Channels DVR GUI

Channels DVR Server
#1

I love Channels DVR. The commercial autoskip feature works so well I often didn't even realize there was a commercial break until a few seconds after it skips.

The GUI though is not as great as other DVRs. Mainly TiVo. TiVo's GUI is much better at finding shows, organizing them, etc.

I wish Channels DVR had a GUI like TiVo. Since the FCC stopped requiring cable companies to support CableCARDs, I'm trying to find a replacement for my TiVo. Channels DVR is it, but the GUI is something that my wife and I are not mastering even after months of use.

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#2

Its a hell of a lot better than any Comcast cable box we ever had. Channels GUI is simple, easy to use, and,.... very purple. (There is the modded "Carbon" theme version for Android made by a user here, for those who want a "Dark" themed look.)

I always found TiVo devices very slow and laggy, and just, idk, weird looking and gimmicky. The one time we had one for a short time, no one liked it. But i guess that just us, as I read most people love them.

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#3

I'm not a fan of Comcast's X1 either.

I guess what I'm looking for is when you open Channels app on AppleTV, I want it to open to a list of season passes. You click on the season pass and it will show you a list of shows that can be sorted oldest to newest or newest to oldest with unwatched shows highlighted.

Maybe I have it configured wrong. Currently when I open the app, it opens with "Up Next" at the top (despite this being turned off, but I realized today this turns it off on the left side menu bar). On the bottom is a list of recently recorded. You can scroll down to TV Shows and Movies and it will show something similar to what I want.

However, I don't want a large icon of the show. I would prefer a list (and maybe a smaller icon) so it's easier to scroll through things.

#4

At this time the closest you'll get to that is via: Settings → General → Start Up → TV Shows

After 20 years with TiVo I understand the UI you're referring to. But Channels is different, better in very many ways, and its interface (in my opinion) is worth getting used to.

#5

Longtime TiVo user and fan here so I totally understand where you’re coming from. I also generally prefer the TiVo UI however, Channels UI has won me over for most things but there are exceptions and one of them is something you touched on: the list of recorded shows vs large episode “cards”.

Recordings comes the closest but that just shows you the latest episode rathe than a folder of all of the episodes. Sure, you can pivot from there by clicking on More —> Explore Show and see all episodes in card view rather than just text. It could be argued that this card view for tv episodes is more visually appealing, but it doesn’t improve navigation. The epsisode details text is useful but the picture (screen grab from the episode) almost always adds nothing and forces the text to have to be smaller. For MOVIES, the poster view is awesome and makes sense but I don’t need a little picture of every TV episode, I just need: Show name, episode name/number & short description.

I’ve played with Collections and again, visually it’s pretty cool to be able to group say true crime together, it ends up increasing the time it takes me to get to what I want to watch and again the card view doesn’t add anything to the usability / navigation experience.

But before I start sounding like someone who is unhappy with the product, let me be clear: I’m a huge Channels fan and suspect they probably have a customer for life. I love it so much that I I now have 3 Apple TV’s that primarily for Channels. Here are my reasons

  • I control the recordings and if I back them up, I won’t lose them due to hardware failures et lc.
  • Commercial skip: I’ve seen discussions about it being imperfect but it’s nearly flawless for the shows I watch so I have it set to auto and can watch most recordings commercial-free without touching the remote.
  • Ability to switch TV providers without having to learn a new device or UI to record shows
  • Easily resume watching shows from any room / device.
  • Choice of client devices. I’ve moved to ATV entirely but before I did, having the ability to use channels on Android & FireTV etc was very useful
  • Amazing amount of flexibility and features but you don’t have to become overwhelmed by them if you want to start slow and explore later or just use the basic functionality
  • Reliability of product and responsiveness of developers
  • UI is much faster than any cable company dvr including TiVo
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#6

Your post definitely summarizes how I feel. I love Channels. It's quicker than TiVo, my Synology is more reliable than TiVo, and the commercial autoskip feature is so flawless that half the time I only realized there was a commercial break when I see the notice that it skipped the commercial.

Like you mentioned, I wish there was a list of shows instead of the icon cards. Click the show title and it brings up all the episodes available with ability to sort by oldest to newest, newest to oldest, eliminate the watched shows, etc. There should be an option to configure this so that it displays whatever your preference is consistently across all shows that are recorded.

Hopefully the development team will look into developing this feature.

Let's face it though... TiVo is a dying technology, and whether I like the GUI or not, I'm going to have to get used to it. Overall, I love Channels. It's much faster than TiVo and I like the quality, commercial autoskip, etc. Just wish the GUI was a little better for TV show listings.

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#7

I never had X1. My area never offered it even up to the time i dumped Comcast after 33yrs of service at our address. It was not a native Comcast service area, but was bought/taken over when they acquired Time Warner Cable (who had years before bought out Paragon Cable).
They still used the old Scientific Atlanta brand cable boxes with a very different and ancient cable box UI that Time Warner used. Their HD boxes had DVI instead of HDMI. lol

My Grandparents who live up north in native Comcast area, had very different cable box and UI for a while, later, upgraded to X1 only when the wanted the DVR thing to record their political shows. The voice control pretty much the only thing they can figure out how to use.

X1 GUI is vasty better and more modern than what we used, but still, i don't care for it and would take Channels UI over it.

Honestly though, i always liked the GUI of the old Windows Media Center and used that with a tunner card in my desktop PC for some time as my DVR. I discovered Emby many years later and used that until I found Channels. If i had to pick which UI i think is the best overall, Emby gets that prize.

#8

I have found TiVo DVRs at thrift stores over the years. Or in the trash. Various models. Some still had the "lifetime service" attached to them. But, i could never get them to function with our cable service or add them to my tiVo account. I think they were still locked to previous owners account or something.

#9

I only own one X1 box (Has all major streaming apps) all other units are tablets, phones or firesticks that can View all the Channels and record to the cloud using the XFINITY Stream APP.

I record my Favorite New Shows to the Cloud in case the Channels DVR fails.

The Picture is so much better when watching a cloud recording over watching a recording from my primes.

#10

I will add to this as a new Channels user. Originally I had Windows MCE then moved to Kodi with the HDHomerun plugin....they were similar for watching Live TV and recording. This worked but required a Windows PC which was a lot of overhead for what I needed. I have since moved to Apple TV and Channels DVR, actually just bought a 2nd Apple TV a few weeks after the switch because I like Channels so much.
I will say that the "Recording" section is the one I struggle with as well. It works great if you keep up with the recordings and watch them every week as it shows the most recent. I too would love a default of a list of Shows and once drilled into, a list of episodes recorded.
To the OP, dig into some of the other things you can do with Channels and these small issues seem to not be that bad :slight_smile:

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#11

@tmm1 Is there a way you guys could look into reworking the recordings list so you could get a list of recorded shows/season passes, click it and then a list of episodes with ability to sort oldest to newest/newest to oldest?

Seems like a couple of people in this thread have mentioned it. That's my only thing that differs from the TiVo GUI. The rest of Channels DVR I think is amazing.

#12

We can do anything, it’s just software. It’s time, product goals, and priority that goes into what we work on.

#13

I certainly appreciate all that you guys do. Hopefully you'll consider implementing it and have time to do so in the future.

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#14

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