Channels DVR support for Premium TV has been officially shipped for a couple weeks now. How’s it been working for everyone so far?
From my perspective I think the Channels portion of it is working well. The only thing I notice are the micro pauses which, while annoying, aren’t the end of the world. Sometimes I pause the stream and they go away. Sometimes I live with them. It’d be nice if, until SD can fix the problem, if Channels could just buffer a little longer on the Premium streams.
From an SD perspective there’s still work to be done on the quality of the streams, but I can see progress is being made and, for the most part, it’s watchable. The outage this past Saturday afternoon was unwelcome since it happened during college games.
Otherwise, I love the integrated experience!
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Hmm I thought these were fixed in the latest store build (3.2.6 tvOS). If you’re still having problems on that build then I can bump up the buffer even more (set to 1s currently).
Yes, that would good to bump up. I see them 2 or 3 times an hour. Not too big of a deal but it’d be nice not to have them at all.
Channels itself has been great and I haven’t seen the micro pauses. I do see micro stuttering but I also see it in the HDHomeRun apps so I blame SiliconDust for giving us encodes of encodes at a low low quality.
I also get pauses on the premium channels, a few per hour.
I have both FUBO and HDHomeRun Premium TV. The HDHomeRun is a smoother experience run through Channels. FUBO will lose HD quality for extended times and pause to buffer at times. Some nights the shows are unwatchable.
I do see the micro-pauses on Channels, but nothing compared to FUBO. I am running gig internet with hard-wired connections to all APPLE TVs, so I do believe this is a content supplier issue and not my home network (I could be wrong).
I wish there was an outlet to give HDHomeRun feedback on programming, but that is a different issue.
Overall, this has been a seamless and wonderful implementation. My only question is updating the Channels DVR. I will regularly SHIFT-CLICK the version on settings and I get 1) Downloading then 2) Waiting to upgrade. The waiting to upgrade can be an extended period of time even when nothing is running. The server is up (NVIDIA Shield) but I can’t understand the waiting part of the execution. Also, is there anything else I need to do on the APPLE TV Channels DVR apps to stay current?
One more question. I have Channels DVR and Channels apps loaded. Do I need both? Should I have both?
Thanks
Here is the Hdhomerun premium tv forum. Channels and Silicon dust welcome feedback. There is a thread on lineup requests and SD recently stated they are in talks to get other networks
https://forum.silicondust.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=129&sid=34b1ada41bd10a0e89abf0296f12b7c1
WOW, thank you!
I’m not sure why - but starting sometime Sunday or Monday, my AMC guide data appears to be Western when I’m in the Eastern Timezone. This has caused my AMC recordings to be incorrect. I first noticed it last night when trying to play back Monday’s recording of Better Call Saul. What is interesting is when I tune in via the HDHomeRun App - the guide data is correct. I’m running the latest Beta 2018.09.19.0236 and have tried clicking the update/refresh button on my tuners several times.
The DVR updates itself automatically. Using SHIFT is only for updating to the pre-release builds.
After update the DVR will wait until nothing is recording or being watched. You can see why the DVR is busy by looking at the Activity section of the settings web page.
No it updates from the App Store automatically.
You don’t need both apps. Just pick one and use it.
That shows a Timezone of CDT, which is correct.
You’re looking at the system timezone. I need the output of that specific url above.
I am having a lot stuttering for some reason with premium tv channels.
When I navigate to that url it pulls up the normal Channels settings page, I'm running the DVR on a WD PR4100 if that matters.
Correction: I still had admin in the url - once I removed that it loaded "est"
The guide on the HDHomeRun Shows the correct shows, but AMC is not correct on my Channels guide for some reason. Channels thinks Under Siege is on:
The HD Homerun App shows Tombstone is actually on
Now that I’m looking at it several other channels are incorrect as well:
TBS, TNT, Lifetime, Nat Geo, BET, Cartoon Network are not showing correct guide data
It sounds like SiliconDust is sending you the PST versions of those channels instead of EST. This can happen if you’re using a VPN. You can either contact them with your device ID to tell them to fix it (and send you EST feeds), or switch your guide data to PST mode using Help With Understanding HDHomerun Premium Channel TZ Alignment in Channels DVR
That makes sense why I’m seeing that happen. I reached out on the SD forums to see if they can change it for my devices. I don’t use a VPN, but my ISP was recently acquired and I’ve noticed some web pages think I’m in Oregon now with default location searches when I’m actually in Central. REALLY appreciate the help and your time in response. Channels is great and I’m mad impressed with your response times. Keep up the great work!
The micro pauses continue to happen. And, I didn’t see any reference to additional buffer in the latest beta posted. Any chance this can be increased? Pausing for a couple of seconds is still a workaround but it would be convenient to not have to do this.
Thanks!