If your Nvidia Shield is currently your Channels DVR, no reason you can't continue using it as the DVR.
Not sure where your Synology comes into play, but you could use it as the DVR.
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You can have both connected to view as long as you have HDMI ports. As a matter of fact, you can have as many clients as you want.
I believe he is using the Shield as a Client.
Thanks everyone for the replies.
I would like to be able to use the Shield and the Apple TV- not at the same time- each would be selected via the home theater receiver. I think I have 7 or 8 HDMI ports, unfortunately they are only 1080P. Its an old Onkyo 5008 receiver. My TV will do 4k, and the receiver is really my weak point.
Is it true that the Channels DVR works better on the Apple TV?
My experience has been great with the Apple TV. I just ordered the newer one even though I probably don't need it since the current works fine.
I used the Shield for years and I haven't regretted getting the Apple TV.
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Does your receiver have ARC? if so you can connect your ATV to the TV directly and then have the audio via ARC. then you won't be relegated to 1080p.
BTW u will love ATV. I have a shield sitting on my shelf and I honestly couldn't stand it. Horrible device in my opinion.
This is something I posted a while back. It may help you optimize things a bit more and will hopefully save you some hassle.
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Agree with what @slampman said. I loved my nvidia shield. But decided to try the Apple TV 4k second edition. Didn't go back. Once the 9.0 version on the nvidia shield happened. Had all kinds of problems with it. I now have the 2022 version of the Apple TV in the living room. Its faster but mainly to install things or play games. Everything else is a little faster but I wouldn't say OMG its fast. Its just faster. Also hope you got the one with the ethernet port. The wireless one just doesn't seem worth saving $20 over.
I did have nivdia shield and apple tv on my receiver for a very long time too. Just switch inputs. Retired the shield after two months of using the Apple TV.
I Still have my Original 500 GB Shield ... it is a workhorse and great Game Emulator.... The Shield does have one advantage over all other streamers and that is the Audio output... It does make for a great emergency backup Channels dvr server.... So don't totally give up on it.
Thanks for suggesting ARC- That sounded like a brilliant solution, I'm about 6 hours into trying to get it to work. I have done a bit of light reading on the subject and it seems to be very confusing. I have read that Samsung has done a botched job with ARC on their TV's. I have the QN65Q90RA TV and a Onkyo 5008 receiver that has a ARC HDMI input. And of course the Apple TV 2022 model.
The Onkyo is 2010 vintage- it's had a long life, and even had the HDMI audio issue that was repaired under warranty.
It may be time to let this receiver pass quietly into retirement. It looks like my local Best Buy has the Denon X3800H in stock today. I'm thinking I may go have a look- who knows, the Denon may follow me home.
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Thank you- it's always nice when something works without any trouble. This was a smooth easy process to move to the Apple TV.
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Looks to be a nice receiver. Trying to hold out from doing that upgrade until QMS VRR is released. But my understanding is that new TVs will only have this option. Not sure how that would work with receivers or if that is no big deal and it just pass it through to your tv.
I have finally located and purchased the Denon 3800H. It involved driving 250 Miles round trip to a neighboring state. I purchased is from Best Buy- they are truly miserable to deal with. Given the distance involved driving 250 Miles, it would have been nice to have been able to call the store and have a associate physically verify the unit was in stock- sadly those days are long gone- all telephone calls go to national support, you can't call the stores. They truly are miserable to deal with.
On a more positive note- I'm loving the Apple TV. It is a much smoother experience compared to the Nvidia Shield.
The Denon 3800H works correctly with the ARC audio and setup was a lot easier than the old Onkyo 5008. UI design has came a long way.
The Denon must really like you if it followed you 125 miles home!
I was not familiar with the term "QMS VRR"
I did a quick search and found this:
Initial reviews of the new Apple TV 4K highlighted that Apple will add support for Quick Media Switching Variable Refresh Rate (QMS VRR) via a software update to tvOS.
QMS VRR prevents momentary blackouts that occur when switching between content playing in different frame rates.
How many TVs work with QMS VRR, you ask? Well, zero at the moment. But you'll start seeing them hit the market next year; stay tuned for more news about this feature at CES.
It is worth noting that QMS VRR does not prevent blackouts when switching between color spaces or HDR content. The new video quality feature is set to be added via a software update to tvOS.
