So I'm affected by the EOL with my trusty ole 2011 iMac 27". Time to go anyway, nothing is supported anymore. I have an external SSD drive that houses my time machine backups and my channels folders. After I setup my new Imac I will connect my existing SSD drive to my new computer for time machine backup will channels be active right away?
Simply just follow the migration documentation and you'll be fine.
It will be as simple:
- plug in your old drive to the new computer
- install Channels DVR Server
- Set up with the restore option and pointing it at your drive and correct folder/backup
Just be sure you accept the permission requests from macOS for Channels DVR Server to have the ability to access the local network and external drives.
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OK, I just hope that the migration path to Linux stays open. I plan to update my AMD Ryzen 5 5600G / B550 Mobo later this year after Win 10 reaches EOL. Win11 is not an option for me because of privacy, security and bloatware concerns.
- Linux remains an option.
- Linux will be an option forever.
- Linux was never even mentioned in this announcement.
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Your AMD Ryzen 5 5600G / B550 will run Linux just fine and it will run Windows 11 just fine. The small amount of extra storage needed to run Win 11 over Win 10 should not stop you. Privacy, stop using the Internet, driving your car and going outside. It's the only way they can't track you and in fact if you stay home, then they know where you are.
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well it didn't go so well. First before I migrated to new computer I was getting error message when trying to watch TVE channels. Then I migrated and it's all messed up. Wondering how to delete completely and reinstall.
I loaded to my external drive yet when I go to my external drive I don't see Channels folder
Another edit...I can log into the status page and my guide comes up but when I click to watch now it performs all these things than back to watch now page
Thanks for confirming. As you said, Linux wasn't mentioned, so I was unsure.
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The post was about support we were taking away, not enumerating what platforms we will support in the future.
The Channels DVR Server page on our site still lists all supported platforms and their installers, as it has for a decade:
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Since Microsoft is stopping support of Windows 10 in a few months and trying to get all users to switch, maybe you shouldn't be recommending Windows 10 as a go to platform. It is nice that you will support it until the end, but users may be better off switching to something else.
They will provide updates if you pay for it so ending Windows 10 support is a bit premature.
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Apologies in advance - This is quite a long...
I'm retired, but used to own and run a technology company. I/We wrote Windows shrink-ware and did UNIX and Windows back-end support, so I understand and support the need for housekeeping and retiring old systems. I do a bit of pro bono work with Raspberry Pi systems. I believe that they should not be easily dismissed for specialist applications.
I, too, believe that the time has come to retire the Raspberry Pi4. I suspect that the Channels Raspberry Pi image was written around Buster or Bullseye. Bookworm, the current OS, is very different. These earlier distributions will not run on the Pi5.
Here are my observations on your recommendations ( Channels — Hardware ):-
- Intel N95 Mini PC: Initially designed for Windows (some cheaper versions still ship with Windows 10). Cost $179. Some doubts about the lifetime of products.
- NAS Device: Cheaper systems ($255) use low-power ARM chips (RTD1619B Quad-core. 1.4GHz, 1GB RAM). ARM devices range up to ~$455 and, unless you have additional needs, are "overkill". Intel 2GB systems are ~$600! As a general observation, domestic-level 2 disk RAID 0 systems are a catastrophe waiting to happen. RAID 1 is better; but, for many of us, a simple periodic robocopy or rsync on the device/across a network may be simpler (and more reliable).
- Apple Mac mini. I have owned several of these with few problems. They are expensive ($999). My main development machine is a 16GB iMac-M3, which I have used with Channels DVR. Ir works flawlessly.
I'm assuming that the disk supplied with all of these is too small, so an external disk is required for recording - I prefer exFAT as it runs with almost everything.
I have a previous post discussing why I switched to a low-cost Raspberry Pi5 system here: Raspberry Pi Revisited - I'm now using one again
To expand on that: The Channels DVR system is very efficient and works well on low-powered hardware. Comskip is the only thing that requires significant computing power. I have even run Channels on a Pi Zero 2W (0.5GB RAM, Quad 1.5GHz CPU). I was able to record 3 HD channels, watch one on an Apple TV, and have a recording running on an iPad - It worked OK (not recommended). Comskip (with 2 cores) was hopeless, taking about 1-2 times longer to run than the length of the recording - Compared to ~5-15% for the 2GB Pi5; and ~2-5% for the iMac.
