Nvidia says Protect TV is not going anyplace, however its future stays unclear

Whenever you consider a streaming gadget, the very first thing that in all probability involves thoughts is one thing like a Hearth TV Stick, Roku, Apple TV, or perhaps even a Google TV streamer. However for Android TV followers and energy customers particularly, one gadget that seemingly springs to thoughts is the Nvidia Shield TV.

Nvidia launched the primary Protect TV in 2015, and due to its Tegra X1 chipset and 3GB of RAM, it rapidly earned a fame as a streaming and gaming powerhouse. In 2017, Nvidia refreshed the Protect TV for the primary time. Then, in 2019, it launched two new fashions which can be nonetheless the newest to this present day: the Protect TV and Protect TV Professional, each packing the upgraded Tegra X1+ chipset.

Within the six years since then, there’s been intensive hypothesis about when, or if, Nvidia will launch one other Protect TV. And it appears, Nvidia is not positive both.

In a latest interview with Ars Technica, Nvidia’s senior VP of {hardware} engineering, Andrew Bell, neither confirmed nor dominated out a brand new Nvidia Protect, saying, “We discuss it on a regular basis — I might like to.”

Nvidia will preserve supporting Protect TV with updates

What may a future Protect TV seem like?

Credit score: Nvidia

Whereas a brand new Nvidia Protect TV continues to be very a lot up within the air, Bell did verify that Nvidia has no plans to cease producing or updating the present Protect fashions “any time quickly.” He additionally defined that one of many principal causes Nvidia continues to be making the 2019 Protect is easy: folks preserve shopping for it, even six years after its launch.

“Regardless of how a lot we drop the value or how a lot we market or do not promote it, the identical variety of folks come out of the woodwork each week to purchase Protect,” Bell informed Ars Technica.

And whereas he stopped in need of confirming {that a} new Protect TV is in growth, Bell mentioned they’ve explored new concepts and ideas about what a future Protect might be like, and that if the group finds one thing they’re enthusiastic about, they’re going to “in all probability make a go of it.” So no less than there’s nonetheless a motive to be hopeful about the way forward for Protect TV.

Talking of what that future may seem like, although, Bell did tease a number of the potential focuses, resembling assist for newer media codecs, like VP9 Profile 2 {hardware} decoding, which helps you to watch YouTube movies in HDR, and improved assist for codecs like AV1 and HDR10+.

One other function Bell teased for a future Nvidia Protect TV is decreasing the scale of the Netflix button on the distant, which is at present moderately giant and the one streaming service with a shortcut on the distant.

General, whereas a brand new Nvidia Protect is not totally off the desk, Nvidia nonetheless seems content material to proceed producing and updating the 2019 fashions for now. Which, amid the AI growth and RAM shortage, is not totally shocking for Nvidia to do.