Channels app and new tivo streaming stick

I am new to Android TV. How do you disable the TiVo Stream app and other ones?

Thanks

Here's How to De-Tivo Your Stream + Speed It Up

Or, go through the apps I mentioned in my post and uninstall or disable them from Settings > Apps.

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Thanks!

Can this be added a feature request?

I have not used live channels so if you can post a photo that will be helpful.




Each of the above threads involves a complaint about FireTV Stick 4K decoding transcoded video (variety of symptoms). Each gets advice to just set it to 'Original', and if it works there is no further interest in fixing the problem. Or so I read it.

As a lifelong computer guy, when the simple case fails (local) and the more complex case also fails (remote, in my case) you concentrate your debugging effort on the simple case. I understand that the work around of using original works for local, but it is just that: a workaround, and one that does not scale to remote usage very well.

Further, I understand that there are conditions when it works for one subset of users, but there seem to be quite a few cases when it does not work for another subset, which includes me.

Any insight you can offer would be appreciated.

Ah! After reading through all of these I can see how you got the impression that we were saying Original streaming fixes these issues.

The reason for us suggesting using Original quality in these cases is that it's just a better experience when streaming locally. It uses less resources on the DVR (depending no what is being played, it could avoid using the DVR entirely), playback of Live TV is faster, it takes more components out of the equation to figuring out what's wrong.

There are a lot of issues that crop up that end up being issues with the processing power, IO speed or network speed of the DVR and other devices. Making the first step of debugging issues people are having locally be to switch to Original streaming is able to side-step a lot of these issues and get the user watching their TV again as quickly as possible with the least amount of diagnostic work on their part.

When we see people with issues that do end up being related to their processing power, IO speed or network speed, we continue to catalog them internally and work on ways that we can help the user diagnose them themselves including things like our error metrics on recordings.

Watching transcoded content on the Fire TV and all of our client devices is actually much more efficient for the clients because they have to do less work because more of it is offloaded to the server.

When I joined Channels at the beginning of last year, my major focus was on remote streaming and over the past year and a half we've been able to roll out an entirely revamped subsystem on the client and server to allow for smooth streaming in almost any environment and removed the need to fiddle with bitrates and settings to get a good experience. The Fire TV Stick 4K is the primary device that I travel with and it works great with the transcoder.

At least in the case of the "Max Headroom Effect", there is no transcoding involved. It occurs during the live stream on the Fire TV 4k stick, and on the web client as well.

The server system supports at least six concurrent live transcoded streams 8Mbps 1080p streams from different channels/subchannels to the web client (all in separate pop out windows of the same browser of a different computer).
And I never saw the glitches and other misbehavior I saw with the FireTV Stick 4K either remote or local with a single stream.
It appears to me that the server and network are working pretty well.
Since it has been a few days since I have reproduced the issue (TiVo 4K streamer works well by comparison), I will try to repro this with the FireTV Stick 4K locally and bring it up in the appropriate subforum for your consideration.
Thanks for the attention.

If you're running into an issue, it would be great if you could start a new thread about it so we can discuss it without getting too many issues in the same thread.

True. But the use of the original stream was the very first thing suggested to resolve/simplify/debug it.

image

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I found a better fix for the timeline issue which should not sacrifice performance or video quality. Available in latest beta v5.29.2204

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I upgraded to new beta version. This is definitely much richer video now. The functionality of the buttons is making this device the must have for channels. Thanks guys for your support on this new platform. I will continue to use my Tivo thru the weekend on any issues and submit them.

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If your playback or streaming is studdering or suffering from audio/video sync, go in to Player settings and change Decoder from Hardware to Hybrid or Software. I had a similar problem and that fixed it.

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Got a TiVo stream 4K. so far....its alright.
Remote is smaller than i expected.

Channels does run fine on it. Including the Alpha...so far.

A thing i do notice....the device does NOT support the full band 5ghz AC wifi. (UNII-2-Extended)
My AP and other devices, is using mid band AC, which is channels 100-144.
(Both my Nvidia Shields see my wifi fine, but are hard wired)
So, had to use my secondary AP on 5ghz other bands to use this TiVo Stream.
Would prefer to hardwire it, but it does not have a Ethernet port.
Also, the remote is not backlit.

I now have adds for show/movies by Google on the top part of my tivo 4K all of a sudden. Google Play Staff Picks

It is like a new home screen "Channel" bar was added, but it has no option to remove it.

The only thing I have done to it, was install the new Channels DVR Beta app, and when i went back to the home screen, there was these ads.

Any one else have this show up? How do I remove it?

I read somewhere that the Android TV Home thing (launcher?) got an update with this, and I DID see that in the update list when i went into the My Apps page, however, my other Android TV devices, 2x Shields, also updated to the same version of that app, and are not showing this.

See https://www.tivocommunity.com/community/index.php?threads/android-tv’s-new-home-screen-will-now-recommend-movies-tv-shows-and-apps.578818/

gave that a read. thing is though, like i mentioned, all 3 devices have updated to the same version of the Android TV Home app (2.1.3-320113730-f).

Only the Tivo Stream 4K is showing this new annoyance.
So, what makes the Tivo different?
It takes up so much screen space.

I did the "Uninstall Updates" for the TV Home, on the Tivo, and that reverted it to version 1.11.2-273432517-f (i assume is the original factory ROM version, so it probably way out of date, no idea what version it had before it updated) That removed the ads.
The only apps I have on the thing, is Channels Beta and YouTube. All other apps are removed/disabled.

I am for sure going to turn off "Auto Update" in the Play store now on my Shields.

That seems to be the only change they made to the launcher?
Not worth the update for the annoyance.

Maybe I can find previous version of the app and sideload it to update from the old factory version, though, i think it is system app, so that may not install.
EDIT: It worked. Got apk from apkmirror, last version 2.0.10-307630529-f (May 4, 2020). Side loaded and updated the built in app fine.

EDIT: Seems this new "Highlights" thing is in more wide spread a roll out now: https://9to5google.com/2020/08/18/android-tv-homescreen-ads-turn-off-staff-picks/

Also, Shields may not be getting the ads, for now: