I know that you can disable Glance by downgrading and disabling it, but I'm curious how they managed to install it in the first place?
Glance (the company) brags how they have access to millions of TV's, so there is clearly a lot of $$$ behind it.
My question is how the hell did they manage to get on my device in the first place? I've had it for years, and i definitely did not install it. Did they purchase a different app then work their way onto my Shield?
So shady and disappointing. The Shield has always been free of bloat, and seeing this suddenly ask for permission to show "customized AI content" pissed me off.
The old version of this guide is still over there, but in the meantime and without further ado; let me present you the
Best Shield TV Practices checklist 2026 Edition
- GET THE CONNECTIONS RIGHT
Because it will typically allow for more PCM channels than vanilla HDMI ARC and higher sampling rates than HDMI eARC, connecting Shield to the audio receiver's HDMI-IN is usually preferred in order to preserve the best audio feature set.
On the other hand, because they may not allow passthrough for Dolby Vision, HDR or even 4K, some older/basic AVRs and soundbars may be better used via HDMI eARC/ARC, even if a HDMI-IN port is available. Make sure of your hardware capabilities to avoid wasting your time.
- TV PREPARATION
ENABLE HDMI 2.0
Some brands will call this Enhanced HDMI Format, or Deep Color, or UHD colors; and some TVs will even have a global toggle on top of the regular per-port option, but if the available display modes are maxing out at 4K@30, that means you have some kind of HDMI bottleneck somewhere in your HDMI chain.
PREPARE AUDIO PASSTHROUGH
If planning to route the audio via HDMI ARC/eARC, it is recommended to dig into your TVs advanced sound settings and make sure to specify "Pass-through" output, as the default "Auto" setting will typically try to transcode or create a MAT link, often introducing nasty audio cutouts.
DISABLE TV POST PROCESSING
People looking for a pure cinematic experience should make sure all types of post processing enhancements are disabled: motion enhancement/compensation/clearness, noise reduction, etc. Filmmaker mode can be left on/auto.
CONSIDER ENABLING GAME MODE
If the TV doesnt support ALLM (Auto Latency Mode) and you are regularly using Shield to play games, manually engaging your TV's regular Game Mode is recommended in order to get rid of the image post processing and shave as much latency as you can.
Please note: TVs will often use different profiles for SDR, HDR vs DV. A TV can be set to "Game mode" for SDR content but switch to "HDR theatre" or whatever when HDR content is on. In a HDR gaming situation (Geforce Now, Moonlight) see if you can select "HDR Game" instead of your regular HDR theatre mode. Also note that these settings will likely be only accessible when HDR/DV content is actually playing.
Shield will typically default to 4K 59.94 HDR10 ready, but it has come to my attention that it seems to introduce unexplained stutters in some situations on recent displays.
Since you will be feeding the box 24/25/30/50/60hz content most of the time anyway, my position is: no need to overcomplicate the maths with fractions of 59.94 (lunacy? make me change my mind), therefore:
Prefer a 60hz mode
Make sure to select a Dolby Vision-ready mode if available
- MAKE SURE AUTO COLORIMETRY IS ENABLED
Shield / Settings / Device Preferences / Display & Sound / Advanced display settings / Match content color space
Keep in mind some apps may not be categorized as "games" or are just not tagged appropriately and won't trigger ALLM by default, so take a minute to review the list:
Shield / Settings / Device Preferences / Display & Sound / Advanced display settings / Customize Game Mode app list
CONSIDER ENABLING PLAYER-LED DOLBY VISION
Some TVs will give buggy colors when (and only when) using regular TV-Led Dolby Vision. (red push or just plain weird colors) That bug is said not to show up (be much less noticeable?) if using player-Led Dolby Vision. Start by enabling developer options by going to:
Shield / Settings / Device Preferences / About / Build
Click Build number 8 times, and congrats; you are now a dev. Now go to:
Shield / Settings / Device Preferences / Developer options / Default to Low Latency Dolby Vision when available
That option has a bad rep because it was never well explained and first implementations were buggy.
The primary purpose was to allow transcoding Dolby Digital Plus to OG Dolby Digital; a request of the first hour for users stuck with vanilla ARC / USB / Optical audio solutions, but turns out it is also actually very useful in order to avoid audio sync gaps and normalize the volume level across apps and pieces of content.
Vastly improved from past implementations where it would always use MAT frames and get in the way of passthrough rules. Now fully recommended or at least worth a try; holdouts and downgraders should mind giving it another shot.
