Channels vs Plex

[Midwaybrit]

I have been using the Plex DVR on my Apple TV 4 and I wonder if you can explain what’s better about yours, versus theirs. ?
I want to make sure it’s right for me before I buy.
Thanks so much !

[tmm1]

Are you having issues with Plex?

I haven’t used Plex DVR myself so I’ll let others who have tried both comment. You can see some previous comparisons:

Channels DVR vs Plex remote access and viewing

I'm a long time Plex user who ditched Plex DVR for Channels DVR. It's night and day. Where Plex DVR was constantly failing and needing attention, Channels just works. The Channels app on my iPad and iPhone has worked flawlessly. Scheduling, checking passes, watching DVR'd or live content etc. The only ding I have against Channels is the slow expansion to other platforms for clients (Roku). The nice thing is that you can add the Channels DVR folders (Movies and TV) to your Plex libraries and use …

Channels DVR vs Plex remote access and viewing

I also have Plex and Channels. Plex is AWESOME for managing your movies and other media. The UI is beautiful, and I love the Netflix-like experience. But when it comes to DVR and live TV, my experience is that it is mediocre at best. It works. Sometimes. Often it doesn't. And if you are using it to stream to Apple devices, it has to transcode which slows the time it takes to start watching a stream. Channels, on the other hand, is AMAZING for DVR and live TV. I have used it on Apple TV…

Channels vs Plex - Live TV

I'm so impressed with the performance of Channels. I learned of Channels earlier this year while searching for an alternative to Plex for Live TV. Plex was, and continues to be frustrating, and is a resource hog. I was trying to explain how much better the performance and experience is to colleagues and decided to just make a video. Channels crushes.

[Midwaybrit]

Thanks for those reviews.
I can’t say I’m having a problem with Plex. But I do find their channels a little slow to load. Also with the DVR., I like the automatic commercial skip, which can be hit and miss. I understand with yours that you manually press a button on the remote just once to skip the entire commercial break ? Much like TiVo ?
Again thanks for all your advice.
Andy.

[tmm1]

Channels app definitely loads stations much more quickly, often in under a second.

We don’t have auto-removal or skip for commercials, but we mark them so you can see where they are and skip by double clicking the remote.

[Midwaybrit]

So simply double clicking quite accurately skips the commercials .? Do you have a link for more details on that ?
Thanks again.
Andy

[Rabfelusa]

Channel is just amazing at simple things where Plex is plagued with issues. I use both. When watching from outside my home Channels just works, Plex always freezes or bails on you for some reason. I use Channels regularly for Live TV and Plex for pre recorded material.

[iSpock]

I am a Plex DVR user and I’m not happy with Plex due to application and to many video buffering. I gave up at the end with Plex. Fortunately, I found Channels DVR and the application is very reliable and works like a charm all the time. I’m impressed with Channels developent team and they’re kicking major players like TiVo in the *ss.

I’ve TiVo as well and I’m going to ditched TiVo very soon. I run Channel DVR backend on my iMac 8 Core + 16 GB RAM and my TV Tuner is HDHomeRun Prime and VerizonFios as my Cable and Internet provider.

My Channel DVR client application runs on my AppleTV… Only DRM channels are HBO/FX/FS1/CinemaMax/NationGeograpic

I love it…

[dkappelman]

Just to agree with much of the sentiment here: A few weeks ago I switched over all my TV viewing to Channels DVR on Apple TV after more than a decade of using TiVo and so far I am very happy.

Before I discovered Channels, I was experimenting with Plex DVR and I had come to the conclusion that in its current form it was not a viable alternative to TiVo. It would occasionally miss recordings, channel switching was slow, pause / rewind / forward features could sometimes lag or could crash Plex, and the live feed had more delay than I wanted.

In my opinion, Channels has the best pause / forward / rewind implementation. It’s very slick and very fast. Both live TV and recordings load almost instantaneously. It also allowed me to get rid of Slingbox (though Plex can do that too).

I find the automatic commercial detection on the Channels DVR quite good. I actually think it works better than TiVo’s implementation. On certain shows TiVo would never recognize commercials, but Channels DVR does not have this issue. Skipping commercials is similar to hitting the D button on your TiVo remote, but for Channels on Apple TV you just double tap the upper right hand corner of the touch pad (same as you would to advance 30 seconds) and it skips the commercial break.

Plex is great as a media server which I use almost daily, but I have completely stopped using their DVR (and their TVos App, in favor of Infuse). Plex DVR would need to improve significantly for me to consider a switch, or even a side-by-side implementation at this point.

