5 ms·

Shield TV + extra storage + HDHomeRun tuner is still a great device for getting OTA TV. The only downside is that more recent versions use the Google Android T

by zdw 9mo ago

Shield TV + extra storage + HDHomeRun tuner is still a great device for getting OTA TV. The only downside is that more recent versions use the Google Android TV launcher which is filled with a garbage truck full of ads, often for things I would never want to watch (horror movies? Nope!). Yes you can replace the launcher, but that's a pain. Would love to pay more for a device that has updated codec support, no ads or tracking, and is basically identical.

add-sub-mul-div 9mo ago
I wanted to do this and got a Shield last year but returned it because of a live TV bug with the Android Plex client. The programming guide stopped working and could only be fixed by restarting the app, but on Android quitting to the home screen keeps the app running and you can't force quit without going into menus. Sadly that's the OS and changing a launcher didn't fix it.
- aaravchen 9mo ago
  Actually you can double tap the home button on your remote to see all apps currently running, and can then click the close button on any one of them. Google TV apps leak memory like a sieve, so it's pretty common to need to manually close all other apps to make the one you're trying to use work. Even !y wife just dies of now as soon as any one of the apps starts acting up.
- Grazester 9mo ago
  Yeah that's not how you close an app on the Shield as was pointed out.
Forgeties79 9mo ago
If plex was smart they’d sell a little box of their own and ditch all this faux-social media nonsense they’re slowly implementing. I do not care at all what my friends are watching. Not one bit. Just make it connect to servers. People are happy to pay for it clearly. How many beelinks have been sold just to run Jellyfin/Plex? I’d gladly buy a plex box for $100 - talk about a great Christmas present for friends and family! Sidebar: I like Jellyfin but it is nowhere as turnkey as Plex. Otherwise I’d advocate for that too. That being said, I am slowly trying to get mine nice and stable and user-friendly because the way Plex is going does not give me great confidence about the next 2 to 3 years. But at least right now, it is by far the best experience out there.
- Hamuko 9mo ago
  Boxee tried to do both the box (which was literally called "Box") and the social media, and now it's dead.
- The_President 9mo ago
  Free momentum with a name like PlexBox, too.
  - Forgeties79 9mo ago
    I get I have no research or anything to back this up and maybe it’s a terrible idea ultimately, but based on the number of low tech literacy people I know personally who are either running their own Plex servers or attaching to others, an even more turnkey simple piece of hardware seems like something that could do reasonably well.
nickthegreek 9mo ago
replacing launcher is gonna take you 10-15mins. 30 max if you aren’t a complete fool.
- zdw 9mo ago
  Oh, I've seen instructions, most of them start with "enable dev mode, then use adb to run ton of inscrutable commands that may or may not break the system over time". Overall, it seems like a recipe to end up in an unknown state where you can no longer easily get updates and the only recovery is to wipe the system. I've seen similar methods to "Clean up Windows 11", and it always seems like you're just putting the device into an unknown state. A few ads you can become blind to is not as bad as a totally broken system.
  - aaravchen 9mo ago
    It does seem sketchy, but you can kind of guess what it's cleaning based on the name in the uninstall command. I just skim down to the section that says it's for removing the launcher and reqd those, then run only a few. The upside of the launcher thing is that you can setup a new default launcher and use it for a while without doing any adb. That let's you verify it's working for you first. And when you do finally remove the Google one, a lit if the ad and nloatware stuff no longer runs in the background even if you haven't removed it, so it's abh8ge perf0rmance benefit.
  - nickthegreek 9mo ago
    Friend, you are #11 on the leaderboard here on HN and you stated that enabled dev mode is too scary. I promise you, you have the skillset to research that your worries are false and you can accomplish this easier than rebutting me on this. I believe in you. Once your find your comfort, you might even find other items of joy that are being gatekept from you like SmartTube.
    - zdw 9mo ago
      Friend, I never said it was scary, only that it was not maintainable and would put your system in an unknown state. How different is this from say installing Debian, then picking out a bunch of globally installed software that supports "make install" and spraying files all over the root filesystem, then expecting the next run of "apt update" to work properly without things breaking? Maybe my concerns are unwarranted, but the vast majority of Android mangling I've done over the years has not generally resulted in long-term stability, for a variety of reasons. Recall that the point of this article is that it's 10 year old hardware still in support!

