Mr_Orange

Well I did and this is what I received:

It's gone!

Thank you. Just to confirm, I could send the full fat 4K video feed direct to the TV and a 1080p signal with the audio into the Krell using the two HDMI ouputs from the Matrix switcher? I definitely still have a fair %age of 2 channel. All my music is ripped and I currently use a Squeezebox Touch. I say this because I can't yet foresee the time when I will have a proper, dedicated theatre room so 7.1/5.1 in a faimly media room is sufficient, IMO. Thanks, I suspected it would be. To me it feels as though Krell have moved on from the Foundation and there will be no futher development/upgrades in either hardware or software. I may email the CEO and just ask.... nothing ventured, nothing gained, as they say.

I own the original Krell Foundation (no 4K pass-through). I recently bought a Shield TV Pro 2019 and have now lost 4K/HDR/DV from various streaming apps compared with the internal TV apps but the Shield experience is so much better, I'm sticking with it. To bring 4K to the Foundation, I could buy the Krell 4K HDR Switcher but it is ruddy expensive ($1,800) and there are none in Australia. I could also buy an HDFury device which are cheaper. So far, so good but there are various other niggles with the Krell, such as its crappy IR, flaky ARC, and RC5 socket on the back which seems all but unusable, a fairly ordinary UI and ARES is an unknown quantity. The SQ is excellent though! From what I have read, everything on the Anthem AVM60 seems to just work. Also, ARC has been around for much longer and seen more development so is likely to be superior to ARES. If I moved from the Foundation to the AVM60, would it be an upgrade, a sideways move or would I be sacrificing SQ for usability? The other frustration is the support for Krell here in Australia. The distributor seems to have authorised one, single dealer in the entire country so product availability, pricing and support is totally monopolised and return-to-base upgrades such as the free DSD upgrade or the cost 4K upgrade were never an option. Anthem has a much more extensive dealer network. Thank in advance for any thoughts.

Thank you. The Shield arrived today and is set up and working. It turns out that the Plex issue was my TV (presumably an underpowered processor) as Plex works beautifully on the Shield with my NAS acting as the server (no transcoding). I also had no idea how small the Shield is. Somehow the photographs make it look much larger.

To close out this thread, I have gone for the Nvidia Shield TV Pro. It turns out that availability has improved and with a 20% Ebay Plus code it came in at just under $370 (the selling price was inflated above RRP so the discount wasn't as effective as it could have been). Before I realised the Shield was actually available, I nearly went down the route of an Apple TV 4K with a Vero 4K+ but that was going to be more expensive than the Shield. I have test driven Kodi on my PC and like the interface so I'm pretty sure that will be my player of choice. SWMBO will be happy too, as she will be able to finally watch Hayu on the big screen. Thanks again for all the replies.

Thanks. I have no need for Atmos but have plenty of DTSHD-MA. That said, presumably the ATV sends out 7.1PCM from a DTSHD-MA source?

OK, I don't think that is a deal-breaker for me.

Thanks. It plays mp4 OK though from what I can see. Do you mean, though, that it might not like some of my mp4s because they haven't been encoded by a studio or some other official channel? All my rips were made using MakeMKV and then Handbrake to transcode to mp4.

Would you mind expanding on what restrictions TVOS has? My ripped media is all in mp4 format with separate subtitle files, where needed (mostly foreign language martial arts films). I'll check that out, thanks.

Thank you for the explanation. I probably should have stated in my OP that a DIY solution does not interest me. I used to enjoy tinkering, now I just want something that works out of the box.

Thank you for your reply. I read the start of that thread but I couldn't work out which device you are referring to. One take away I did get is that the Apple TV 4K ticks a lot of boxes.

Thank you. Accessing Plex from a computer can be equally slow. The NAS is older but I have no intention of replacing it because as a NAS, and not a media server, it is perfect. I've never been that enamoured of Plex anyway so am happy to see it fall by the wayside. Also, changing the NAS wouldn't help with the inevitable deprecation of the smart functions of my TV.

Hello all, Apologies for what is probably another 'help me choose' thread for a media player but I am at my wits end trying to choose something. I used to just put my BDs and DVDs in my Denon BDP but then my better half requested that the storage space all the discs were taking up be made available so I ripped them all to my NAS (using MakeMKV and then Handbrake to transcode to mp4). It runs Plex server. My 2014 LG smart TV runs the Plex client but quite frankly, I am sick of Plex. It's really slow (that could be down to my NAS, an older ReadyNAS Ultra 4+ that I upgraded to OS6) and it seems to lose connection all the time. It took me 30 minutes today to not manage to watch a film so I dug the BD out of the box in the garage. All my software is BD and DVD, no 4K. I may buy 4K discs in the future but that is not likely unless prices come down. My TV has apps for Netflix, Disney+, Stan, Amazon Prime and the various catch up services so I really need a plug and play streamer that can read BD/DVD rips from a network share on my NAS. I'd like it to have a reasonable interface. For reference, I used to use a Netgear NeoTV NTV550 which just worked. I'm concious though that LG and/or the providers will drop support for my TV at some point so a device that supports these services is necessary. I was all set on buying the 2019 Shield Pro but its lack of availability (and local pricing) has scotched that idea. I'm not part of the Apple ecosystem but the Apple TV 4K looks good and seems very reasonably priced. Then there are the various Dune HD players, Zidoo, etc. I have no need for the device to be good with music as that is already covered in my system. I welcome opinion, suggestions and experiences. TIA

Thread bump.... There is a new version of the Shield, launched on the 28th in the US and some other markets. Nvidia confirmed to earlier, by online chat, that they have no information on an Australian launch. There are 2 models: Sheild TV and Shield TV Pro. Info here: https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/shield/shop/- note this is the US site. I only recently took interest in the Shield since more and more app developers are dropping support for my LG Smart TV as LG themselves are no longer developing the version of WebOS that it runs. An Android TV box seemed a logical choice given the ongoing support by the app developers (Netflix, Plex) and new apps such as Disney+ not supporting LG webOS. I held off buying a 2017 Shield though as I discovered the new version was imminent.... just not in Aus!