Hello! I posted a while back about what kind of device to use for the software for the DVR and I thought I read someone saying I could use a Fire Cube completely for my DVR and not have to worry about my laptop being on, etc.
Is this possible? If so, how do I go about downloading the software onto the fire cube? I haven't bought it yet (I currently have a fire stick but it's on it's way out and the remote died so I'm considering upgrading to the cube.)
Thanks!
Oh wow so it's as easy as just downloading an app from the store?? I think that's definitely the way to go for my technologically challenged self lol.
Let us know how it works. I have a Cube but went with a Raspberry Pi instead since the Cube does not have a USB3. When I was testing Channels DVR with a USB2 drive, it would stutter during playbacks on a Pi.
The problem is that FireOS only supports FAT32 so you can't make recordings that are longer than 20min.
Oh. Shoot. That won't work then - that's not even a full episode
and what with tvOS?
tvOS doesn't run Channels DVR Server
Why?
tvOS and iOS can not run software in the background.
Why would they make it to only 20min? That seems kind of pointless for use as a DVR. Do you think there's any chance they'll change that in the future?
It's not that Amazon set a restriction of 20 minutes. Rather, the only filesystem that Amazon supports for external storage is FAT32. Since Channels DVR server requires external storage for its recordings, Channels can only use that filesystem.
There is a limitation of the filesystem that files cannot be larger than 4GB. For OTA broadcast TV, 4GB of data roughly equates to 20-30 minutes. So, it's Amazon's decision to only support FAT32 external storage that limits Channels' ability to record longer streams, but not a time restriction that Amazon created.
Ah that makes sense. It's too bad they don't use a different type of filesystem.
The Channels developers could, if they wanted to, work-around this limitation by, instead of storing the data in a single file, breaking the data they store into multiple files that are each smaller than 4GB.
I suppose they could. But why should they have to work around a limitation that only affects a single device? Every other system can use a modern filesystem, so why should they expend them effort?
These devices are so slow you would hate life using it as a DVR.
There's no point in doing it when you can load up Channels DVR Server on a Raspberry Pi for ~$50.