My understanding is that they are. I'm staying with TE3 myself, for several reasons.
These are already part of the DVR when you use TVE.
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Thank you for the response. After researching this I understand what you mean.
As a long time channels user, I don’t use any OTT cable type provider, but it would be great to be able to add free channels like CBSN to my hdhomerun lineup. Any chance this will happen in the future?
You bring up an interesting point.
I "assume" the free channels don't need authentication, but am uncertain since playing them doesn't show any auth attempts in my log, but could TVE be added to Channels DVR without having an auth provider?
You could try adding a TVE device to the Channels DVR and use a bogus username/pass, just to see if it adds the free channels (I think those are channels 6700-6973, at least on mine they are).
I know a lot of the TVE channels are inserting local/targeted ads and not sure if the free channels do the same as I never watched/recorded them, so maybe Channels DVR TVE needs a valid auth provider, or at least your location to serve those (TANSTAAFL).
That was my same thought too. Also it would be interesting to allow users to access those channels even without a plus subscription if I didn’t want or need dvr capabilities.
Is there a list of that 75 free channels you receive?
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The free channels are bundled with TVE because that was the easiest way to verify that the user is a US resident. Most of the streams don't work outside the US, and we have many international Channels users who use the DVB HDHR products.
We may look into adding the ability to access those streams without a TVE login in the future. However its unlikely we would ever support it without a Plus subscription, as all the code that powers the web streaming and TVE features lives in the DVR server.
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Aman, Thanks for the reply.
If you could give a list of those free channels?
I'm not sure my list would be representative of the free channels availabe for a Channels DVR (Plus) TVE subscription as I only get 44.
6700 AS-RICKANDMORTY
6701 AS-THEERICANDRE
6702 AS-THEVENTUREBROS
6703 AS-OFFTHEAIR
6750 BUZZR
6751 COMET
6752 CHARGE
6753 CONTV
6754 REVN
6755 TBD
6756 DOVE
6757 NASA
6758 NBCNEWS
6759 NEWSNET
6760 CHEDDAR
6761 CHEDDARBIZ
6762 ETLIVE
6763 FRANCE24
6764 NEWSMAX
6765 CBSSPORTSHQ
6766 CBSNEWS
6767 ABCNEWS
6768 BLOOMBERG
6769 NHKWORLD
6770 COURTTV
6771 DW
6772 CAS
6773 CMCUSA
6774 CMC
6776 WEATHERNATION
6777 PBSKIDS
6778 FSTV
6779 RT-AMERICA
6780 ALJAZEERA
6781 DABL
6950 EVINE
6951 HSN
6952 HSN2
6953 QVC
6954 QVC2
6955 QVC3
6970 NY-CBSNEWS
6972 LA-CBSNEWS
6973 LA-KTLA
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That is the full list.
So If i get a plus subscription, but don't have a TV login provider - can i still get the free channels?
Not at the moment, no.
Thank you for the responses and conversation. It's rare these days to have developers actually return messages.
May I ask a quick question? When HDHomerun initially offered the cable channel service, those stations automatically appeared one day as a "free trial." If that system exists, is there a way for all the free stations to appear and stream? Or is this a completely different process since HDHomerun controls the hardware. (If they can do it - they should look into it!)
I would be nice to have one TV interface that gets everything that's free - in one location!
That was something SiliconDust controls. In our experience, making web streams appear as hdhomerun hardware streams was not a good design and caused a lot of subtle issues.
Thanks for the welcome -- yes I'm relatively new here. You very well might have seen my "MacBrain" user name in other forums.
So far I'm LOVING the Channels DVR experience, especially since it can record from the TVE channels I receive via AT&T TV Now. The auto commercial-skip is totally amazing too. Not perfect, but pretty darned good!
While having a EPG data would certainly be preferable, having the option to integrate the PlutoTV streaming channels even without guide data would still be nice to have as at least you could watch the Pluto channels from the Channels DVR interface without having to exit channels and then open PlutoTV app. Just like any other Channels DVR source, you don't have to add all of the PlutoTV channels but just adding the ones you find worth having would be a nice feature. If at some point EPG data could be scraped, great but if not something is better than nothing.
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Just sign up for a free sling account not the paid and bame you get the free channels.
That it is not true. I watch most of the channel outside USA 
otherwise Channels would be the same limited service like Plex.
Yeah having Pluto TV would be awesome.
How do you get a Sling Free account to add to TVE? All I see is that you don't log in to use that service.
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Sign up for trial, then cancel before the trial ends. The Free TVE channels will still be available. Those are channels 6750 +. My Sling credentials still work after a year for those channels. Old Philo account may work also, as long as they have you in the system still. These services don't delete accounts so they can determine if you have had an account with them, so you wouldn't qualify for free trial again.