by zdw 9mo ago

add-sub-mul-div 9mo ago

I wanted to do this and got a Shield last year but returned it because of a live TV bug with the Android Plex client. The programming guide stopped working and could only be fixed by restarting the app, but on Android quitting to the home screen keeps the app running and you can't force quit without going into menus. Sadly that's the OS and changing a launcher didn't fix it.

aaravchen 9mo ago
Actually you can double tap the home button on your remote to see all apps currently running, and can then click the close button on any one of them. Google TV apps leak memory like a sieve, so it's pretty common to need to manually close all other apps to make the one you're trying to use work. Even !y wife just dies of now as soon as any one of the apps starts acting up.
Grazester 9mo ago
Yeah that's not how you close an app on the Shield as was pointed out.

Forgeties79 9mo ago

If plex was smart they’d sell a little box of their own and ditch all this faux-social media nonsense they’re slowly implementing. I do not care at all what my friends are watching. Not one bit. Just make it connect to servers. People are happy to pay for it clearly. How many beelinks have been sold just to run Jellyfin/Plex? I’d gladly buy a plex box for $100 - talk about a great Christmas present for friends and family! Sidebar: I like Jellyfin but it is nowhere as turnkey as Plex. Otherwise I’d advocate for that too. That being said, I am slowly trying to get mine nice and stable and user-friendly because the way Plex is going does not give me great confidence about the next 2 to 3 years. But at least right now, it is by far the best experience out there.

Hamuko 9mo ago
Boxee tried to do both the box (which was literally called "Box") and the social media, and now it's dead.
The_President 9mo ago
Free momentum with a name like PlexBox, too.
- Forgeties79 9mo ago
  I get I have no research or anything to back this up and maybe it’s a terrible idea ultimately, but based on the number of low tech literacy people I know personally who are either running their own Plex servers or attaching to others, an even more turnkey simple piece of hardware seems like something that could do reasonably well.

nickthegreek 9mo ago

replacing launcher is gonna take you 10-15mins. 30 max if you aren’t a complete fool.

zdw 9mo ago
Oh, I've seen instructions, most of them start with "enable dev mode, then use adb to run ton of inscrutable commands that may or may not break the system over time". Overall, it seems like a recipe to end up in an unknown state where you can no longer easily get updates and the only recovery is to wipe the system. I've seen similar methods to "Clean up Windows 11", and it always seems like you're just putting the device into an unknown state. A few ads you can become blind to is not as bad as a totally broken system.
- aaravchen 9mo ago
  It does seem sketchy, but you can kind of guess what it's cleaning based on the name in the uninstall command. I just skim down to the section that says it's for removing the launcher and reqd those, then run only a few. The upside of the launcher thing is that you can setup a new default launcher and use it for a while without doing any adb. That let's you verify it's working for you first. And when you do finally remove the Google one, a lit if the ad and nloatware stuff no longer runs in the background even if you haven't removed it, so it's abh8ge perf0rmance benefit.
- nickthegreek 9mo ago
  Friend, you are #11 on the leaderboard here on HN and you stated that enabled dev mode is too scary. I promise you, you have the skillset to research that your worries are false and you can accomplish this easier than rebutting me on this. I believe in you. Once your find your comfort, you might even find other items of joy that are being gatekept from you like SmartTube.
  - zdw 9mo ago
    Friend, I never said it was scary, only that it was not maintainable and would put your system in an unknown state. How different is this from say installing Debian, then picking out a bunch of globally installed software that supports "make install" and spraying files all over the root filesystem, then expecting the next run of "apt update" to work properly without things breaking? Maybe my concerns are unwarranted, but the vast majority of Android mangling I've done over the years has not generally resulted in long-term stability, for a variety of reasons. Recall that the point of this article is that it's 10 year old hardware still in support!