You’re doing an amazing job already. In the 3 months I have been a subscriber to the beta, there have been many new features and enhancements to the DVR product. I only wish I had half the smarts so that I could contribute to the project.
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Yes this is correct. When you play a recording, it goes straight to the disk and the HDHR is not involved.
I know it would add some complexity, but could you put some logic in to stream from HDHR directly to ATV when enough tuners are available, but only start funneling through the DVR when additional requests come in from other devices for the same tuner in use? This would reduce load on the DVR when tuners are not all used up.
Interesting idea, but would be too hard to implement seamlessly. We would have to disconnect the ATV from the HDHR, connect the DVR to the HDHR and then connect the ATV to the DVR. Even if this happened as fast as possible, there would be a very noticeable blip in the video playback.
So far the tests seem to indicate that the overhead is very minimal, even when 8 ATVs are all streaming at the same time.
@tmm1 But would using Apple’s video API be as smooth as the one the developers have created? It’s so smooth I’m scared for it to be messed with. Haha.
PIP is already possible via the web UI, using the native Apple video player that’s part of Safari. The experience is not the same as the offered by the Channels apps, as it takes much longer to tune into a channel. This and other technical limitations would need to be addressed before we’d be able to bring PIP support to the iOS app.
Dave: You state you travel with an ATV, but currently use remote playback with web ui. In my current situation when traveling, I also use the remote playback on web ui. However, not being able to easily skip commercials is a drag. @OurFamilySpot: what functions do you have with the ATV when traveling?
I used to travel extensively and towards the end of my career always used a travel router (with USB connectivity) to view downloaded recordings on my iPad. Biggest hindrance I found was not having a decent playback app which would allow me to easily skip through the recorded commercials.
As the Channels DVR ATV app allows easy commskip and hopefully Channels DVR iOS will follow suit, I would like to see the easy commskip on iOS combined with capability of playing back downloaded DVR files (and added capability of deleting/loading DVR files to Channels iOS from a portable device).
If utilizing an ATV while traveling already accomplishes this objective, I’m very interested in the setup. Of course, above iOS solution would eliminate bandwidth considerations, but if I can use an ATV now while traveling…it’s a win.
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I purchased a WD Passport Wireless Pro which has a native (and kept current) Plex server on it. It also functions as my Travel router. The Wireless Pro really works well, but only supports WIFI bridging, so the hotel, conference center, etc has to have WIFI for your to leverage. I keep a lot of contents on it (Music, Movies, TV) that I use the Plex App on my AppleTV for Playback. I have a Private WIFI that I setup on the Wireless Pro that I connect all my devices to (ATV, iPhone, MacBook).
I had gotten the Remote Tuners working early on in the ATV Alpha App, and really enjoyed it, but it appears currently they are only functioning through the WebUI. So now I use the WebUI, pick the show/recording I want to watch and Airplay it to my ATV when traveling… As far as com skip goes, I miss it when I am traveling. Haven’t figure that out. I can FF on the apple remote through the commercial but that’s it.
Can’t wait for Remote Turners to work in the ATV app!!!
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Thanks for the Airplay tip, I’ll definitely try that.
Just put out another beta which adds H264 hardware decoding. Please try it out if you have H264 channels and let me know if there are problems.
Also, does anyone have issues to report with the tuner sharing feature?
Will it have any value to those using Extends?
Yes if you’re transcoding to H264 with your Extend, the ATV can use hardware decoding for better performance.
I haven’t seen any issues so far with the H264 changes. All my channels except the local channels are H264.
Using tuner sharing with a pair of Extends. If the HDHR transcode on the ATV is set to none and the DVR to heavy, tuner is shared if already recording. If ATV is set to none and DVR set to heavy, tuner is not shared if channel is being watched before recording starts. If the DVR and ATV transcode are both set to heavy, tuners will not be shared.
Most of this is as expected, but I think if both devices are set to stream the heavy HDHR transcode, then the tuner should be shared in all circumstances.
This sounds like a bug. In this case, are both tuners being used set to heavy mode on the HDHR side?
Yes, I can see the HDHR using both tuners, both set to heavy, and both streaming the same bitrates. Both tuners show resource lock for the DVR IP address.
The EXTEND bug is fixed in DVR v2017.03.31.0308. Thanks for reporting it.
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Curious, Tuner Sharing seems to be working well. Is is going to make the production version soon?
I don’t know about anyone else, but I notice with the beta app some frame loss while the show is panning or during some action scenes. It is not consistent and not channel specific. Also happens on recordings while recording another show. I do not notice it on the current release only the beta. Using Win 10 with gigabit switches, 1000 NIC, and MOCA 2.0. Computer has a Q6600 and the recording drive is 7500rpm. Don’t know where to look for a problem. Any ideas? Should flow control on the NIC be on or off? I know on WMC and Xbox 360 it was suggested to be on because the NIC on the 360 was only a 100 NIC.
Are you still using an Nvidia? That is an old processor. Was thinking that it may be the hardware transcoding, since most probably use QSV.