BETA: Channels DVR Server for Raspberry Pi 4 (USB BOOT IMAGE)

You can click and hold on the Check button to get the latest image. I haven't had a chance to do a stable release yet for upgrades.

There was no reply to my prior post, so I'm posting again. I set up the Channels DVR Server on a brand new USB external drive for my Raspberry Pi. I connected both my old hard drive and the new hard drive to my MacBook via USB so I could quickly copy all my recordings from my old drive to the new one. I then booted up the Pi with the new drive and everything works perfectly (i.e., all my old recordings are visible in my library). However, if I turn on Samba, I can't view the files stored in the Movies, TV and Import folders. It must be some sort of Linux permissions setting. Can anyone help? Is there something I can do to the new drive so that all the files will be viewable through Samba?

thanks

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Sorry there's some known bug with samba file permissions and macOS. I haven't been able to figure it out yet.

I got a raspberry pi 4 for Christmas and put the DVR image on a USB drive. I was running my channels server off of my Sony TV prior to this. The difference is night and day. I no longer get the buffering and freeze ups on the channels I’m watching. The server on the pie is so much smoother and faster. Thank you Channels team for making this work!

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The latest beta OS image contains a fix for an problem that was causing performance issues on many WD drives. To update, click-and-hold Operating System > Check for Update

Thanks to @adamandaj and @kylander (who hit this bug and suffered from painfully slow Pi DVRs), for providing a ton of debugging information to me over support. I was able to share with the linux-scsi kernel maintainer and help him test a comprehensive fix for this issue.

For technical details, see https://github.com/raspberrypi/linux/pull/4832

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I gave up and moved to SSD, but are you saying I could go back now? :smiley:
Thanks for all of your work here.

I switched from my Windows 10 desktop computer to a dedicated Raspberry Pi Server using the Channels Raspberry Image. It works flawlessly. I am using a WD 500GB WD Blue 3D NAND Internal PC SSD - SATA III 6 Gb/s, M.2 for DVR storage.

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Hello,

I have kept having issues with this install. I have imaged the proper image on a USB drive, and I'm able to get the server screen. However, every time I try to log in, I keep getting the "Error during authorization" screen. Ive read all the various forums looking for a solution, but can't find anything that works. Any help would be appreciated.

Logging in to Channels DVR Server? Or the pi?

The Channels image is not designed to log in to. It’s designed to run the pi as an appliance. You run it without a monitor.

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The Pi 4 Model B is sold out everywhere. It looks like the 400 is available from some sellers.

Is the install and use with the 400 as seamless as the Model B?

It looks like it is supported.

If January 2022, RPi4s everywhere were sold out. From the Raspberry Pi site, I registered with all six US suppliers to be notified when available. I had one in hand within two weeks.

You must mean sold out at the normal retailers...as there has always been plenty of stock elsewhere.

I still see many listings on Amazon, new, different ram sizes, some even with Prime shipping.
Are they MSRP, no, but, there is decent stock, easy to get, if you willing to pay.
You can maybe find better deals on ebay though auctions if you put the work into it.

It is pretty much like the PC GPU shortage (that is now over with for the moment), stocks of Pi boards are all in the hands of scalpers and re-sellers. Normalcy will not return for quite some time, at least 2-3 yrs.

It is up to you to decide if the extra $ of a Pi these days is not worth it....you can buy a nice off lease or refurb mini pc for same cost these days. far more power for a Channels DVR server.

Thanks for the responses!

CanaKit sent a 400 for US$ 75 plus shipping and it arrived in 2 days. It works great for my friends who are now back up and running after being bit by the MyCloud Home OS change. Never buying or recommending their products again. My friends had ordered the Pi 4 board from the link in the Channels help on June 8 and on June 24 were notified that their order was cancelled.

I did sign up for notifications from some of the suppliers for just the board for myself. I can wait. Not paying crazy prices.

I must say Channels support has been very helpful in this changeover! Thanks to them!

I'm getting a lot of buffering/stuttering when playing live TV from the Prime but with TVE it works perfectly. I can't imagine what would be the problem. I have an SSD USB drive installed. Here's my hdparm. Is it too slow? I can't figure this out.

[root@dvr-server ~]$ hdparm -tT /dev/sda

/dev/sda:
Timing cached reads: 2010 MB in 2.00 seconds = 1005.99 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads: 700 MB in 3.13 seconds = 223.56 MB/sec

I'm getting a bunch of these in the log when I watch from the Prime. Does this mean anything?

2022/07/14 13:11:08.066381 [HLS] ffmpeg: ch748-dANY-660ba699f29f-1-h264-aac---9744-256-1080-0-0--linear-false-false-0.01: [hls @ 0x39135d70] Non-monotonous DTS in output stream 0:0; previous: 206260, current: 0; changing to 206261. This may result in incorrect timestamps in the output file.
2022/07/14 13:11:08.094044 [HLS] ffmpeg: ch748-dANY-660ba699f29f-1-h264-aac---9744-256-1080-0-0--linear-false-false-0.01: [hls @ 0x39135d70] Non-monotonous DTS in output stream 0:0; previous: 207761, current: 0; changing to 207762. This may result in incorrect timestamps in the output file.

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What client are you watching on?

This is through the web.

It has to convert mpeg2 to h264 for web playback.

TVE is already h264

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Try pausing live tv when it starts playing and let it build up about 10-20 seconds before playing.
You'll probably find it's smooth as silk.
When playing from the dvr web ui player, being caught up to live always stalls/buffers for me, so that's what I do. (Using a HDHR Prime and Synology, not a Pi, but that shouldn't matter)

And just to set your expectations, the web UI player is not a "supported client".
They prefer you use one of their client device apps for playback.
But you can use the VLC player integration from the web UI (but it's also not a supported client).