The ultimate streaming box for gamers and audiophiles is back on sale for a good price. You can pick up Nvidia’s Shield TV with remote from Amazon for $149 right now. That’s $10 higher than the sale price we saw in early November, but it’s still lower than the usual $170 to $180 for this box, which doesn’t go on sale very often.

The Nvidia Shield TV is an outstanding living room device. At its core, it’s an Android TV box, but the Shield TV can do so much more than simply stream Netflix and Hulu. Nvidia’s media player can also stream games over a local network from a gaming PC rocking a GeForce graphics card, stream PC games from the crowd with Nvidia’s GeForce Now service, and play Android games locally. This particular package doesn’t include Nvidia’s game controller, but the Shield TV also works with Xbox and PlayStation controllers. (If you’d like an Nvidia Shield controller with your Shield TV, that bundle currently costs $168 on Amazon, down from $200.)

The media experience ridiculously high-powered hardware provides is top-notch, too. Shield TV supports 4K and high-dynamic range (HDR) visuals. You can use it as a Plex server, a Kodi box, and a DVR for over-the-air TV. There’s also built-in Chromecast functionality to send videos or music from your phone to the TV. And the Shield works with Alexa and Google Assistant, meaning you can control it hands-free with Amazon’s Echo speakers or a Google Home.

There’s just no question that the Nvidia Shield TV is one of the best living room devices you can get right now—especially for PC gamers.

[Today’s deal: Nvidia Shield TV with remote for $149 on Amazon.]

Knowing how to design, build out, grow, and manage Internet Technology (IT) firms, departments, and facilities provides what you need to take charge in today’s most challenging and lucrative IT environments. And lifetime access to the Complete CompTIA Certification Training Bundle is exactly what you need to get the required training and ensuing certifications.

IT trainees have paid as much as $4,329 for this 12-course bundle, but you can get it for a limited time for just $59, or 98% off retail. Learn basic hardware/software fundamentals to integrating today’s smartphones and other mobile devices into modern IT infrastructures, and everything else in between, including: 

• CompTIA A+ 220-901 Certification
• CompTIA A+ 220-902 Certification exam
• CompTIA Cloud Essentials CLO-001
• CompTIA Cloud+
• CompTIA Linux+ XKO-002
• CompTIA Network+ N10-006
• CompTIA CSA+ Certification
• CompTIA Advanced Security Practitioner
• CompTIA Security+ SY0-401
• CompTIA Security+ SY0-501
• CompTIA IT Fundamentals FC0-U51
• CompTIA Mobility+ MB0-001

As you can see, you can learn all the basics, as well as some of today’s more exciting technologies, such as integrating with the cloud, setting up Linux server farms, and adapting all of these technologies to work together. 

One of the impediments to IT training has always been the cost of the training materials. For a limited time, you can get around that, paying about the same as a nice dinner for two, just $59, or 98% off retail.

In the age of cord-cutting, an entirely predictable thing has happened to TiVo’s consumer business.

From 2017 to 2018, TiVo has lost about five percent of its cable-DVR subscriber base, roughly in line with the overall decline of cable TV subscriptions. During the same period, however, TiVo’s over-the-air DVR subscriber base has grown by 10%. That’s been boosted by products like the TiVo Bolt OTA, which can record broadcast channels from an antenna.

Although TiVo has largely become a licensor of software and patents since being acquired by Rovi in 2016, TiVo’s vice president of consumer products and services Ted Malone said that the company remains committed to the consumer business. To that end, the company is working on several new features, including apps for Roku, Apple TV, Fire TV, and Android TV that can access a TiVo box remotely. He also hinted at a potential live TV streaming service and Android-based consumer hardware.

“I would say our business is healthy—it’s profitable—but I would like to see more growth,” Malone said during an interview at CES earlier this month. “I took over the business about a year-and-a-half ago, and I’m pushing to bring more new innovation to consumers.”

TiVo streaming apps

As announced during CES, TiVo will release apps for Roku and Amazon Fire TV devices in the second quarter of this year. Apps for Apple TV and Android TV will follow in the third quarter.

If you have a TiVo that supports transcoding (including the Roamio Pro, Roamio Plus, Bolt, Bolt Vox, and Bolt OTA), these apps will let you stream live and recorded video to another TV, either at home or on the road. For other TiVo devices that lack transcoding, such as the entry-level Roamio or Roamio OTA, you’ll need a separate TiVo Stream box to use the apps.

