Hello everyone.

Sorry if this is a long post.

I currently have a dumb TV 1080p at home and, during my searches on Reddit and so on, I've chosen between the Nvidia Shield Pro and the new Apple TV 4K, at the end, I've concluded to get the Apple TV because of the regular software updates. With the Shield, people are already complaining, and they aren't having updates for a while (but please, you can try to convince me otherwise).

My main objectives for the box are:

• Watching YouTube / HBO;
• Watching / Listening my local content (films, music, etc.);
• PC gaming streaming from desktop to the TV.

1. About game streaming directly from my desktop, how good does it work? I saw people saying the Shield is better for gaming but, if I use AMD Link or Steam Link, I would think it does not matter if it is the Apple TV or Shield, or? Maybe the Shield has better support for GeForce Now, but I do not use the service.

2. How easy is to watch / listen to my content that is currently on my laptop / desktop? I saw people simply saying to use Infuse or Plex and stream it to the Apple TV. Is there a better way?

3. Are there things that I should be "careful" with the Apple TV? I remember the time that my wife bought our iPad, and it was hard to just find how to upload a TV series and run it with subtitles. (facepalm) There is no complexity like this on Android, honestly, no software to install on my pc, etc.

4. I saw a lot of people complaining about the support of codecs on the Apple TV comparing to the Shield. Stuff like, no TrueHD audio, no DTS:X, no lossless audio pass-through, transcoding, etc. So many topics that got me confused, since I'm not an expert in this field. If my goal for the future is to buy an amazing 4K "smart" TV and soundbar that both have Dolby Vision and Atmos, and most of my content are local downloaded films or streaming from HBO or Netflix, how important are all of these missing "features" from the Apple TV? People also said to just use Plex or Infuse, and they will have the "audio features" that the Apple TV is natively missing. So, honestly, I didn't understand all the discussion regarding this and why was the Shield better if other apps can support the codecs and missing features.

I think that is all, thank you in advance for all the replies 🙂

(Wasn’t sure how to word the title to fit both those who use streaming services and those who purchase music either digitally or physically.)

What are the upsides and drawbacks you’ve found for what you use for music, whether that’s Spotify, Apple Music, Deezer, buying from Bandcamp, etc. What’s so good that it’s keeping you on that service instead of other competitors? Meanwhile, what should they change or fix?

My spouse is a retired dancer interested in watching the CBC comedy Off Kilter. When we go to their website and click on "Watch Now", all of the episodes show as "This video is unavailable". They appear to be on YouTube, but when I go to YouTube, I can only watch the trailer. If I attempt to watch episode 1 it again says, "This video is unavailable." So I assume it's some sort of geo-locking or something? I'd even happily pay for them, but they don't appear to be offered on any service on the AppleTV (at least in the US). What's the recommended way to watch such a show? As I say, paying isn't an issue, just watching.