We have been looking into ways to make it easier for new users to set up a DVR, without having to buy a full fledged NAS.
Currently the main alternative to a NAS is the SHIELD Pro. With the latest DVR pre-release build, we've expanded support for all types of Android TV devices. This includes the (non-Pro) SHIELD Tube, the new TiVo Stream 4K, and other Android TV devices like sound bars and televisions.
Since hardware specs vary so much across the Android ecosystem, this is very much experimental. We are hoping to learn from the community about which devices works well and which do not.
NVIDIA has always made great CPUs and GPUs in-house, so my guess is that the Tube will make a good DVR. The Amlogic S905Y2 (quad-core 1.8ghz) used in the ADT-3 and the TiVo Stream 4K is also quite snappy and works surprisingly well. Of course older televisions and devices (which are already sluggish) will not provide a good experience as a DVR server. But newer devices with latest CPUs are becoming quite competitive.
I will share my experience on the TiVo streamer:
- installed DVR server directly from Play store, then upgraded to pre-release
- plugged in a USB-C hub and attached a flash drive
- selected flash drive storage during setup (shows up as
XXXX-XXXX
; files will automatically be stored in anAndroid/data/com.getchannels.dvr
directory on the drive due to android restrictions) - was able to add my TVE provider (YTTV not supported- same as SHIELD)
- hardware transcoding at ~50fps; works well for 30fps content
- commercial detection on a 2h mpeg2 recording took 44 minutes
- commercial detection on a 30min h264 recording took 20 minutes