When compared with TiVo, there are some features that I wouldn’t mind having, mainly a more persistent live TV buffer, and of course it sucks that there are some channels with DRM if you’re using a cable card. But, that’s not really an issue when comparing Channels DVR with Plex DVR, because you don’t get those features with Plex anyway.

[Midwaybrit]

That was extremely helpful. Thank you so much.

[scooter_scott]

Personally I don’t think Plex DVR is ready for prime time yet. They still have a lot of bugs to work out. Channels is very polished and works quite well. The only thing I personally had a hard time with is the commercial detection. Last time I tried the DVR it was hit or miss for me. That was a year ago and I think I’ve read that they have made improvements since then.

I too am a current TiVo user but I am quickly getting to the point of figuring out a way to drop them with all of the influx in TiVo HQ.

I have my whole home wired and setup with ATVs so my wife can have a seamless transition…I’m just waiting for the right time to put Channels DVR back on the monthly bill. I do use the app everyday and love it.

[stoli412]

I think Plex spent a lot of time getting support for a lot of different TV tuners, and it robbed them of time to spend on creating a good user experience. Channels took the opposite approach and focused solely on the HDHR and the iOS/tvOS clients initially, and that’s why we have such a polished user experience.

Once Channels nailed the fundamentals, they started expanding to other clients (Android etc). I hope they’ll do the same with expanding support for additional tuner types. I’d love to get rid of my 3 HDHRs and replace them with a single PCIe tuner card.

[gavin]

Useful post, especially since I still receive marketing emails from Plex. The other thing Plex DVR has going for it is cost - Channels DVR (which I might add has worked flawlessly for me) is £6 ($8) per month, whereas Plex is only £3.99 per month, or £31.99 for the year - Plex is significantly cheaper.

I would like to see different purchase models from Channels and more competition on price, but am in no rush to switch because Channels performs so well.

[maddox]

@gavin Just in case you missed it, we added a yearly subscription option this week - https://getchannels.com/2018/07/11/yearly-billing/

[pfile]

it’s very likely that plex uses the same underlying software as channels to detect commercials - comskip. they might be configured differently though. at any rate the ‘accuracy’ here is all about how well comskip’s various heuristics identify the commercials. the double-click is just the channels UI gesture for “skip to next marker” - the markers having been put into the recording metadata by comskip.

[scooter_scott]

That is welcomed news! Thanks @maddox!

[iSpock]

Whatever it is I’m sticking with Channel. I want things to work without any glitches and Channels provides me great deal of comport.

I watched entire England vs. France World Cup match from my car while my wife drove the car and we were traveling from Boston to Detroit via T-Mobile…

Keep up the good work Channels DVR Dev Team.

I’m throwing out my TIVO very soon…

[Coldwolf]

I have used Channels DVR since they started he service and it is outstanding. I have used the one from HDHome themselves which is a close second to Channels. Channels is outstanding. I do admit I considering Plex, it is still in Beta so it does have issues they, but they just did an update this week to the Apple TV app. Plex now supports the grid view in Apple TV. One thing that is making me consider switching is that Plex offers a one time change or lifetime access, and it is $120. Which after that no more monthly fee. $80 year plan is not bad but one time fee and no more monthly is nice, they are actively developing the DVR. It would be hard to leave channels because it is excellent software. I have not switched yet but Plex is tempting

[Midwaybrit]

I prefer Plex purely because it does the commercial skip automatically. I find it fiddly on the Apple TV remote having to hit the touch pad twice. If it wasn’t for that, I’d bite the bullet and pay the extra for Channels DVR.

[arcadellama]

I have used Channels for over a year now and am also a active Plex user. For live / DVR television, nothing beats Channels. And this is coming from someone who used TiVo since 2004. Having every everything on “one” device (Apple TV or Roku) means I could do-away with the Universal Remote.

Most importantly, it passes the wife + kids test: it just works. Use Channels “app” for “TV” and Plex app for “Movies” and Bob’s your uncle. No input switching or any madness. Very grateful for @tmm1 for creating the killer TV app. Well done.

[Lvevan]

I’m with you. I would rather have commercials stripped so it’s more like a Netflix episode. If you are running your Channels DVR from a PC (or a Mac with Parallels) you can use a free program called MCEBuddy that will automatically strip out the commercials from recordings. There is a thread about it here on these forums too. Works just like the Plex DVR and uses the same tech.