Is there any way to run the Channels DVR in the cloud? I understand there’s the whole discussion about the bandwidth requirements to upload to the cloud provider and then turn around and stream the content from the same provider. Above that, though, the idea of not having to have some NAS or server humming away all day every day is very appealing to me.
This is not possible with Channels DVR, and is out of scope for what we have planned. The mpeg2 streams that come from the HDHR were not designed to be uploaded to the cloud, and it makes no sense to waste bandwidth uploading and then downloading the same video content.
If you want a cloud-based DVR, there are plenty of other options on the market: Hulu, YouTube TV, DirectTV NOW, SlingTV and Playstation Vue
He can buy an external hard drive and hook it to his computer and change it to never sleep. I did this with mine and it works perfectly.
Here is a cheap hard drive that would do exactly what you're looking for!
Just make sure you have enough ram and a decent processor for this to run in the background all the time.