[mustacheemperor]

>I have a Chromecast from 2016 that still runs just as well as it did when I bought it.

Which, in my experience, is better than the new Chromecast with Android TV. I switched to it from an old school Chromecast and was just astounded at how badly the menus performed. Like the entire role of this device is to operate my TV, it's 2023, they can't make it do that without the UI animations dragging and occasionally crashing altogether? Not to mention the ads, ads everywhere, "recommendations" all over the home screen, crammed in every available space, and no doubt dragging performance themselves.

I switched to an Apple TV and it's a bit better, but there's still a full-screen "recommendation" video at the top of the home screen and it still doesn't run perfectly, which sorry not sorry, would be my expectation for such an incredibly simple UI in this great year of 2023.

Sorry to hijack the thread, but is there a single company making a set top box today that #1 consistently performs well in software and #2 isn't riddled with advertising disguised as "recommendations" for content I would never watch? Is that Roku? I haven't used one in years.

[yamtaddle]

> Which, in my experience, is better than the new Chromecast with Android TV.

Similar experience with the Shield, running Android. I shouldn't have tried to cheap out, and should have gone straight for the AppleTV. It's not perfect, but it's by far the best high-spec streamer box I've used. The Shield was glitchy, crashy, dropped animation frames constantly despite running on strong hardware so looked/felt pretty bad, and was full of ads. Plus IMO its menus and general system navigation were a lot worse than tvOS.

[mustacheemperor]

On the other hand, the Shield is still the best device by far for streaming GeForce experience and is the only way to get Nvidia’s HD to 4k upscaling tech, which I’ve heard is very impressive with sources like YouTube.

Seems like there really isn’t a truly exceptional product in this space right now. The AppleTV is closest but I think it shines more in comparison to the rest of the market than it does on its own. How I wish there was a good open source solution that I could just install on a raspberry pi.

[yamtaddle]

> The AppleTV is closest but I think it shines more in comparison to the rest of the market than it does on its own.

IMO true for most of Apple's product line. They're the best because it looks like nobody else is even seriously trying, not because they're, like, perfect and never screw up or do bad things.

[KerrAvon]

Apple TV is the best currently available. I think you're underestimating the complexity required to make these devices work well.

[mustacheemperor]

I'm sure I am, but my experience as an end user is that a device I expect to function within a pretty limited domain struggles to perform within that limited domain, which is frustrating for me.

If it is so complex, then that makes me more disappointed to see the development resources (and device horsepower) allocated to inserting promotional content into the homepage. I wonder how much more consistently TvOS could perform if a team of engineers was not focused on making sure I am forced to preview a Bruce Springsteen video when I turn the tube on after work.

OS adware is definitely below my expectations from Apple. I expect that stuff from a Google device, but it's a real letdown that can't be disabled on a $150 Apple box. I only ever click on it by accident.

[steve_taylor]

It’s the only TV platform I’ve seen that’s truly 4K. All the others have a 1080p UI upscaled to 4K. Only the 4K videos they play are truly 4K.