Your experience has definitely been odd with devices. I've had fire sticks and I have two Shield TVs, the fire sticks were always slow, laggy, buggy, required constant restarts, I stopped using them entirely. The Shields have been almost bulletproof. My 2017 would very occasionally lose wifi, but a reboot fixed that and it only happened 3 or 4 times. Beyond that, they've been flawless.

I got my stream 4k today as well. I set this up in my office, TCL 4k HDR TV with a sound bar.

My thoughts ;

The only glitches/hiccups so far , it turns on randomly, thus always turning on the TV.

It cannot control a sound bar. I reached out to TiVo support, and they confirmed it cannot be programmed to work with sound bars at this time only TV's.

Vudu is not in UHD , only HDX, everything else seems to work well. I have added Hulu, prime, Netflix, Google play movies, and HBO now to the TiVo app and it works well pulling in content from different sources.

I don't have sling TV so the TiVo guide adds its own channels similar to Pluto TV.

My only other Android TV device was a 2017 shield that died. I feel like this device is missing video and audio settings. Video does not appear adaptive and it's only options were HDR and Dolby vision.

Wait until the first software update, the first release is always the worst lol

Your opinion of the Shields is definitely in the minority, may want to try again. Most people including myself have very few issues and see better performance than the firesticks (which I also have). Could be user error here.

I'm using it on my cheaper TV's. So far no issues. Nvidia shield on main tv and home theater. For 50 bucks I'm really happy. Going to get 2 more I think. I did have it flake out once and couldn't get to Google home screen, TiVo one still worked. Rebooted and fine. It's been out one day, I'd give it a couple months to get an update or two. Impressed with the TiVo content so far.

I've had the Xiaomi mi box for like 4 years and have never had an issue. Everything plays and sounds great. Sorry you've had so many issues with android tv. On the other hand, I've had nothing but awful experiences with anything fire related. Firestick is generally terrible.

I also grabbed one and it arrived yesterday. Spent the evening getting it set up and playing around with it. For comparison purposes, my other devices are a Mi Box (not S), Fire Stick 4K, and the Roku Ultra hardware/remote that's built int my TCL 65R617 smart TV. I have a Vizio 2.1 soundbar (can't remember the model number). I never jumped on the Shield bandwagon because by the time I started looking for an Android TV device, the Mi Box was out and I couldn't (and still can't) come up with a compelling reason to buy a Shield at 3-4x the price.

Overall, I think it's great. It's like a faster and more polished version of my Mi Box. The Fire Stick 4K always seemed slower (but snappier?) than the Mi Box (in that it would do things on the screen more quickly, but opening and loading content was slower, I guess). The Stream 4K eliminates the lag I experienced.

The TiVo remote controlled the basic operation of my TV without any programming. Power, volume, input. No control over the Roku interface (directional control, "home", and the asterisk/options button are missing). For some reason, channel changing doesn't seem to work, either.

I disabled the TiVo app immediately after setting up the device, so the TiVo button on the remote - which would obviously be the "home" button were this a vanilla Android TV device - does nothing. A lot of the other buttons on the remote are TiVo specific (because, you know, it's a TiVo device) and so are pretty useless if you're not using the UI. This makes the remote feel cluttered, especially if you're used to the Android TV / Fire / Roku minimalist remotes.

I use Netflix, Hulu, Prime Video, Kodi, Plex, and some other basic, non-premium apps (like PBS Kids). I haven't had an issue with any of them. I can Chromecast in 4K from my Pixel 3 much faster than with my non-Ultra Chromecast dongle and Mi Box.

I haven't noticed any glitches or weirdness, yet. I won't claim this is the greatest device in the world, but if it meets your needs (ie. you don't need Apple TV+ or use Vudu in UHD), I don't think there's a better value at $50 right now. It's cheaper than a Chromecast Ultra, so if you were even considering one, might as well get this instead. The $70 "regular" price for the Stream 4K seems high to me - and I probably wouldn't personally pay that much - but when you put that price into perspective considering the cost of the Ultra, I guess this is still a better purchase if that's a requirement for you.

Anyway, 4K Chromecast and the ability to run Kodi (eliminating the need for a Plex server) are what makes this a better buy over a Roku any day of the week, and the fact that you don't have to deal with FireOS or the occasional lag that comes with the Fire Stick 4K makes it a better purchase over the Amazon option. The fact that it's only 25-33% the cost of a Shield and will do 95% of what the Shield does (no gaming and no AI autoscaling, though that's hit or miss) make it a better purchase over the Nvidia option for most people, IMO.

I don't know if this will get much attention by devs over at XDA, but if they could figure out how to put vanilla Android TV on it and/or allow for button remapping on the remote, I'd buy a couple more to replace my other devices. Heck, I might do that, anyway after I've gotten another week or two of use out of this one.

I'm thinking of picking up a little something from Nvidia. What were the issues you had with shield?

I ordered the Stream for my dad, it should arrive Monday. Do you know if Atmos is supported on Netflix? I know they're very picky about which boxes support it.

I bought one too and its coming in Monday. I'm hoping to replace the verizon stream TV which is a complete garbage (can't even play some H265 content natively -- from plex direct play).

My use case is really minimal though .. main purpose is DRM playback with HDhomerun prime and Plex for my Guest TV.

Curious if you are able to use the USB-C to take advantage of ethernet and regular usb ports. If yes, is it Ethernet and USB 3.0?

HDR is randomly washed out

If these are on the TiVo - Suggestion go into Display Settings and Turn OFF all the crap related to HDR > SDR conversion. Do not leave it in Auto. Same for SDR > HDR.

I personally have a mi box s. The way I got rid of all broadcast problems is by getting 300 mbps internet. Also I have never seen 4k advertised as 4k look like 4 k videos I have like living planet II.

How does the TiVo Stream 4k processing power compare to the Nvidia Shield 2017 model? I currently have the Nvidia Shield 2017 and I think the concept of having your different services combined into one interface is a good idea with the TiVo Stream 4k. Maybe some awesome developers could grab the TiVo Stream 4k apk and make it available to run on the Nvidia shield.

Is the firstick 4k still worth a buy? I need something for Netflix, twitch and maybe some youtube that’s honestly it. So I dont want to spend so much tbh... my old ps4 died which was used for Netflix and twitch so now i need a replacement. Not a fan of sluggish, buffering devices unless its just like loading a app i guess but once im watching i dont want issues.

I have been playing with my TiVo 4K for about a day and I have both a shield 2017 and Apple TV,

Compared to my shield 2017 it actually feels snappier. The way the apps close and reopen almost instantly is way better then my shield, I do have a lot of movies on Vudu so I do wish it plays 4k but that’s fine.

Compared to my Apple TV 4K. I can play YouTube in 4K! Lol it does feel faster then the shield but nowhere close to the Apple TV, both devices have the problem with hdr always on, yes I know Apple has a update to fix it and I tried it but it never worked and still played everything on hdr.

The remote is the best out of the 3 devices in my opinion, the Apple remote was always accidentally touched and the shield volume slide was retarded as well.

I’m using this on my 65 x900e and 4K streams look good. And I love how snappy the google search button is. I disable the TiVo app I rather just use the regular apps. Edit: I found a way for hdr to auto turn on and off

https://www.tivocommunity.com/community/index.php?threads/access-tivo-stream-4k-hidden-a-v-menus.577379/