A few weeks back I gave a glowing review of the Tivo Stream 4k, based on a week or so of use. The problems with the device, for my use profile, are more than I can handle. Despite the hit to the pocketbook to do it for all 4 TVs in my home, I am switching to the Shield TV tube at 3x the price.
Here is the rundown of the problems I've had:
Hooking up directly to my Nakamichi Shockwafe Pro causes some sort of HDCP problem, and the screen blinks. I originally hooked it up directly to the TV but I wanted to switch to doing it through the soundbar so I could have Dolby Atmos.
The Chromecast ethernet adapters worked great. At first. Then they suddenly stopped working. They could be bum adapters, or there might have been a software update, or some other problem.
Random reboots started happening week 2-3. At first I thought it might be insufficient power supply for the combination of the ethernet adapater and the device itself, so I bumped it up to a 2A USB power supply, and they still occur.
The remotes keep losing which TV they're associated with. I had to go through god knows how many hoops to disable services via ADB and force them to not get bad information about the TV they're associated with from the system software, and force them to use a code. This problem I could compensate for with said hoops, but it was exceptionally annoying nonetheless.
I'm done. I can't do it anymore. I wanted so badly for it to be true that a device at the $50 price point could do everything I wanted, but nothing quite fits as of current. I don't want to tie myself to the less-supported Chinese boxes, I can't do the Amazon ecosystem and all of the apps they lock out, and I really want the standard Android TV launcher, so my best bet right now is to suck it up and spend the extra money.
Please forgive me if my enthusiasm lead you buy one of these. I knew not what was ahead.