Jon warns against booting from a microSD. Historically, probably true; but I think now much less relevant. The increasing use of surveillance cameras has driven a lot of R&D in this area. A standard microSD card was typically rated at 100 cycles (a 32GB card rated to record 3.2TB). Now, 300+ cycles is normal (~10TB). My Pi5 shows Channels and the OS write <2GB a day to a 64GB microSD - Indicating a mean expected life of >17 years. I actually use an "extended life" microSD which are rated at 10 times this (100 years?!). You quote 8GB/hr for recording, mine is ~2.5GB for a mixture of SDTV and 1080HDTV. The actual recording is 8-12GB a day to a 2TB SSD. It's unlikely that I would want to record to the microSD card; but a very rough calculation for a recording rate of 2.5 GB/hr, indicates that for me a standard 256GB card has an expected lifetime of years. On your numbers that is >9,000 hours of recording or ~5 years at 5hrs a day. In theory multiply that by 5-10 for "extended life" cards.
In the last 4 years I have had failures of 1 SSD (1GB), 3 different USB thumb drives, 1 old HDD (500MB), but no microSD cards. As a result, I tend to use them as small portable backups. I believe that many microSD failures are because of rough handling, leaving on car dashboards, etc.
I don't want a preformatted image, but would ask that Channels DVR continues active support of the Raspberry Pi 5 for the following reasons:-
- Cheap - Excluding disks from a 2GB Pi5, Flirc case, power supply, and microSD cost $145. If the Pi dies, a new one is $85. I note that the difference in power consumption of the other systems would give an extra lifetime TCO of ~$90-$140.
- Reliability - The Pi has an excellent reputation; and I would expect better if run in a passive thermal case.
- Lifetime - The Pi5 will remain in production until at least January 2036.
- Availability - Supply constraints seem to be over. Millions sold.
- Simplicity - Set up with a simple internet install when connected to an Ethernet port. Download and install the OS even if a card with the OS is not available.
- Windows 10 - Goes out of official support on October 14.
- Windows 11 - Patch Tuesday!
- Cheap NAS - Cheaper (more reliable?) systems can be made with a Pi5.
All costs are from Amazon or the manufacturer in Australian Dollars (1 AU$ = 0.64 US$).
Might I suggest that the Linux install notes might be expanded with useful scripts/notes for crontab, apt, rsync, etc.?
My use of the Pi5 is as a simple "set and (almost) forget" server device. I am unlikely to use it as a screen player, so "headless" works. If a user needs to copy an SD etc., the normal Desktop version may be useful.
Any comments or criticisms are welcome.
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If I am re-reading the announcement correctly though, they will be intentionally degrading performance on the Pi - so a manual install will not be a good option. If I have to invest in new hardware down the road, Plex looks nice.
Systems that boot from floppies and still perform their job are very unlikely to be hacked by China or Russia, though.
Goodness gracious, we’re not intentionally breaking anything. We’re just discontinuing some of the things we’ve had to manually do to keep some things working.
Not doing something anymore is not the same as putting in effort to break something.
We have to do work to maintain hardware transcoding on a Pi 4, which we are no longer going to be doing.
The Pi 5 has never been officially supported by us and doesn’t even have a hardware encoder.
“Officially supported” for us means:
- qualifies for our technical support
- we expect it to work for you
That’s pretty much where it ends. We don’t care what you run Channels DVR Server on. If you can get it to work, awesome!
We certainly aren’t putting little bombs in the code to intentionally ensure it doesn’t work somewhere. We just can’t guarantee it does.
This is about expectation setting, not control.
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“ Hardware acceleration for transcoding will no longer be supported on Raspberry Pi 4. Directly playing back video to your Channels clients will continue to work as expected. But, any quality settings that require transcoding will no longer work.”
I use the transcoding feature, and according to your statement, that “will no longer work.” This is removing a feature that currently works on this hardware, and will no longer work on the same hardware. That is degrading the performance of the server.
For what it's worth, any loss of support for hardware acceleration for transcoding on a Raspberry Pi, feels like peanuts compared to what Plex lacks, in comparison to Channels, when it comes to live TV and DVR. With that feature set and user interface, the contrast couldn't be more stark. I've used both extensively now.
Best of luck with whatever you choose.
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I have a NUC–style Gigabyte Brix with an i3 4330 processor (Haswell, I believe) that is still in use. This was my DVR until last year, and has since been repurposed with Proxmox for home automation (Home Assistant/Homebridge), camera NVR (Scrypted), and local media libraries (Jellyfin/Calibre). I have upgraded the storage and memory, but otherwise it's still chugging along.
I am fairly certain I can get a similar decade or more of service out of my recently purchased Beelink N100 devices.
(As far as it running Windows: the first thing I did is wipe the drive and install my preferred Linux distro.)
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Last I read (it has been a while), I thought the Devs said they had issues with transcoding on Intel chips past the 9th gen ichips. N95 or N100 would work well with transcoding? I don't do it much so not really a big deal. I'll miss using my little Pi. The N chips are more power efficient than older Intel chips but not as efficient as a Pi.