zidooZ9X PRO 4K HDR Media Player, 4K Android TV Box, Android 11 OS, RTD1619BPD Quad-core 64bit Processor 4G+32G, VS10 Image Quality Engine, HDR10+MKV, for Video & Audio Playback

After deciding to replace my ODroid media player, I spent months and months researching what could handle what, and finally landed on the Zidoo Z9X Pro. This monster spent months out of stock, and so when I did finally device this was the was I was going to go, I spent at least three months watching Amazon's page to see if it ever came back in. It did, I bought it, and I must say, I'm very impressed.This AndroidTV-based media player has so far taken everything I can throw at it, including handling Dolby Vision, which was a big selling point with me, as was being able to play a full disc backup with Java menu support - if I design a bluray menu in Java, and export it, I can now test it real-world, instead of just seeing how it looks in the authoring software. Yes! Yes! Yes!Network support, wifi support, Dolby Vision support, external drive support.. This little device has it all in a very well produced metal enclosure that never gets too warm to the touch. The manufacturing feels very solid, very crisp, and very clean: never once would I even think of refering to this as "the Temu version of a media player."My only gripe, assuming I had one, would be that the menus aren't exactly customizable. No theme support, no ability to remove the stuff I don't use. But, considering what I'm getting in this fine $200ish package, I'm pretty okay with it. We use this as the daily driver for all media in the house, watching everything from TV shows to 4K movies on it, and haven't had a glitch anywhere.Highly recommended.

At the end of last year, I set up a NAS to stream movies so I wouldn't have to mess with finding the right disk. I was originally using jellyfin to manage the streaming, but I had a lot of issues (sound playing in the wrong language, subtitles not working). So I gave up on that and bought the zidoo instead.Setup was a breeze and I don't have any of the issues I was having with jellyfin. It does have trouble sometimes with figuring out the movie metadata; I've had a number of movies where either it showed as the wrong movie or it didn't find anything at all. Fortunately, it's easy to log in to the device from my desktop and search for the correct metadata. I think part of the issue is that many of the movie filenames have underscores rather than spaces and the software doesn't seem to work without spaces.Using it, my main complaint is the remote; everything is very dark and it's difficult to find the button I want, especially when I'm using my projector and have the lights down low. I end up turning on lights just so I can find the button I want. I've also had a few occasions where I got stuck in a field on the settings screen and couldn't get out. If the remote and settings were just a little easier to use, this would be a five star device.Overall? It's kind of expensive for a device that's just replacing a free app, but for my use case it works better than anything else I tried, and it's not too expensive compared to the cost of the NAS and the movies themselves. I wish the remote was better (I'm probably going to end up looking for a universal remote that can work with it) but other than that I'm pretty happy with the purchase.

First off, this needs to be said because any negative review of this product seems to stem from its incompatibility with streaming services. The Zidoo is NOT meant to be used as a streaming service box. It is meant for local streaming. If you know anything about what you’re buying and care and know enough about high fidelity A/V, you should know this going in. If you want a box to play your compressed, bitrate starved streaming services, buy a Shield. Onto the review: this is the best local media playback device in it’s class that money can buy. Period, end of story. Having used a Shield for many years thinking it was the best (for awhile it was) I can tell you that the both the audio and video playback quality of the Zidoo blows the Shield so far out of the water it’s an embarrassment for Nvidia. I felt like I was watching my content for the first time, and truly HEARING the punch of the soundtracks and scores of my films for the first time ever. I didn’t even realize how much the shield was destroying the fidelity of the audio of my films until I bought the Zidoo. This box plays every audio and format under the sun flawlessly, full Dolby Vision support in MKV including P7 FEL, and besides the OPPO it is the definitive way to experience Dolby Vision content. The VS10 engine and industry standard Realtek SOC are a force to be reckoned with. None of the horrific red push that the Shield delivers with DV content, and best of all the Zidoo fully supports TV Led DV. The UI and software do leave some things to be desired, especially for those with large libraries and the scraper for the Home Theater app needs drastic improvement, but the Zidoo team is constantly working and improving the product with new beta firmwares out usually every few weeks, plus since the OS is very much open source there are people in the community doing wonderful things with Jellyfin and Emby integration. If you have been looking for the best way to play your media files in the highest fidelity possible without spending thousands on a player, look no further, this little box is a powerhouse. Even if you already own a shield and are serious about local media playback, this is a worthy and in my opinion, necessary addition to your setup. Keep the shield for streaming, but hook the Zidoo up to your NAS or SMB shares and enjoy your media to its fullest potential