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Anonymous User
Not applicable

Is NowTV available as a download for Nvidia Shield Set Top Box ?

Does anybody know if the NowTV App is available as a download for the 'Nvidia Shield Box' as i'm very tempted to upgrade as Plex is not properly supported on the NowTV box - Also if anybody has the Nvidia Shield box with the Plex Media Server App installed, could you tell me if it has the option to 'View By Folder' as this option is missing from some versions and is very important for my personal setup.

 

Thanks

129 REPLIES 129
Anonymous User
Not applicable

Agreed. My point was more to do with IDoodle's comment which I agree with - a one stop shop/device for everything is the ideal:

 

Speaking more generally, having multiple devices is not acceptable (would you own 2 TVs in the same room if one provided exclusive BBC access and the other exclusive ITV access). Doesn't matter to me if a Now TV stick is only £20, I'm not switching between different devices for the same purpose. That's a totally sucky user experience for this day and age.

 

 

RoyB
Legend

@Anonymous User 

 

We‘re used to switching to a BluRay player and a YouView box, so switching to a NowTV Stick doesn’t faze us at all. For a long time, the NowTV app on the Samsung TVs we have didn’t have subtitles, so we used a Stick instead to get them; and as we don’t need the HDMI input for anything else, we still do, out of sheer force of habit 🙃

Set a Payment PIN on your account so that no-one but you can buy memberships on it. Check your bank accounts monthly for any other unexpected payments to Now. That way you can at least nip them in the bud, while you and Now figure out whose fault they are.
Anonymous User
Not applicable

"We‘re used to switching to a BluRay player and a YouView box, so switching to a NowTV Stick doesn’t faze us at all"

 

But to me they're 3 distinct 'services': physical disc, Live TV, streaming.

 

When a device is labelled for 'streaming' as its primary thing, having to have supplemental 'streaming' devices is totally stupid. If your YouView box does all your streaming services except NowTV, then also stupid and I would not be happy with the duplication.

 

Imagine if a Sony player only played films made by Sony.

 

I'm just saying that every streaming service absolutely has to be on every streaming device. People do not want different devices, different UIs, different remotes etc. etc.

 

I happen to think that the distinct apps-per-service we already have (and is only going to get worse) is idiocy - should be one interface provided by the streaming (Shield, NowTV, Apple TV etc.) where you add credentials for the available services and that interface brings everything together: sign in to Netflix and Amazon Prime and go to 'TV Shows' and it shows both services' content together.

 

The experience we have now is so much worse compared to traditional TV-based EPGs from the past.

RoyB
Legend

@Anonymous User 

 

Wow, where to start?

 

Yes, of course we would all like a single device that does everything we want.

 

But what do the streaming service providers want? 

Always, follow the money:-

 

(i) Why would NowTV want Amazon Video on their devices?

(ii) Why would NowTV want Netflix on their devices?

(iii) Why would Roku want NowTV, Netflix, and Amazon Video on their devices?

 

(i) Indeed; rival content, rival device; so if Amazon want to be on NowTV devices, NowTV will want the quid pro quo of being on Amazon devices. If either think they will be disadvantaged by this, it won’t happen.

 

(ii) Interesting; rival streaming service, but no rival devices; Netflix have been careful to be on as many platforms as they can, but never to create a device of their own. But how come they are allowed on NowTV devices at all? Because NowTV judge that however much revenue they may lose to Netflix on their device, they will lose that anyway to Netflix on other devices, and lose still more because people will be put off getting a NowTV device if they have to use something else for Netflix.

In other words, Netflix have ‘critical mass’; Amazon don’t. And nor did, or do, NowTV; lots of apps for different devices, but not the critical mass that would let them go without a device of their own. And clever to hook up with Roku to provide it, rather than trying to design their own.

 

(iii)  Pure device maker; the more apps the better, for them.

 

YouView, of course, is so much more than live TV; streaming, recording, with an EPG you might love; it goes back for seven days, and if you click on a programme that is on a catchup service, then the relevant player will be opened for you, and the programme shown, quite seamlessly.

 

But the arcane licensing issues that have kept full NowTV off YouView, and are only just being overcome, are typical examples of why your dream is so difficult to realise.

 

And as for TVs, our Samsungs are probably the most app-rich TVs you can buy; but the native NowTV is dog-slow compared with the NowTV Stick. And the Smart 2012 32in TV in the snug still has a picture to rival the Smart 2018 one in our bedroom, but most of  the apps have died, and the rest are sludgy; processors have moved on.

 

So, the inevitable need for a stick to restore its smarts.

 

The path to your dream needs to thread its way through that lot......

 

 

Set a Payment PIN on your account so that no-one but you can buy memberships on it. Check your bank accounts monthly for any other unexpected payments to Now. That way you can at least nip them in the bud, while you and Now figure out whose fault they are.
Anonymous User
Not applicable

The problem with that breakdown is that the line between service and platform is indistinct.

 

An agnostic device is most beneficial to the customer and while there may be spats between the different providers, these compound an already unsustainable situation. That being that the media steaming market is extremely fragmented. By making some gateways to the services exclusive to certain hardware you then further fragment the market access.

