Channels for Android TV & Fire TV Now Available

Announcements
#1

Today is a huge day for Channels. Today is the day it ventures out of the Apple ecosystem and into two great new ones.

Channels for Android TV and Fire TV are now available!

Channels has been a huge success on Apple TV and iOS devices for years. It has consistently been at the top of lists on the Apple TV App Store. Channels was the first app to truly put live TV on your streaming device using either your OTA TV signals or your cable package. It is the first app to really make cord cutting easy for everyone in the family.

Fans have asked for Android TV and Fire TV versions ever since the first release of Channels, and now, we're very excited that they're finally available.

Channels for Android TV and Fire TV provide the exact same live TV experience found on the Apple TV version. They have a full buffer, pause, rewind, and fast forward support. Everything that people have loved on the Apple TV version, now for these popular streaming boxes. These versions even have a little extra support for more keys found on some other remotes like Sony TVs. And they'll soon adopt more of the advanced features that these platforms support.

Channels for Android TV and Fire TV do not yet have support for Channels DVR, but they're guaranteed to get it later in the year.

Thanks so much to everyone that reached out and told us how much they wanted Channels for these platforms. And thanks to everyone that has been using Channels and giving us feedback through the last couple of years. We couldn't have done it without you.

So, go check out Channels living on its two new homes and let us know what you think!

Android TV: https://getchannels.com/androidtv
Fire TV: https://getchannels.com/firetv

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4 Likes
BETA: Channels on Android TV + Channels DVR
#2
#3

Great news for your guys! Really happy for you and good luck on the launch!

#4

Is it available for the android TV on the Sony TVs? I can’t find it on the app store

#5

I can’t find it on my Fire stick tv.

#6

Amazon says that my Fire Stick TV is not compatable when I try to purchase it on the amazon web site.

#7

It is!

It’s practically impossible to find in the Play Store right now due to indexing. Hopefully search results for it will get better with time :grimacing: For now you could buy it through it’s page on web version of the Play Store, and it should install to your device.

#8

Channels is only available for the 3rd generation Fire TV (2017) right now due to hardware support. The Fire TV sticks don’t have the necessary means to decode the live TV that comes from the HDHomeRun tuners at a good enough quality.

We hope this changes in the future.

#9

Can I ask… I have a Shield TV. I currently run Plex DVR, (which runs on its own Windows server) but it’s pants.

I read that Channels does not currently support Channels DVR.

Is there some way I can still use Channels for live tv and Channels DVR separately? Don’t want to go buying apps if I still end up with a messed up experience like Plex DVR.

If I could get some clarity on it, that would be great!

#11

Absolutely! Channels for Android TV will completely ignore your Channels DVR server.

You can use the Channels DVR web admin to create and manage recordings and Series Passes. To play back the recordings, you can add the recordings directory to Plex and watch the recordings through that.

Later in the year Channels for Android TV will get full DVR support and it will find your Channels DVR server and support everything. You’ll be able to manage and playback all your recordings from the app just like on Apple TV.

#12

Ah, cool. I’m not sure that the new Channels Live TV app will offer me anything extra though? Plex DVR plays live tv “relatively” well - has the odd glitch etc… and guide is rubbish until they bring out the new grid style guide.

Just weighing up my options, since the whole Channels set up isn’t exactly cheap for what is usually a free service in the U.K. therefore need to make sure it will all do what I need!

#13

All family members have iPads too, so if I switch from Plex then obviously that’s another £14.99. All adds up, so I’d hope for a Rolls Royce experience!

#14

I’m curious… the AppleTV app has almost no buffering when changing a channel. Were you able to accomplish the same with Android TV and Fire TV? The one thing I didn’t like about Plex was the buffering for live channels.

#15

All the Channels apps play the streams from the HDHomeRun natively, providing a 1 second tuning time. Plex has to transcode the streams which causes multiple seconds of delay before you’re watching your channel.

Channels provides the closest experience to what you expect when watching TV as you can get. That’s what it’s always been about. You’ll think you’re on your old cable box, except it feels nicer!

1 Like
#16

I tested the beta version on the Fire TV Gen 2 and it worked fine on my DVB streams for both H264 and MPEG2. I note you have only released this for the Gen3 box. Have you personally tried a Gen2 box? I appreciate there is no hardware deinterlacing for MPEG2 but on standard definition streams it looked fine. I do have a Gen3 but I don’t like it very much. Could you consider supporting Gen2? Or if not supporting at least offering an unsupported version with a clear warning that MPEG2 streams might not be optimal?

#17

BTW congrats on releasing this and I hope the revenue it generates secures a great future for FancyBits.

#18

One further question…

Am I best to run the DVR on the Shield TV with an external HDD, or on my Windows Server which runs Plex Server?

If on Windows I’d probably have to wrap it in a service, using NSSM or something, as I don’t always log into it after a reboot.

Cheers!

#19

Best to run it on Windows. Most of us haven’t been successful at getting it to stay running on the Shield and have different issues after a few days.

1 Like
#20

Perfect. I wonder why Plex doesn’t do the same. Would seem like that should be the standard. Oh well. We have Channels and that’s good enough for me!

#21

The windows installer for the DVR has an option to install as a service built-in.