@k1282 Roon remote on the Shield would be my #1 feature request. I can see I’m not alone in that, but there doesn’t seem to be much interest from Roon in pushing it up the priority queue. As a 3 day Roon user I’m massively impressed with so much vendor participation in their user community, but less so that a lot of it seems to be in defence of why they aren’t going to do something rather than taking on board what people want. Roon’s response to requests for FLAC cue file support is another example of this defensive stance. Android TV remote is a no-brainer, without it I have to have a separate Android tablet for everyone to select music with, or apps on everyone’s phones. Whinge over, but it’s only because I’ve found a product that I’m already passionate about that is going to play a huge part in my media organisation and delivery, hopefully for a long time.
I came to the Shield as a former Roku user. They don’t sell a 4K product in the UK, so the Shield was the obvious choice when I got a new TV. I initially tried using the Android TV interface on my Sony TV, but it doesn’t have the CPU power to provide a good experience and a few apps were buggy on it. The Shield Remote was a surprise benefit, with HDMI interconnects controlling the TV, AV receiver and Shield, one remote works everything without having to have a Harmony. The family love having a remote with 3 buttons and a volume slider, and the voice search is impressive too. And when it goes flat or gets lost under the sofa, the TV remote works just as seamlessly across all the devices. Using the NUC as a client would mean going back to the Harmony remote and creating profiles for different apps.
I’m running Win10 on the NUC, which also does all my scheduled media grabbing and downloading as well as running my servers. It does take a bit of stroking to keep it running well, but it’s got a ton of things running on it. Nobody else in the family even know it exists.
Fully understand where you come from. But eventually Roon will cater to all our needs :). With their releases, they have shown and proven that their focus is on excellence and this is fine by me. And at the end of the day, our special requirements do net reflect what the majority of people want here, which is why we are in this topic sharing our thoughts and ideas, and this has been working out for me pretty fine. And I think we should also be always aware that we are talking about a hobby here, which makes us, or me at least, obsess about things. I always need to remind myself that I got the basics covered and anything on top is just nice to have.
Also, I like your Shield and NUC setup a lot, as I have similar requirements, but I run most “headless” things such as sonarr on my 24/7 NAS. I would opt for the shield immediately once it allows me to run Roon Remote on it, then i can get rid of the NUC and my Android TV (via a Nexus Player). I would still use the harmony remote for that though, due to convenience. but maybe this heavily delayed kickstarter remote can give me a remote similar to the shield’s but with more functionality as a replacement of the harmony : https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/901859853/sevenhugs-smart-remote-the-first-remote-for-everyt
Interesting that we both use Sonarr, yet we don’t baulk at spending $500 on a music server and £20 a month on a streaming service. It underlines the point that the majority of people aren’t trying to get something for nothing, they just want best service for their needs. The mainstream TV industry has still got content delivery hopelessly wrong and Sonarr/Plex (or Kodi) has got it right. Because piracy hit music first, that part of the industry has had time to get its house in order and work out how to monetise their products in the new economy, while film and TV still try to prop up the old business model by killing off the competition through the legal system. I might have just gone off topic a bit.
I use to have minor irritating issues on the Windows platform for Roon on the NUC. So I then decided to setup a NUC just with Rock on Linux running solely for Roon and I find it is far better and simpler and removes any issues like a windows update etc from my audio outputs.
I run Kodi, Plex, VLC and apps like Netflix, Amazon on a separate windows based platform on a few custom made build to spec PCs around my house _ so for example when I have issues say a firewall or Kodi crashing it does impact on me listening to audio (my DAC/ Amplifier Devialet is also a sensitive network device ) _ this way at least I can separate the issues between audio and video. All my NUCs / PCs are then connected to Synology NAS server, a 24 D Link switch box for my ethernet cables for various devices ( and a 12 port POE switch box to eliminate the need for power whilst say powering security cameras which is driven by Synology surveillance app but can be accessed via windows /Mac/ Mobiles) and two wifi Rukus routers (master / slave unleased model as I found Netgear Google etc hopeless with delivery and stability).
So in my case as my network has a few different devices for different needs I try to quarantine the mapping say for example audio is separated from video delivery both hardware and software wise - so when something crashes ((like my teenage yelling " Dad my PlayStation is down" or " I can’t print my assignment" - I am better able to eliminate the issue now as I can map the problem quicker than before when I had one PC device running everything on windows. I did find windows annoying - for example with some of my updates affected Roon as it amended third party comm or firewall settings to default which was a pain - suddenly the whole network was affected as I relied on windows platform for all the outputs - at least now I can listen to music whilst fixing an issue with say the Plex update on Synology NAS or my son’s PlayStation settings or my teenage daughter’ movie suddenly freezing on her Kodi / Netflix app on her Mac
As I am not as tech savvy like some of you here (financial services lawyer background with no IT experience) this stuff is new to me and I hate relying on IT network professionals as they can’t really help until they spend time looking through my network (like an external auditor walking in and starting from scratch to understand how your business works) which I set up, so therefore for me, I have been learning by trial and error and by separating hardware and software platforms with robust switches and routers seems to work for our household needs. Importantly, I can narrow my issues as much as possible for the various network devices whether the printers going down or my Devialet just suddenly playing music! If it works for you then stick with it!
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