TiVo

In a demo, the streaming apps looked similar to the menu system on TiVo’s own hardware, but they do have one notable limitation: Video streams will be limited to 720p resolution at 30 frames per second. That means you won’t get the smooth motion of 60-fps video for sports, news, and talk programming, nor will you be able to watch broadcasts in their native MPEG-2 format.

“I want 720p 60 [fps],” Malone said. “I’ve done some internal demos proving that 720p 60 [fps] is actually noticeably better than 720p 30. It’s really a battle for resources and just getting it done.”

Malone said the TiVo hardware can technically support higher-quality streams, but not without dialing back some other capabilities, such as streaming to TiVo Mini Vox boxes. For better or worse, Malone still believes those Minis—which do support MPEG-2 video—are the best way to access TiVo on additional televisions. (Each TiVo Mini costs $180, and wireless connectivity will require an extra $60 adapter that’s coming out later this year.)

“Even with Roku and Apple and Fire TV, the Mini still is a better multi-room solution if you want the same remote, the same performance, the same video quality,” Malone said.

Adding more content

My major complaint with TiVo in recent years is that its app selection is far behind dedicated streaming devices, such as Roku and Fire TV. While TiVo offers several popular apps—including Netflix, Amazon Prime, and HBO Go—it’s missing lots of others, such as Showtime, Starz, Sling TV, Philo, PBS Kids, Crackle, Pluto, and NBA TV. To access those services, you need a separate streaming device, which means you’ll constantly be switching inputs and remotes.

One way to solve that problem might be to migrate the TiVo software over to another platform, like Android TV, which has a much larger selection of streaming apps. In fact, TiVo already offers Android TV-based hardware to cable providers.

Another approach for TiVo would be to offer its own live TV streaming service, similar to what SiliconDust has done with its $35-per-month HDHomeRun Premium TV offering. That way, cord-cutters could keep the DVR experience they had with cable and get more than just over-the-air channels. Malone said TiVo has considered offering such a package.

There’s bad news for anyone buying one of Arlo’s new Ultra 4K cameras: free cloud video storage is gone.

With the new camera, consumers will get a year-long trial of Arlo’s paid cloud storage, but they’ll need to pay for the service if they want to continue it.

That’s disappointing because the constant seven days of free storage currently offered with Arlo’s high-definition range is a key difference between it and competitors like Nest and Ring. It’s also one of the main reasons why TechHive named the Arlo 2 our top pick as the best indoor security camera.

The Arlo Ultra was first shown off at CES in Las Vegas and is already rolling out to stores. It’s the first security camera from a major smart home vendor to feature 4K video streaming, and that means sharper, clearer pictures.

Storing video in the cloud costs Arlo money, of course, and 4K footage will require more space, but it’s disappointing that consumers will now be faced with an upfront bill for the camera and an ongoing monthly charge to get the most from it. To be sure, it won’t be useless without a storage plan, but users will be restricted to live streaming and won’t have the ability to review what’s already happened in the camera’s view, which is one of the key benefits of a video security system.

It’s doubly disappointing because there is another way: Netatmo, a Paris-based smart-home security vendor, doesn’t offer a cloud storage service at all and instead records all video on an microSD card embedded in its Presence outdoor and Welcome indoor cameras.

Users can remotely access that video via a server built into the camera, or they can have the video automatically uploaded to their personal Dropbox or FTP server, putting themselves in complete control.

Arlo actually has a microSD slot on the base station for the new Ultra 4K, but it’s not remotely accessible. You have to physically remove the SD card to access the recordings.

So Arlo decided to pursue one of the favorite business models of cloud and internet companies: a monthly subscription that never ends.

Arlo will charge $2.99 per month per camera, or $9.99 per month for up to ten cameras, and that’s to record in high-definition. 4K video recording costs an additional $1.99 per month per camera. So, a year of 4K recording will cost almost $60 for a single camera.

If you plan to subscribe to Arlo’s cloud service to gain the benefits offered, then none of this matters anyway. Arlo Smart Premier also attempts to analyze video clips to provide better alerts to users. It’s capable, for example, of distinguishing between a person, an animal, or cars, so you might set alerts for only people and ignore others. But it’s once again worth noting that Netamo offers something similar with its Presence camera/security-light combo at no additional cost.

So there are benefits to subscribing beyond cloud storage. It’s just a shame that Arlo is moving towards making a subscription an effective requirement. Arlo did confirm that it has no plans to drop the 7-day free recording on current cameras, so that’s good news.