Yup. Its pretty cool. I have an LG oled from 2017 (OLED65E7P). Great tv but doesn't have any of the new features that I could take advantage of with my xbox. I am hoping to start looking at upgrading my devices in 2023. Just all depends on what is available. Also I didn't know what QMS was about either until someone talked about it for the latest apple tv. I was playing around with the settings that caused the black out screen switch. Just couldn't stand is so I said forget it not worth it for now. I held off on getting a new AVR because I wanted all the hdmi ports to be 2.1. I made that mistake long time ago when I get an AVR that had one newer HDMI port and the rest the older version. Ended up buying another AVR down the road because of it. Glad your new setup is working better for you.
That is aweosme! I'm glad it worked out for you and that you got ARC working. You will never miss the shield at all 
I got the ATV4K 2nd Gen and been using it for almost a year by now. and I personally regret buying it.
it might be a great device if you stream movies from streaming services such as Netflix, Amazon Prime, etc. but it is almost useless if you try streaming your own media. for example, I stream Using Kodi
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it doesn't Support HDR on Kodi (Kodi for TVoS doesn't support HDR), so all my HDR movies would play on SDR.
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it doesn't support Dolby Ture-HD let alone Dolby Atmos encoded as part of the True-HD (i.e. BlueRay content) or Kodi or external Media, it will always decode it as 5.1 only. playback.
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no support for DTS of any flavor (ATV will decode it as 5.1 PCM).
4.passthrough sound doesn't work , your ATV will always decode your media to 5.1, then transmit it to your AV receiver as 5.1 PCM All Chnl.
- you can't Install a VPN client on the ATV, hence you can't fool Netflix and other streaming services on your region to get better content library.
if i had know all this I would never buy the ATV. Apple pretty much jails you with their TVoS.
if you thinking of getting ATV and you planning also to stream external media and/or Kodi and you have a good sound system setup at your listening area, I would highly suggest staying away from Apple TV. having said that, if you planning on streaming only from traditionally streaming services, then it's a great device (assuming you not planning changing your region with a VPN or a DNS proxy, service, etc.)
There is no official or supported way to install Kodi onto an Apple TV. The closest approximation is the MrMC app, which is a forked version of Kodi that does not fully support all of Kodi's features. If your primary use-case is Kodi, why on Earth would you choose Apple TV; your best option is a small PC running Linux or any of the JEOS projects custom-built for Kodi.
(Until I switched to Channels, that is exactly what I did ... small HTPC with IR input running Kodi with media served from Tvheadend and a NAS, and shared media libraries with a local database server.)
If your media streaming is based upon illegal rights circumvention, then of course Apple is not the platform to consider.
The Apple TV does not support True-HD, and never has. Other "atmospheric", 7.1, or 5.2.1 content is supported, even Dolby Atmos. (But not True-HD content encoded as Dolby Atmos.) And support for pass through audio content has more to do with app itself—Kodi—than the platform.
Yes, Apple has always had a closed ecosystem. However, I have no problems with external media support from other apps; Plex and Channels do a great job of delivering my saved content to devices both in-home and remotely, to both Android and Apple clients.
Also, the UX for streaming services in Apple devices always seems to be FAR superior on Apple than Android.
However, if the bar that must be met is whether you can full system access to the device itself—system access and user "freedom" (however you wish to define the word, including making illicit activities easier)—then you are better served with an Android device you can hack.
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You can always install the VPN on your router if the router will support it.
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@ racameron, Everything you are saying is correct, but it doesn't change or contradict my point/message I am trying to relay/point out.
My point is/was very simple: if your use case is media streaming only through traditional streaming services out of the box, then ATV will do great.
However, if you are planning using other streaming methods in addition to the traditional streaming services, such as Kodi, ATV is not a good choice for you due to it's heavy limitations and customizations you would have to do to gain some of the audio/video support. hence, I would stay away from Apple device in those use cases.and your best bet would be "Nvidia Shield" as it has the most versatile audio/video support out of all streamer devices up to today.
@ ChannelMan99, yes that is an option, but it's another device/capability you need to have a dependency on.
Also it is important to note that most routers that do support VPN , support only OpenVPN and/or VPN providers support only OpenVPN for routers. OpenVPN is very slow compared to IKEA or Wireguard and requires a lot of processing power from your router to get reasonable speeds. so you won't get much VPN streaming speed, unless you opt to a much more powerful and expensive router and that adds more to your overall costs which makes ATV not so worthwhile, financially.