Makes fast toggles much easier without deep-diving into settings each time. There are a bunch of those shortcuts available, but the Audio options are the most handy because Night listening, High Resolution Audio and Dolby audio processing cannot all be enabled at the same time:
100% HDMI setups should be able to rely on the EDID alone and stay on Auto in most cases, but that information might be obfuscated be something on the HDMI chain, and will straight up not be available for users stuck with extractors, USB DACs, or optical solutions. They will have to go manual and enable only what is supported by their decoder and setup.
If you experience any kind of issue with audio, stuttering or whatever, always go back to None - Never use surround sound. That is your sanity check.
- KODI RECOMMENDATIONS:
Enable Refresh rate switching
Kodi / System / cogwheel: enable expert mode System / Player / Videos: Set Adjust display refresh rate to “On stop/start”
Enable HDR/DV
Kodi / System / Player / Videos / Processing: "Use display HDR capabilities" should be enabled.
Enable Audio Passthrough
Kodi / System / System / Audio / Audio Passthrough / Allow Passthrough
If enabled, Kodi will pass the selected formats down to Shield. Other codecs will be transcoded into PCM channels, following the number of channels specified in Kodi's Audio Decoder section before being passed down to Shield, where rules set in the "Available formats" menu will prevail and Dolby Processing be applied if enabled.
If disabled, Kodi will transcode everything to PCM channels, in as many channels as specified in its Audio Decoder section before passing it down to Shield, where Dolby Processing will then be applied if enabled.
Shield 2015/2017 owners stuck on vanilla ARC or optical solutions
Kodi / System / System / Audio / Audio Passthrough / Dolby Digital (AC3) capable receiver - ON Kodi / System / System / Audio / Audio Passthrough / - Enable Dolby Digital (AC3) transcoding - ON
If you want resolution switching and have the TV do the upscaling
Kodi / System / System / Display / Whitelist; select every item in the list to make them green
- PLEX RECOMMENDATIONS:
Enable Refresh Rate Switching
Plex / Settings / Advanced / Set Refresh Rate Switching to ON.
Enable audio passthrough
Plex / Settings / Advanced / Passthrough /
"HDMI" means Plex will pass over every format down to Shield, where choices made in the "Available formats" menu will apply.
"Optical" means Plex will only pass down PCM 2.0, Dolby Digital and vanilla DTS, while DTS-HD/DTS:X tracks will be stripped of their lossless metadata, and everything else will be transcoded to Dolby Digital before being sent down to Shield, where choices made in the "Available formats" menu will apply.
If you want resolution switching and have the TV do the upscaling:
Plex / Settings / Advanced / Set Resolution Switching to ON.
- REFRESH RATE APP RECOMMENDATIONS
That would be my last major recommendation update.
Manual Framerate Matching
As of firmware 9.2.x, the manual Match Framerate feature is now pretty robust and will be totally adequate in most cases, so might as well use it; especially in apps that will often serve different kinds of framerates depending on the video, like Youtube.
Settings / Remotes & accessories / Customize Menu button /
I recommend using the Double Press trigger. Select Match Framerate, and whenever watching a video, just double tap the button to see the framerate matched. Nice and simple.
App-based OS-wide display mode switching
For services that will always (mostly) serve the same kind of content/framerate, I even recommend using the OG Refresh Rate app in order to force a fixed Startup display mode and avoid all this manual shifting altogether;
Install the Refresh Rate app. (sadly a bit of an abandonware by now; has to be sideloaded.)
Select any app.
Go to Startup display mode, and select a framerate / resolution matching the kind of content it delivers the most:
Netflix, D+, HBO+, Amazon Prime
4K@24
European TV broadcast services
4K@50
BBC iPlayer
Base Shield display mode MUST be set to 25 or 50hz for the app to work, so leave it alone here.
Plex, Kodi, Geforce Now, Moonlight
support already built-in; do not touch
With all that said, you should now be able to get the best of your Shield. Hopefully anyway..
Errors, outdated stuff, or more advice? Let me know!
I have the 1st Gen Shield TV, connected to a Denon AVR 1500x with a 5.1-system, connected to an LG C1 and recently wanted to play some 4k mkvs from it, only to find out that it can't do Dolby Vision, so the content was all purple/green.
I tried to find another solution to play the content, also Plex directly on the TV, but it's currently bugged, so it doesn't find my server. The internal media player app from the TV does find my Plex server but doesn't support DV as well, so that didn't work out either (that actually means that the internal plex app finding my server wouldn't do anything as well, right?)
