Nvidia Shield TV Update 3.0 Offers Marshmallow, Additional Storage Options And Customizations

News
By Derek Forrest
published

Nvidia revealed the latest features being rolled out in its Shield Experience Upgrade 3.0. The game-centric streaming console received several improvements, including an update to Android Marshmallow, expanded external storage options, menu customization options and additional streaming content, including 4K movie rentals and the Shield TV debut of Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance.

The Shield TV console has been updated to Android’s Marshmallow operating system In addition, the update offers increased flexibility with external storage devices, allowing SD cards and USB flash drives to be used as internal storage. This will commit the storage device as a Shield TV-specific device, so users should only use this feature on USB flash drives or SD cards they intend to leave attached to their Shield TV.

Several new features offer increased personalization and ease of use. The home screen can now be customized by rearranging app tiles and menus. Searching has become easier with a new speak or click-to-type functionality, and setup can now be achieved without typing at all by connecting to your Android-based smartphone and acquiring your Google account information automatically using vocal commands from your smartphone.

Nvidia’s Shield TV Update 3.0 also brings a 4K content rental service called UltraFlix to the platform, and it appeared to have no lag while scrubbing around the video. This depends entirely on your network’s capabilities, but it seemed that with a powerful enough Internet connection, you could click on any part of a 4K movie and see playback instantly, without any buffering. How this is achieved is not quite yet known, but it is a welcome feature for 4K-display wielding Shield TV users.

In addition, the Google Play store received a facelift and should be easier to navigate.

Also making its Shield TV debut is Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, which Nvidia claimed is a full-blown console-grade game title. The gameplay was actually quite smooth, even on the 4K display it was demoed on.

Nvidia’s Shield TV Update 3.0 will be available sometime soon.

Derek Forrest is an Associate Contributing Writer for Tom’s Hardware and Tom’s IT Pro. Follow Derek Forrest on Twitter. Follow us on Facebook, Google+, RSS, Twitter and YouTube.

Derek Forrest
Derek Forrest
Derek Forrest is a Contributing Writer for Tom's Hardware US. He writes hardware news and reviews gaming desktops and laptops.
5 Comments Comment from the forums
  • sylentz199
    *sometime soon....
    I literally checked last night around 10pm and it still wasn't ready. Hopefully soon since they claimed "by end of the year" in June or so.
    Reply
  • Orions_1
    Finally! Hopefully they'll improve how apps are stored on to the SD Card. Because right now it's as if it installs apps on to the SD Card but somehow still takes up space on your Internal Storage. So it's not making much of a difference. You never have enough Internal Storage. Another problem is it first installs the app on your Internal Storage and then moves it all to the SD Card rather than install it directly to your SD Card. So say you have 1gb of Internal Storage left, but the app you wanna install is 2.5gb. You're screwed unless you make room on your Internal Storage by deleting other apps. Android has always been terrible at handling storage. It loves to leave junk files laying around that take up storage space.
    Reply
  • beshonk
    Orions, I haven't experienced any of that, and I have a ton of Tegra based games installed on my 16gb shield. They all get moved to the 64gb SD Card. Of the 11gb you actually get to use on the Shield, I still have 8.6gb available, despite having asphalt 8, doom 3, qube, oddworld, and talos principle installed. Something's wrong with whatever apps, SD Cards or settings you're using.
    Reply
  • Freethep
    Hopefully this comes with some stability fixes. I love my Nvidia Shield so much more than my Apple TV, I'm just not use to all the hiccups and things just not working.
    Reply
  • Jerry Rodd
    I was excited when the Shield TV arrived. I bought the 16gb version, a 128gb sd and a 500gb Samsung T1. That's after viewing Nvidia's YouTube explaining that any external store could be adopted.( the remote now is included).
    I didn't like the idea of the Hybrid 500 Pro version, which was the only version that had reported difficulties, and I have not used an HHD drive for 10 years. The Sammy T1 seemed a good match with solid state speed and reliability.
    I was all excited setting it up and bored my wif to the point she went shoe shopping and left the house.
    After I figured out that the 3.0 Nvidia version had yet to be in play, not counting no Marshmellow. I blamed myself, until I went searching for a answer.
    I set up Google alerts to be notified of the arrival of the huge upgrade as well as the release of the Nvidia X1 Shield Tablet 2.
    Now I am stuck in Limbo, not wishing to do a full setup only to need to wipe it when 6.0 arrives.


    Reply