Samsung’s 970 EVO has always been the fastest of the low-priced NVMe SSDs, and the company’s new 970 EVO Plus, announced Tuesday, further cements that position. Samsung claims up to a 57 percent increase in performance for the Plus over the older 970 EVO. I didn’t see quite that, but sustained writes when the drive was using its SLC cache increased by 10 percent, and jumped by a very welcome 42 percent when writing to the main body of TLC NAND.

Note that the 1TB version will be the first out the gate. The 2TB version in the photos will be available later. 

Design and specs

The 970 EVO Plus is basically the same drive as the 970 Evo, using the same 64-layer stacked TLC (Triple Level Cell/3-bit) NAND and Phoenix controller with improved firmware. Note that Samsung refers to the NAND not as TLC, but as 3-bit MLC V-NAND (vertical). MLC (Multi-Level Cell) was a poorly conceived moniker that became associated strictly with 2-bit NAND, but obviously can be applied to any type of NAND that stores more than one bit per cell. 

The 970 EVO Plus is available in 250GB, 500GB (the capacity we tested), and 1TB flavors for a $90, $130, and $250, respectively. At 25 cents per gigabyte in the largest capacity, and a little bit more in the lesser capacities, those are good prices. There are 1TB PCIe x4 NVMe drives out there that are pushing the 15-cent mark, though without delivering the same level of performance.

Samsung

The 970 EVO Plus carries a nice five-year warranty and is rated for 150TBW (TeraBytes Written) per 250GB of capacity over the life of the drive. Don’t be surprised if you don’t hit that write figure even in 10 years, or if the drive lasts longer than that. It’s been quite a while since I saw an SSD fail, and I’ve yet to write enough data to one for it to lose capacity. 

Samsung also claims that the 970 EVO Plus is more power-efficient than its predecessor, though that’s something that generally only interests pros who run lots of them in arrays or servers. 

Performance

The 970 EVO Plus (green bars) is indeed quite a bit faster than the plain EVO (gold bars) in several ways, especially with sustained writes to the main body of NAND and 4K writes when lots of queues are in play. Note that the numbers below are from the 500GB drive we tested. The plain copy test times will vary according to capacity, due to different cache sizes and other related factors.

IDG

While CrystalDiskMark 6 rated the older EVO as a faster reader than the Plus, it also showed a significant advantage for the Plus when it came to writing. Note that these speeds are with caching in play. See the next section for info on what happens when the EVO Plus runs out of cache.

IDG

The AS SSD 2 benchmark showed a huge improvement in small block 4K write performance for the EVO Plus over the plain EVO. So much so that we tested and cross-checked twice to confirm what we were seeing.

IDG

Our 48GB copy tests bore out the CrystalDiskMark and AS SSD results, though less dramatically. The drive is faster, so given the same price, definitely go for the EVO Plus. Or of course the 970 Pro, which, while considerably more expensive, suffers no performance drop-off during long writes.

Performance caveats

One thing to note about the performance is that 3-bit NAND, when written natively as such (it can be treated as 1-bit or 2-bit NAND with a corresponding increase in performance), isn’t all that fast. Once cache has run out, performance on all TLC drives drops. I’ve seen as low as 90MBps, but that’s rare anymore (except for 4-bit QLC–see the 860 QVO review). The 970 EVO Plus drops only to about 850MBps, which is still nearly twice as fast as a SATA SSD. That’s also about 200MBps faster than the older 970 EVO when it runs out of cache.

IDG

But cache size generally varies according to the capacity of the drive. The 500GB 970 Plus I tested ran out of it at around the 20GB to 30GB mark during a long write. Though I didn’t have the other capacities to test, it’s quite likely that the 250GB drive’s speed will drop at around 10GB mark, and the 1TB drive’s at around 40GB to 50GB. There is some smart caching going on (Samsung calls it “Intelligent TurboWrite”), so exactly when you run out might vary according to how full the drive is, or how much data you are writing.

Not many users will write outside of the cache very often, and 850MBps is still a pretty fair transfer rate. But if you don’t want to see this kind of drop, you’ll need something like the 970 Pro, or WD’s Black NVMe.

Conclusion

The 970 EVO Plus is more affordable than ever, and will run like a champ the vast majority of the time. Even when it drops out of cache, 850MBps isn’t going to cause you much buyer remorse. If you want something better than bargain-basement (which is still pretty fast in the grand storage scheme), the the 970 EVO Plus is what you’re looking for.