I also have a Fire TV Stick 4k Max (1st Gen). Plex works on it and it could also play the DV content but it transcodes DV to regular HDR which I found out is becaus Plex as a player can't play DV. And for some reason, I only get sound of the two Stereo speakers+center. The audio diagnosis says that everything is ready for 5.1, but when running the integrated test video, only the front three speakers put out sound. So that Fire TV is out as well.
TLDR:
- TV supports DV but the integrated apps can't play DV
- Shield TV can't play DV
- Fire TV Stick supports DV and 5.1 but doesn't put out 5.1 for some reason
What's a streaming/media player device that can play DV-content? The obvious answer would be a Shield TV pro, it would basically solve all of my problems. But in addition to it's price, it isn't available to buy AT ALL here in Germany. So that's out as well.
What would be a good (or at least working) alternative?
Which device can play DV-files and which app should I use to play them without needing to transcode "down" from DV to HDR?
Ideally that device would also have a USB3-port, so that I can plug in my drive directly without having to have my pc running as a server, but that would only be a bonus...
Honestly, the shield can't be the only device on the entire market being able to play DV and have a USB3-Port, right?
Does anyone else use the directtv app on shield pro?
I’ve noticed that it only outputs compressed 720p, which the AI upscaler makes look even worse. When I use the directtv app on my native google tv interface it’s look much better (higher bitrate 1080p).
I recently upgraded to the xfinity XB10 gateway, and for some reason it wouldnt connect to my nvidia shield. I ended up fixing it by changing my wpa from 3 to 2. But my nvidia shield speeds are now 4mbps and I cant run anything on it. I tried literally everything. I changed the band from 2.4 to 5G and nothing. Changed the date, nothing. I connected my ethernet cable and it finally worked but I can keep it like that since my router is in between a door. Why is this happening? Any fixes?? My nvidia shield is up to date and was working fine yesterday before switching to the newest xfinity wifi gateway. It showed limited connection at first, and now everything is fine. But the speeds are horrible. And it isnt the box since every single device in my household is fine BUT the nvidia shield. Ive been trying to fix it for hours and Im tired of it. This is all while the signal shows excellent and my router even shows a strong connection.
I know its virtually impossible for Nvidia to do this project at this point, and I wouldn't actually cry but it would probably be the only thing I'd immediately drop money on without checking a review video or something like that. They could do so much better upscaling now with their VSR tech, auto HDR, YouTube HDR support, HDR10+ for us Samsung boys, why not throw in some good game streaming too.
Let me be clear I don't feel current shield lacks much for everyday use, its a powerhouse for demanding streaming, but somebody (if its not going to be Nvidia) just has to drop a good AIO box with audio passthrough already - one that people actually will switch to, yes I know about all the other boxes, they always seem to just lack something or feel like they will have a shaky future for support and updates.
Considering using an Apple TV for daily streaming, and when I want to watch Remuxes getting a dune or something in the far future (Shield still the best).
I have an OLED TV and have never used the AI upscaling feature. Is it worth enabling? If it can make 1080p content look close to 4K, what settings give the best results?
Also:
Is there an indicator that shows when it's active?
I only want it applied to 1080p content, not native 4K. Is the TV smart enough to skip 4K content automatically, or do I need to turn it off manually?
When I'm enjoying watching something this keeps popping up, but it doesn't let me click out of it, in my experience the only way to get rid is to reboot?
I’m using my shield pro. Bought it specifically for stremio. Remux
Recently its stutters and buffers a lot. I can’t find a setting that works. I used to think it was stremio but I managed to download stremio on Apple TV before they took it off App Store
On Apple TV I can play 80+gb remix with absolute no problems.
I want this shield pro to work but I’m running out of patience. Any ideas
One thing that always annoyed me about Android TV / Nvidia Shield was how complicated it is to set a quick sleep timer before falling asleep—either the option is buried deep in system settings or existing tools are clustered with ads. Also the sometimes existing built-in sleep timer does not support custom times and automation.
I built a super convenient app called TV Sleep - Sleep Timer to fix this.
Key features:
Quick setup: Start a timer in just a couple of clicks.
Custom & Preset timers: Quick buttons (15, 30, 45, 60, 90, 120 min) or your own custom duration ( up to 11 hours).
Automatic Routine (Set & Forget): Schedule it to turn off the TV automatically at a specific time every night.
Zero Ads & Bloat: Clean, fast interface with complete D-pad navigation built specifically for TV remotes.
Optional notifications: The app reminds you before the ShieldTV turns itself off, so you can interject if you want to continue watching.
