A Bug And An Enhancement Request

Channels Apple TV
#1

Been using the Channels DVR app on an Apple TV 4K for about a week.

There is a bug that sometimes shows up during a commercial break. Or two, maybe. In the first instance the on-screen "commercial skip" notification would not dismiss. Had to quit either the channel we were watching or the app, don't recall which, to make it go away. In the second instance, which happened last night, the "commercial skip" notification popped-up, but hitting "select" would not skip the commercial. When I fast-forwarded the notification remained and the progress bar would not show up. Again: Had to quit the channel or app, again I forget which , to fix the problem. This one was on the last commercial segment of the program.

The enhancement request is this: A setting to disable commercial skip back/forward by double-clicking right or left. Reason being is the IR remotes we're using stream out repeated commands on these buttons so fast it's trivially easy to accidentally "double-click" them. That wouldn't be a problem if commercial detection was 100%, but it's not. Had a heckuva time one evening, there having been program content in the middle of the detected commercial space, and finally settled for just waiting through the commercial.

Actually, I have three things: After having used Channels on Android TV and Fire TV, both my wife and I agree the UI/layout was better on those than that on the Apple TV.

#2

If comskip has erroneously identified a portion of the program as a commercial, the skip button will show throughout the section. Is that what you are experiencing perhaps?

As for selecting the skip commercial button, they recently fixed it where even with infrared remotes the select button should work. Alternatively, try the skip forward button (not FF).

#3

Yes, that is one of the problems. Because the skip button is showing, the progress bar is not. So you can't tell where you are.

It happened, once or twice, where clicking on "select" did nothing. Both times at the end of a program, I believe. The FF and REW buttons on our IR remotes do nothing in Channels, though they do in, for example, Netflix and Amazon Prime Video.

#4

Clicking “back” equivalent on your remote will dismiss them button.

There’s also a bug on the release version that shows the skip commercial button in the last segment when the last segment is indexed as a commercial break. It should not show. This is fixed in the available beta.

Channels will not skip through a commercial break if it’s the last segment of the show. That’s why the button won’t work. Again, it shouldn’t even be showing.

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