@xx4L0Mxx wrote:
The Shield may have cost £119.99 ,but it would cost a lot more to actually integrate it into a TV.
Sony's hardware is massively underpowered compared to a Shield TV?
Well, of course it is. So, you think ALL Sony Android TV's should contain a Nvidia K1 or X1 or Simliar processor?
So, you would be happy to add an extra £200 to every Sony Android TV on the market just to have a massively overpowered chip to power iplayer?
The current fault with Sony Android TV's is the Software, not the hardware. Having faster processors, more RAM etc is nice, but it's not remotely required.
Like I said before, the comparison is Valid.
Quote :
"What I'm really saying is that it's now very obvious to me that Sony's hardware is massively underpowered after experiencing the shield."
My Xbox One feels massively underpowered after playing on my PC, but I DON'T expect Microsoft to have put a 960gtx or 280x in it unless they were expecting me to pay £500 + for an Xbox One.
EDIT : and in reply to the "It wouldn't cost that much more etc".
What about cooling? More psu power to power it etc etc
And while we are on the subject. If Nvidia's android experience is so awesome, the can one of you explain why I had to have a replacement shield tablet sent to me and ship the old one back as they were prone to catch fire? This is something which took Nvidia nearly 12 months to actually acknowledge. My SOny TV may suck in many aspects, but at least potentially killing me hopefully isn't one of them.
Wow, you're pretty much wrong on every point you've raised here.
First of all, the £200 price point of the ShieldTV contains considerable cost getting it from manufacturing to end of market. I've already explained this and you've offered no reasoning as to why you don't believe this is the case. I'll give you an example:
Retail CPU from Intel to consumer: £x
OEM CPU from Intel to consumer: Less than £x
OEM CPU from Intel to MFG: Even less £x
Sony would only be buying the SoC from Nvidia, not all the other components that are part of the ShieldTV system. Your argument is the £200 retail cost would be added on (which in itself is wrong, as above) and there would be no cost saving from taking out all the duplicate components already in the TV (the MediaTek SoC, PCB etc).
Cooling? The Shield tablet is passively cooled, so there's no additional cooling needed - if it can run in a tablet case, it'll be more than fine in a much larger TV case. PSU power? If a Li-ion battery can power that SoC in a tablet, it'll get more than enough power from a TV that is permanently plugged into an AC outlet.
The issue you're referring to was down to the battery (not manufactured by Nvidia) and not the SoC. Heck, the tablet itself isn't even manufactured by Nvidia, it's built by Foxconn.
I don't see why Sony put Android onto these TVs along with the Google Play store because they've left themselves open to providing content that the TV isn't powerful enough to handle. The correct comparison would be if you were to download an XBOX game via the online store and found it couldn't run above 20FPS - why provide the ability to download that game if the hardware isn't up to the task? It's not a PC where the GPU can be upgraded.
Android TV is one of the only Android platforms where Google approve the content to appear on the Play Store. Therefore any game you come across on there has been designated as being approved for TV due to having controller support etc.