 

Holistically it does not make sense to limit your service to particular devices. The application and software upkeep is a minimal cost when set against the potential benefits of wide consumer access. Making apps work on certain devices is not that challenging when you consider that while there are thousands of different devices, they share common software APIs. For instance, a Windows application works on Windows operating systems across a vast swathe of hugely varying hardware configurations. Streaming devices are largely based on just a few different operating systems as far as software is concerned and the hardware variations aren't as stark as home computers.

 

The problem here is that going after the money short term is damaging the industry.

 

NOWtv lose money every time they sell hardware. It's a loss leasing business strategy to get you to buy into the platform. But limiting the devices you can view the content on makes little sense. If I could watch the same shows on a rival service, then I'd understand, but putting movies aside - which I don't believe is the core service offering - I can't watch the shows I want to see on rival services anyway.

 

If you need multiple streaming devices to watch different services then something is very wrong. Technology and media is supposed to be convergent yet this is strictly divergent. It's too expensive. It's wasteful. It's not sustainable.

 

Sooner or later the bubble will burst because viewers aren't going to be shelling out monthly payments to 10 different streaming services just to be able to access what they want to watch. They will not be able to afford it and will make tough decisions. 

 

One way of watching NOWtv on Shield is to cast it from your phone via the NOWtv app. It doesn't work perfectly for me as I have to exit the app after each show if I want to watch another but if you're not binging then it's doable. I just wish they'd make an app for Shield already and be done with it.

RoyB
Legend

@Anonymous User 

 

The counter-argument is that NowTV already spread themselves too thin trying to make NowTV work across a wide range of devices.

 

I think their initial decision to offer a device on which NowTV was super-optimised was a smart one, and their decision to base it on existing Roku hardware was even smarter; and then getting Roku to manufacture a cut-down version of their hardware which could be sold very cheaply as a delivery mechanism for NowTV was the smartest of them all.

 

Contrast it with both Amazon, who developed their own device from scratch, and Netflix, the platform-agnostic pure app provider, who never built a hardware device at all.

 

You still get the best NowTV experience, the benchmark, least problematic experience, on a device provided by NowTV. Even if it is being sold as a loss leader.

 

Like Gillette, which was never about the razors, but always about the blades. Or HP, which is never about the printers, always about the ink.

 

But how many Shields are out there? And how many of them would be interested in NowTV? And don’t already have it somewhere else? For a tenth of the price of the Shield?

 

NowTV’s question isn’t who would buy a Shield to run NowTV? Or even how many people would run NowTV on a Shield if they could? It’s how many extra subscriptions would NowTV pick up if they did a Shield port?

 

Any thoughts on what that number might be?

Set a Payment PIN on your account so that no-one but you can buy memberships on it. Check your bank accounts monthly for any other unexpected payments to Now. That way you can at least nip them in the bud, while you and Now figure out whose fault they are.
Anonymous User
Not applicable

I own a Shield but have never thought of it as a device I could potentially access NowTV on. I see the Shield as being much too superior a device for a service like NowTV, at least until the stream quality was upped to make it a fit for the Shield. The Shield is about much much more than mere tv streaming.

ukbobboy
Legend

@Anonymous User  @RoyB 

 

Hi Rob

 

I know very little, if anything, about the Shield other than what I've read on the Internet such as:

 

The NVIDIA Shield TV is a full-featured streaming box that runs on the latest Android TV software. That means it has both Google Assistant and Chromecast functionality built right in, along with a host of other great features. 

 

Now, apart from the above, which to me says that the Shield is an exceptional set top Internet TV streamer, what else can it do?.

 

Finally, and I have said this before, Now TV are dead set against any Internet streaming device that runs Android so unless they have a change of policy, like they did with VPN, the Shield is not going to get a look in.

 

 

UK Bob

Anonymous User
Not applicable

As well as streaming 4K and being able to work as a Plex server, the Shield has very nippy hardware in it so it can be used to play Android games but also can use Nvidias game streaming service. Also if you have a fairly modern Nvidia GPU in your PC, you can cast PC games to your TV that look as good as if you were running it natively to the telly. Many games look much better on PCs compared to their console counterparts so this was one of the reasons I opted for one.

 

I previously had a Roku 3 which I liked and is now being used elsewhere in the house but it doesn’t hold a candle to the Shield. Everything about the shield is slick and it’s always given me a really smooth experience.

Anonymous User
Not applicable

@ukbobboy 

I do a little gaming on the Shield when I have family around. The Shield is a Plex server so no need for two devices to run it. Plex is fantastic for archiving dvd/bluray and any other music or video files you may have on various devices or formats in your home.

https://www.techradar.com/uk/reviews/gaming/games-consoles/nvidia-shield-1287106/review

 

@Anonymous User 

NowTV devices are a greatly stripped down version of their big brother counterpart. Sky have restricted access to a handful of apps (known as 'channels' in the Roku world) on their own branded devices, whereas the full blown Roku is better value for the multitude of apps etc it offers.

 

Fully concur with your Shield summation Everything about the shield is slick and it’s always given me a really smooth experience