Advice on best DVR server for com skip and low maintenance setup?

Channels DVR Server
#1

If anyone could offer advice on what DVR server to invest in given my needs, I would mightily appreciate it. I’ve seen responses to similar requests indicate that it depends on specific needs/desires/home network context, so I’m giving lots of context.

I have two Apple TV’s on my two TVs and do not expect needing more TV screens in the near future. I also have one TiVo 4K streamer, and am happy to get another. I tend to prefer the TiVo 4K remote over the annoying Apple TV remote (iOS remote I find easier than the physical one). I saw somewhere one might reprogram this TiVo 4K remote for Channels—how complicated is that with entry level technical skills?

I’m willing to invest in hardware, but probably not Mac mini M1-level investment (about $700). I could handle the raspberry PI setup, but I worry about it not having enough power for the sort of commercial skipping experience I’m after.

I hate commercials and I often want to watch Bravo and VH1 live, or almost live (starting a few minutes after it’s started) with the ability to fast forward through commercials. Sling Air tv drove me crazy with unsynced audio after fast forwarding. I’m not so invested in keeping recordings for the long run.

Planning to invest in the HD Homerun Quattro and already have antennas for my two TVs. Also going to check out Locast. Already have a 2TB WD drive I used with Sling Air Tv—but didn’t like the UI or commercial experience.

Have 100 mps cable internet, willing to upgrade to 200 if that helps with transcoding and/or general Channels functionality.

In order to get both Bravo and VH1 on TVE, it looks like I may need both Philo and Sling Blue. Hated Sling’s commercials but hoping to avoid them in a more user friendly way via recorded TVE streams via Channels DVR. Might be able to get access to my parents cable TVE.

I want something that works well without lots of maintenance and troubleshooting.

Nvdea Shield?
Raspberry pi?
2012 Mac mini?
Something else?
Bite the bullet on a Mac mini M1 bc it’s gonna be better than TiVo in the long run?

What would you recommend? Thank you :slight_smile:

#2

Channels won't start the commercial skip process until after a recording is complete, so no hardware investment will give you what you want on that front.

it's not quite linear, but the amount you spend will mean that comskip is that much faster, within reason.

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#3

I also wanted low maintenance along with low power consumption. I was most comfortable in a Windows environment. I could have figured other installs out but ultimately I went with Windows on an Intel NUC6CAYH, 8gb RAM, 2tb drive dedicated to Channels running for a year now with no issues. This is an older/slower NUC that I picked up for $110. I had the drive and added the RAM for $40. Comm skip usually completes 10-15 minutes after the recording ends. My needs are pretty simple This just runs with only an occasional reboot usually because MS pushed an update.

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#4

if the OP needed more horsepower, a NUC would be a great choice. I'm running the RPI4 dedicated channels build, and it's been nearly flawless since go-live.

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#5

Thanks so much @hancox for clarifying that no hardware will change the fact that Channels will only begin processing com skip after the recording is complete. I have two follow up questions:

Re: Your observation about the speed that com skip operates at depends roughly on how much you spend—does this mean that pricier/better hardware will process a completed recording faster than less pricier hardware? (I’m going to search for threads on average speed because I’m curious whether it’s a difference of 5 vs 20 minutes vs. 1 hour and if so what hardware averages what).

Second, does hardware quality impact the quality of the experience of watching something live that started 20 minutes ago (this is possible with Channels Plus DVR, right?) and fast-forwarding through commercials?

#6

Short answer on comskip - yes, better/more modern hardware will do better. So many variables on comskip timing - recording type (OTA mpeg2 vs TVE of varying flavors), number of cores, etc etc etc. Honestly, you'll drive yourself mad researching it.

Just for example - my rPi4, which is at the very lower end of CPU horsepower for this, can go anywhere from 50% of time to 25% of time to run, depending on recording type. (50% of time meaning a 1 hour recording will take 30 mins to process, in this case). That being said, i've started throwing 2 cores at this, so let's see if that helps.

i think you can get this down into the low single digits (i.e. <5%) on the newest hardware, but at the cost of much more $, and much more power consumption.

I would focus much more on your lack-of-maintenance wish, as that will drive you to a platform.

Thankfully, your second question is easier - the live experience is great, regardless of platform. Even my pi keeps up with all of my live watching, with all the rew/ff i can throw at it. I would say the client is a much bigger variable on the live tv side. ATV4k is great. The 4k Fire Sticks are a small notch down, but not much.

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#7

Channels does not store anything like a buffer for all live tv programs or do live on the fly comerical detect. So there is no way to watch the first 20 min of a "live" program that is already airing. If you want that, you need to look to a cloud streaming service like Philo.

The pause live tv buffer is stored on each client device, not the server.
So, if you started a live stream of a channel, it starts live, and if you paused it, then that buffer is stored on the client device. How long you can pause depends on how much internal storage space it has free. Devices with very low free storage, like those Firesticks or ChromeCast with Google TV, or even a TS4K Stream have very low available storage, and will have a short pause buffer. How well it plays back the buffer, would be the same as how it handels the normal stream. What hardware your server has would make no effect on this use case.

#8

Generally input / output (i/o) is the biggest bottleneck of most computer processing.

So comskip is reading and writing files, to reduce overall time, fast i/o will help - so try to configure whatever box you use with SSD. ( I am sure comskip is doing a fair amount of processing work too so fast i/o is only part of the picture. )

Also in general - SSD will use either a SATA interface or PCI type and PCI (NVMe) can be 4x to 6x or more times faster than SATA.

The RPi4 supports USB3 and can support roughly 500MB/s via SATA SSD which is very good ( or about 120MB/s SATA spinning disk - not as good but way better than an SD card)

A older Mac Mini upgraded with a SATA SSD can be expected to be faster than a RPi4. (choice of OS either MacOS or Linux or maybe Windows).

A more recent (refurb?) (mini?) PC with a NVMe SSD will likely be faster for comskip than either the RPi4 or older Mac Mini (choice of OS Windows 10 home or pro, or Linux)

I don’t know about MacOS or Linux maintenance but Windows 10 Pro allows more control over timing of updates than Windows 10 Home so Pro can be lower maintenance than the Home version.

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#9

I've got a 2012 Mac Mini and its pretty fast and pretty minimal maintenance. Its certainly less maintenance than my NAS boxes which are a constant worry about malware now. You know the Mac will be secure and "just work". Once setup to run headless, it just runs. The M1 Mac Mini will be where I go if the 2012 one ever has any problems.

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#10

Synology 220+ NAS. Channels and Infuse work very well with my ATVs.

#11

Welcome to the community. I think this thread is pretty extensive, but if you’re looking for something affordable, I agree that a NUC might be good to consider. I went M1 from 2012 i7 Mac mini, but I also use it for photo backup and other things.

#12

Apple's M1 chip has been discovered, indicating that malware authors have begun adapting malicious software for Apple's new generation of Macs with Apple silicon.