I have Channels DVR installed as a service on my Win10 Pro HTPC (Intel I7-4770k). By default Win10 has a "Game Mode" system setting turned on which focuses system resources on video and gaming processes running in the foreground. As I understand it, running Channels DVR as a service means that it runs in the background. I have found that, at least in my case, Channels DVR is much more responsive (less latency jumping forward and backward in a video) after I turned OFF Game Mode. Use the Win10 Search Box to locate the Game Mode system setting. Your mileage may vary, but it is easy to try it both ways to see if it makes a difference for you.
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Interesting.
Personally, I have never seen ANY difference in performance, either real world or benchmarks, with the "Game Mode" On or Off on my win 10 custom pc, with any applications, games, or software's.
Personally, and professionally, for always on devices, like DVR, media severs...etc. highly recommend Linux over Windows. Far far less resources in use at idle, and no MS update crap to force restart your OS when it sees fit, and none of the many MS telemetry and crap that sends data to MS servers.
Far more stable and rock solid reliable.
Channels DVR and Emby run super fast and smooth on my Intel Nuc i7 with Linux Mint. Updates to the OS is fast, smooth, and a reboot takes 7 secs.
Comparing a Linux based sever to a Windows based one, no competition, performance and efficiency wise, Linux wins every time.
But...for those that still cling to Windows, its good to hear at least somone has a positive suggestion to make things work a bit better.
(And Linux has a bad rep of being "hard to install and use" or not for non tech people.
Its not true, Linux Mint is super easy to setup, its setup wizard is just as simplified and easy to walk through as windows.....raw Ubuntu is even more dumbed down to make it easy to get going.)
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What client device are you using?
Or are you using the Web Ui via web browser on the same Win 10 computer the sever is installed on? (which is not really how Channels DVR is designed to be used)
Most playback related performance things, like seeking, are done on the client device, and performance varies based on what client device you are using....like a Fire Stick, Apple TV, or a Nvidia Shield. etc.
You can Simply enable not to autorestart when a user is logged on and use autologin. also set ChannelsDVR as a Service and set windows to optimize background services.
Lol. Yep I've done that. It ignores it at times and will force restart you.... At some point in time. I've had problems with even the pro version of Windows 10 doing that on the businesses I manage That is set to only be administrated by the corporate administrator which completely disables supposedly the automatic updates and reboots but yet I still get people complaining that the systems are automatically rebooting and auto installing updates on their own.
Pretty much every damn time I open my laptop from sleep it pops up an annoying notification saying that needs updates and wants to restart. Hate it so much. but they're just some things I have to use windows for.
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Never had that problem with windows 10 Pro. I do have a batchfile that I use to reboot automatically once a month when nothing is recording , Viewing or Comskip running.
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I literally had two cases since starting to use Windows 10 couple years after it came out, where it's automatically updated to its newer feature build it would auto reboot, or automatically try and stall if I needed to restart manually, and would result in a blue screen boot loop and and after several failed attempts it would roll back it's upgrade only to attempt to upgrade again the second you rebooted it. Both times they completely took down my Emby media server I was using for TV at the time. Well known documented issue with Windows 10 builds at the time. and it still kept doing it regardless of me telling the operating system to delay feature updates.
Ever since that experience I refuse to use Windows on it always on system that I need 100% reliability uptime on.
My grandparents' computers at their business runs Windows 10 pro and despite the fact that I've done every measure possible including registry hacks to stop automatic updates, they still do it. every now and then when they turn it on. they call and complain to me that they have to wait for their machine to update for they can use it. and since the machines are older sometimes the newer Windows 10 builds causes certain things like network cards or sound to stop working because the drivers need to be updated.
Don't mean to turn this into a Windows versus Linux discussion... But I'm just saying that if you want top performance reliability you should use a Linux system and that no matter how you tweak and configure Windows 10 it won't be nearly as reliable or perform as well.
also that I'm intrigued that someone actually seems to have experienced something positive with game mode off versus it being on since that's the design of it it's supposed to increase performance with it on. but performance really varies based on the client side not necessarily the DVR side so I'm curious what client he's using
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I am using the Web UI via browser on the same Win 10 computer as the server. I usually don't record and watch at the same time.
Agreed. I have the same direct experience and have proven it with numerous benchmarks. I have a laptop and a dual processor Xeon system running Linux Mint. However, I have stuck with Win 10 for now with my HTPC for compatibility reasons - one of which is that I strip commercials and further hardware transcode recordings to HEVC automatically using MCEBuddy. I have turned off Win 10 telemetry as much as I can using Spybot Anti-Beacon. I have also optimized running services for lowest system latency using LatencyMon. So for me, converting my HTPC to Linux Mint is a longer term project which is not urgent.
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I have to agree with you about running on Windows 10 for compatibility ... I was runng an Instance of Channels DVR on a NAS the NAS powered down and refused to powerup so I was stuck with no way to recover the data ... I was able to extract data I needed by using apps that the developers on this site recommended. I have now moved on to Windows 10 using storage spaces for redundancy.
I have a 2 drives external USB 3 dock with 2 10 TB drives ... I even tested moving to my laptop and the Drives and data was recognized right away. Redundancy and easy recovery upon a disaster is what I look for when setting up a server.
Ah. I see. That's needed context then to your first post.
cuz you are using channels DVR in a way that's not really designed to be used. And not the normal use case for most people. Since it's a server - client style setup. As most people are intended to have a dedicated server machine and then use a stream boxes or other supported client devices to connect to the server.
If you want a Web UI based media center setup then you should really look elsewhere. Like Emby or Plex. But it seems to work out fine for you with the more advanced things you do. But I'm just saying for general purpose anyone else that reads this thread will know.
Maybe I'm uninformed; but I don't see the logic of a client-server connected to each other through a LAN being more responsive (less latency) than running a client-server on the same computer. Am I wrong?
Channels was never designed to be used via the web UI. The devs have stated that the web ui is for administrative purposes only primarily. Channels core design and optimizations is in the apps you use on client devices. So the web ui is least optimized.
U can use an Nvidia Shield as both a sever and client device(but u cant use YTTV as a TVE source in this config)....
But generally speaking, I think the devs always recommend having a dedicated sever, and use client devices type setup, for best experience.
If they fell like chiming in to confirm that or to give technical explanation why one setup is "better"....
The biggest challenge with using the web console as your client is that if you have sources that serve MPEG2 content, it can’t play it natively, so the server has to transcode it. That introduces delays and can reduce quality, so the experience generally isn’t as good as the Channels clients, at least for some content types.
I have ordered an NVIDIA SHIELD Android TV Pro to use as a client. I will report back if it runs smoother than running Channels DVR client and server on the same Win 10 computer.
I have continued to use my Channels DVR with Game Mode off and it continues to run client and server like butter on my Intel I7-4770k Win 10 PC.
As further info, I have always had this setting: Advanced System Settings> Performance> Settings> Advanced> Processor Scheduling> Adjust for best performance of> Background services. This coincides with Edwin_Perez's recommendation above. It's possible that I had a conflict between Game Mode On and this setting. With Game Mode off, no more conflict.
Moreover, I chose my Intel CPU because it has an IGP with Intel Quicksync hardware transcoding of MPEG 2 and 4. I now believe that I can smoothly run client and server on my CPU because of this. I do not use an outboard GPU for cost, noise and power consumption reasons.
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