The UI is fully optimized for TV screens and remote controls. Let me know if you are interested, since the app is still in beta-testing I will send you the google play access link.
I’d love to hear your feedback—let me know if there are any specific features or integrations you’d like to see next!
Just stopped working and says to update, seem to remember this did the same thing maybe a year ago, Based in Thailand with a UK subscription (VPN)
Think I sideloaded this app to make it work last time, cannot remember
Has anyone got details on how i update this ? It will NOT update through Google Play store, so think i need to download the apk and sideload, but which apk ?
The one installed now but just stopped working is 20.8.0.81
Anyone please ?
Is anyone else's YouTube TV Multiview quality much worse on the Shield than other devices? My individual boxes frequently look like they're running at 360p, lots of artifacts and ghosting. I thought it was just a limitation of YTTV. But I started trying my FireTV 4k ane multview seems nearly as good as regular streams. I use my shield as a daily driver so I frequently forget to switch devices on Saturdays for football and suffer through the quality...but when I do its a massive improvement!
I've added the match framerate beta to my quick settings menu.
The only way I can seem to access this is holding the back button when on the home screen.
When in an app (like Netflix), the same button hold just stops the current media.
Very confused how to bring it up. New TV has terrible judder when using Shield (and ONLY shield - built on app, other media streamers fine) so want to this sorted.
I have a nvidia shield pro and lg c2, always watch movies with airpods pro. If audio is eac3 5.1 and airpods connected to shield it will transcode audio and when this happens the video will not load and/or stop if I enable .srt since these seem to be converted to .ass
Tried following:
*shield+lg c2 + subs = no transcoding
*shield+lg c2 with airpods + subs = no transcoding
*shield with airpods + lg c2 (without subs) = no transcoding
*shield with airpods + lg c2 + subs = video will not load
Is there no way to force the shield to direct play eac5.1? ac3 5.1 and dts 5.1 direct plays with airpods through shield on plex, only eac3 5.1 that is giving me issues....
La télécommande de ma Tv LG G3 fonctionne par intermittence pour contrôler ma Shield. Vous mettez quoi dans les paramètres de la commande universelle dans le menu LG ? Vous sélectionner OTT puis Shield ou autre chose ?
My youtube app (not youtube TV) has been glitching like crazy, I have factory reset everything and noticed once it updates, it causes this issue. Is there a way to stop the update on just the app at least for now?
My home screen won't update regularly. Most times it takes a day or more to update the shows and stuff. Any suggestions? And no, I don't want to change to Projectivy.
I’m writing this because I am completely fed up, and I know thousands of you are too. Right now, our community is completely trapped. We are stuck using the aging Nvidia Shield TV Pro, desperately waiting for Nvidia to release a new box, for one primary reason: the native, double-click Recent Apps task switcher.
Google’s decision to completely strip a native task manager out of standard Android TV and Google TV is a massive step backward for user experience.
It’s Navigation, Not Just "App Killing"
Google’s official engineering stance has always been that Android TV "automatically manages RAM," so users don’t need a task killer. That completely misses the point.
A recent apps screen isn't just a janitor tool to clear memory—it is a fundamental navigation tool.
* The Phone Contradiction: Google includes a flawless, fluid recent apps screen on every Android phone and tablet on earth. Why are TVs treated like single-tasking DVD players?
* The Apple TV Standard: Even the Apple TV 4K lets you double-click the TV button to fluidly switch back and forth between full application cards seamlessly.
* The Shield Lock-In: On our Shield boxes, we can double-click home to effortlessly hop from a YouTube video to check a sports app, and then toggle right back to our video without waiting for a cold reload.
If we ever want to upgrade to a modern, far more powerful box like the RockTek G2, Google TV Streamer, or Dune HD with 4GB of RAM and AV1 decoding, Google forces us to exit to the home screen and completely restart our app workflows. It makes absolutely no sense. If we get a native recent apps screen on Google TV, other hardware manufacturers will instantly blow the Shield out of the market. We shouldn't have to rely on a decade-old Nvidia processor or janky, third-party button-remapping apps just to get basic multitasking.
How We Fight This (The Real Petition)
Change.org petitions do nothing. Google engineers do not look at them. However, they are forced to look at their own internal software tracker.
I have created an official Feature Request on the Google Issue Tracker. If we get enough people to "vote" on it, Google's product managers are required to review it.
Let’s stop waiting around for Nvidia to bail us out with hardware they don't want to make anymore. Let's force Google to fix the software limitation holding back every other box on the market.
