How to set up a Plex server on your Nvidia Shield TV?

So, you might’ve decided to run a Plex server on the Nvidia Shield. Nvidia has been making variants of the Shield Android TV box for seven years now, and it has turned into a powerful, feature-rich media streamer. It has the ability to stream almost any type of media to your TV, even fancy uncompressed audio formats. On top of that, it can also serve up media for your other devices with the built-in Plex server. The setup is not too complex, however, there are a few things you need to know.

Requirements to set up plex server?

Before we tell you how to set up the Shield as a Plex server, we need to tell you all the things you’ll need. First, you have to make sure you have the right Shield. The base model Shield TV, which is shaped like a tube sadly won’t make the cut, as it runs 32-bit apps, thus, is not compatible with the Plex server. You need a previous-gen Shield. Or, you need the current-gen Pro model.

Unlike a few previous versions of the Shield Pro, the current one has only 16GB of internal storage. If you are going to run a Plex Server, you will probably want to add external storage. For most models, that means you have to use a USB flash drive or you have to use an external hard drive. The current Shield has two USB 3.0 ports, while some older versions also have a microSD card slot. You can mount network storage for Plex; however, this also introduces another potential point of failure.

Last but not the least, you need to have a reliable network connection to the box. If this is an Ethernet cable, it would be ideal.

How to Enable the plex server?

If you never launched Plex on your Shield, it will offer you to enable the Plex server. You can take its offer to save a few clicks, however, you should visit the Play Store before you begin. For some unknown reason, the media server package sometimes happens to be out-of-date even when auto-update is enabled. It’s a good idea to ensure you aren’t running an older version before you try using the server. The majority of the problems with connection are because of the users using an outdated app.

To toggle the server on (or off), you have to open the Plex app, then scroll down toward the bottom of the settings. Under “Plex Media Server” you have the ability to enable or disable the server, or you can also change the storage location. The Shield is a capable streaming box; however, it cannot be called ideal for configuring libraries and managing settings. The best way to manage your server is to visit the Plex web interface from a computer. You have to make sure you’re signed in with the same Google account as your Shield, then the server will be accessible.

Store and access your media

After you are done with the setup process, you should give the default settings a view. The Shield is tuned for transcoding on the fly, however, you probably would not want everything down-sampled to 720p. It is advised to always set the default streaming to original quality, so you can directly play uncompressed media. You can always manually set the streaming quality if you happen to have a poor connection.

With the server online, you can install Plex on all of your devices, be it, phones, tablets, TVs, as well as lesser streaming boxes. They all will connect to your Shield to stream your content; it’ll work even if the Shield is asleep. Note – The server may take some time to wake up if you point the Plex library to a network storage location.

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