostly just need to
pause from time to time aren't often attempting more complicated actions.

I've found that watching a recording in Kodi will mark it as watched in
MythTV.  Which is nice as it then shows up as watched on our Windows PC
running Kodi on our bedroom TV.  Mythweb also shows it as watched so I'm
reasonably sure that MythTV is auto-expiring watched shows first.

What little local video content we have is easily handled by Kodi's video
manager.  This does not sync the watched status with anything but it's
pretty easy to remember if we've watched a video or not.

So if you don't have very demanding needs and  don't have a complicated
setup (ours is just the Shield hooked up to the TV via HDMI, no other A/V
equipment in the mix) the Shield may be a great option for you.  I was very
happy to remove the HTPC from our family room and replace with such a
small, quiet unit.

-Mark
Sorry about the rambling.  I just really like this device!
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