Add Ability to import videos from other sources

[JamesCoons]

Channels DVR is far better than Plex for recording streams from HdHomeRun. Now if you could Add a few features that Plex has such as ability to import other videos not recorded by Channels you would get a lot more market share.

[KFStein]

I recently moved from SageTV and still have a few hundred recordings there, (we've recorded lots of reruns of things like The Simpsons just to have around for occasional viewing). I can run a renamer to get them in the convention used by Channels. It would be great if there was some way to get them in the DB and marked as recorded.

[Joshua_Moore]

There are several threads about this...It’s a popular request and would definitely be a Plex killer.

I have Plex installed and have the full “Bells and Whistles” Plex Pass Lifetime Package but I really hate the live tv integration and some of the other clutter on the interface - I don’t use it. The only positive is that it’s available on everything. My kids use it on their 2016 24” TVs; it’s one of the few apps available on it. I’d gladly add a few more Apple TVs to the house though if/when they add these features.

[Robert_Dobbs]

Every time I hit the update button I'm hoping this feature will be in there!

[Pokemon_Dad]

It can import movies now. See this thread: Imports? This is a very alpha feature hiding in the beta releases. To get a beta build, press and hold the Update button in the web UI.

[Robert_Dobbs]

I'm speaking to the ability to add TV recordings from Plex DVR and/or TV shows ripped from DVD.

[Pokemon_Dad]

Ah, sorry, as the OP here requested "other videos", that was not clear. I've imported a few TV shows and obscure movies that are not yet supported. Thumbnails were generated for some views, but in general they do not look right in some views. Importing a whole Plex directory of TV shows would probably be a mess, but I'm sure this feature will get finished eventually.

[Robert_Dobbs]

Oh, interesting! How did you go about importing them? Through the UI or did you just copy the files to the recording path?

[Pokemon_Dad]

I put them in the directory I'd selected for Local Content / Movie Sources.

[Kryptonyte]

I imported some DJI 4k drone videos using direction from this thread:

Beta: Videos Section

As we move past finally having the ability to edit metadata on items in our library, this gives way to let us finally import random un-scrapable videos into our Channels library. Concerts, sport events, home videos, internet videos, etc can now be added to Channels. But these videos are not necessarily Movies or TV shows. So today we're putting them into their own section. Videos. How it works You can now import these videos with a new type in your Local Content settings: Videos. Videos will…

It worked perfectly, what a great addition to the software, thank you! It's fantastic watching full 4k video like this locally with the Firestick 4k MAX on an oled TV.