[Update: March 29] Hulu app on NVIDIA Shield TV finally upgrades from 720p (HD) to support 1080p video streaming - in 2021

New updates are being added at the bottom of this story…….

Original story (published on March 25, 2021) follows:

The NVIDIA Shield TV series remains de facto the best streaming device in the Android world today. This is not just about the elongated software updates, but also what you get.

The latest editions that came out in 2019, for instance, have this highlight feature known as AI upscaling.

With this feature, the Shield TV 2019 is able to take advantage of on-device AI to upscale or rather up-convert HD (720p) and full HD (1080p) content into, well, 4K-like images.

This is perhaps the reason plenty of Hulu subscribers using the 2019 Shield TV are surprised with the latest development to the Android TV app.

As spotted by a Redditor, it appears the most recent update to the Hulu app on Android TV injected a small change into the app that finally brings support for 1080p video streaming.

It might come as a surprise to some Hulu users on Nvidia Shield TV 2019 units that support for 1080p video streaming is only arriving now.

Oh wow, I didn’t even realize I was watching 720p on Hulu 😆
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I had no idea this whole time it was only 720p, but in hindsight HBO Netflix Disney and Amazon all look much better.
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I’ve always thought video on Hulu looked like crap. Never knew this was the reason.
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Well, I’m sorry to break it to you that yeah, all this time you’ve been streaming 720p (HD) content on the Shield TV 2019. But you didn’t notice thanks to the aforementioned AI upscaling feature.

The change is likely part of the recent update to the Hulu app version 3.8.242, whose changelog only mentions “Miscellaneous bug fixes” and nothing about 1080p streaming on the Shield TV.

It must also be noted that support for 1080p streaming is likely limited to the Hulu app on the 2019 Shield TV models. Apparently, the 2017 models are still streaming in 720p.

Looks like only the 2019 Model Shield’s got the upgrade. 2017 Model is stuck at 1280×720 Max Resolution.

Sure, it’s good to see new features being added to the services we use, but 720p and 1080p are still not good enough, especially in 2021 where 8K streaming is already a thing.

In comparison, other services like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+, HBO Max, Movies Anywhere and YouTube already support up to 4K streaming on the Shield TV. So yeah, Hulu still has some catching up to do.

It is now emerging that not only did the Hulu app gain support for 1080p streaming on the Shield TV, but also up to 4K support on some Android TV models too.

Interesting. I have up to 4K 60 FPS on my 2017 Sony Android TV.

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