I have the TCL 40S6800FS (Australian model)

It's a great unit, only issue is Disney+ only has the background sound when playing and no vocals/voices. I read it has to do with 5.1 sound and the TV is stereo or something.

Is there a fix to this or a update to the firmware? TCL have very little support online. Thanks

I've been doing the lockdown clear out of tech and cable boxes, and found an old Nvidia Shield Portable with a thoroughly smashed screen. Attached to an HDMI TV it charges and boots up happily enough, and seems like it'll be a perfectly functional TV box, but without a touchscreen I'm not sure what the best options are for controlling it.

Connection options are HDMI mini, a standard wifi network, probably bluetooth, and one USB micro socket that is OTG capable but also the only way of powering the device. It also has a working game controller built into the base unit that could maybe drive a virtual mouse?

Edit: u/mahdif62 has pointed me towards AppGround IO's Serverless Bluetooth Keyboard & Mouse app, which allows an android phone or tablet to operate as those generic devices. Problem solved at a cost of three quid for the pro version. (It's a paid app, the free version is just a very basic functionality demo.)

Mi Box S is stuttery when watching Twitch. Color fidelity is overall weak and sometimes it's outright bad to the point where I restart the Mi Box multiple times for the color to go back to how it was. YouTube runs great unless it's 4K60HDR where it works great for a couple of seconds and then a massive freeze hits.

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Is the FireStick 4K capable of casting from a phone? Does it have a Twitch app? Is there any way you can get rid of that interface? Is it a better media device than the Box?

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Longer version:

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So, I've owned the Mi Box S for about 2 weeks now but I started wondering if it was a safe purchase even if it was the price that it was (under 50 bucks in a country where it costs usually 80). The media box showcased a plethora of issues at random times which include but are not limited to:

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• Stuttery video feed or VoD in twitch
• Green Screen error in YouTube
• Casting a youtube video on it when it's streaming video on twitch causes it to be full blackscreen and needs restarting
• Oddly dropping frames in the most mundane scenarios when browsing apps
• Oddly changing resolution from 4K RGB or YCbCr 444 to YcBcR 420
• Livestreams on Twitch starting to slow down and skip huge chunks of frames because it's falling behind render speeds
• The Box gets VERY hot very fast
• Colors are very off saturation wise sometimes being unbearable
• Have to have CEC enabled and when it boots up it needs a soft reboot so that helps it to fix itrtsef
• The Box changes it's own resolution at random

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And I was wondering if this was even a smart device I should've gotten. And I saw that my only other option right now is the FireStick 4K or the second hand market for an Nvidia Shield 2019 that literally costs over 3x what I spent on this device and I don't believe it's worth it even though everybody praises Nvidia.

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But, even though I've seen people praising the FireStick over the media box that I am owning right now, I got some questions.

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1. Is the FireStick capable of any form of casting from a phone? I mean, if I go in the YouTube or Twitch app, can I send a video to the media device so that it plays it without me touching it's remote?
2. Is the Firestick capable of actually showing 4K60 in YCbCr444 or RGB without dumb stuttering occuring? (does the device even allow us to choose color spaces?)
3. Is the Firestick interface removable and replaceable with stock Android TV UI?
4. Is the Firestick easily overheating or lagging?
5. Is the Firestick capable of side-loading apps?
6. Is the Firestick a better device hardware/performance wise compared tor the Mi Box?
7. If you can sideload apps, can you sideload the chromecast built in apk on it? Will that make it chrome-cast enabled by default in case it didn't work?

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What is your honest advice? Please no nvidia jokes, just need somebody who is wiling to give me proper advice and who maybe owns one of these media boxes so that he can give his own input. Thanks for reading.

Edit: added another question

Previously my picture settings were set on "vivid" and it looked great. Now for some reason that option has disappeared and I have new settings available for Dolby vision where the backlight is stuck at 50.

It looks much less vibrant and less clear, even blurry.

What can I do about this I'm really mad.

How do I get the direct tv app on my android box? Mi box

Hi I've ordered this TV and was wondering if it has the Now TV app available for download? I'd really appreciate if someone could let me know.

Are you still able to use it like a normal tv? I'm looking forward to buy a new TV. My idea was to buy a standard (non smart) tv and buy a streaming box like Nvidia shield.

But it looks there are no standard 4K TVs anymore. I'm sceptical of buying a smart TV. What if the tv stops getting support after 3 years? TVs are not phones, they last at least a decade.

Can anyone confirm if Google has updated the app on their Android TV platform so it's on par with the version you get on Smart TV's?

In my huawei y6 pro 2019 it shows that it is in 32 bit mode, is it possible to switch it to 64 bit mode? And if possible, how do I do it?

Best Android Box with Support almost all Video Format and subtitles ?

Hi,

I was wondering if someone has the documentation for the bluetooth protocol that Android TV remotes use. I can connect the Android TV remote app, but I would like that to work on my computer (and eventually Homeassistant).

When I search for Android TV remote bluetooth (and other keywords), I only get Android apps as a result. So, does anyone know more about this?

Thanks in advance.

Hi, I recently bought TCL C8 65 inch TV Android 9 TV. It has great screen in budget but motion handling is rubbish. Tried various settings but every movie it plays makes mess of. I also have Mi Box 3 and it plays same movies on same tv flawlessly because from Mi Box I can set refresh rate to 24hz. Is there anyway I can force refresh rate from TV itself?

I've just noticed that the VLC app isn't connecting to smb network shares from my Linux NAS. From the debug info server-side it seems authentication related. Nothing has changed on the server side and other devices / apps are able to connect.

Has anyone else hit this problem?

OK, so I know the original portable shield allowed you to assign physical controls to where the touchscreen buttons are, but does the shield TV allow you to do the same?

Reason why I am asking is because I’m planning on buying a shield TV just for it because the portable shield isn’t fast enough to run it

Title says it all, I need help optimizing my setup with a better use of my 3 remotes? any similar situation? thanks

Hello, I have had a shield for a few years and just got a MiBox but I can't jump between apps with the mi box the way I do with the shield, does anyone have a fix or solution for this?

Hi,

I have my mi box ‘auto switch to recommended resolution from tv’ set to off and my display settings set at 1080p50hz.

I find that it randomly changes to 1080p24hz?

Any thoughts?