Nvidia says Defend TV is not going wherever, however its future stays unclear

If you consider a streaming system, the very first thing that most likely involves thoughts is one thing like a Fireplace TV Stick, Roku, Apple TV, or perhaps even a Google TV streamer. However for Android TV followers and energy customers particularly, one system that possible springs to thoughts is the Nvidia Shield TV.

Nvidia launched the primary Defend TV in 2015, and because of its Tegra X1 chipset and 3GB of RAM, it rapidly earned a popularity as a streaming and gaming powerhouse. In 2017, Nvidia refreshed the Defend TV for the primary time. Then, in 2019, it launched two new fashions which can be nonetheless the most recent to today: the Defend TV and Defend 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 Defend 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 Defend, saying, “We discuss it on a regular basis — I would like to.”

Nvidia will preserve supporting Defend TV with updates

What may a future Defend TV appear to be?

Credit score: Nvidia

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

“Regardless of how a lot we drop the worth 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 Defend,” Bell instructed Ars Technica.

And whereas he stopped in need of confirming {that a} new Defend TV is in improvement, Bell mentioned they’ve explored new concepts and ideas about what a future Defend might be like, and that if the group finds one thing they’re enthusiastic about, they’re going to “most likely make a go of it.” So not less than there’s nonetheless a motive to be hopeful about the way forward for Defend TV.

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

One other function Bell teased for a future Nvidia Defend TV is decreasing the scale of the Netflix button on the distant, which is at the moment quite massive and the one streaming service with a shortcut on the distant.

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