You spent $400 on that?
That is back on 2021 I can get a good NAS now for that Price that does hardware Transcoding.
I'm appreciative of all the input on good (reliable, supportable, relatively inexpensive [even returnable], small, reasonably recent, and available) hardware platforms for Channels. Divesting myself of the TiVo/cable/OTA home "infrastructure" last year, Channels is giving me more control and flexibility by far.
I get the attraction of a cast-off laptop. I have been testing on my soho i7 8-core laptop and get how simple and well performing that is, even on Windows. Works great but not my final platform as this laptop is not 7x24x365.
Testing an *ix on celeron N5095 4-core w/quicksync (although I don't really watch much that needs transcoding... on Channels anyway), doing Plex double-duty, also checks a lot of the boxes.
I don't really have much need for a big NAS or Raid box so far - replacing a disk is not a catastrophe and the plan is to have more than one instance of Channels. Unlike a TiVo if a disk goes bad its a hassle and a half. With Channels, setting up another DVR is 20 minute task at the most once the gear is on-hand.
In the end as the spouse tends to want to do her own thing on the DVR content. The client can be pointed to one or the other DVRs without too much fuss.
Lenovo ThinkCentre M900 Tiny Core i5-6500T 16GB 256GB SSD Wi-Fi Windows 10 Pro (Grade A Refurbished) | Boing Boingmcsu84_ga*RVI5aEQzNDV2YkkzVHQ4ZnpNMWlVMWhiNUNlWUdFOWZONEhydnZqcE9sWFRQUXdjazg1RUNsbXhjZ2U2dm5GSw..
Never heard of that merchant though
That's a 6th gen i5. 8th gen starts good encoding
AV1?
So what are y'alls thoughts on these 2 models?
Go to Amazon. Pick any of the $140 - $200 N5095/N5105 or even the newer 12th gen ones now. The amount of power you get for $200 is just incredible today. Those little mini PC will run circles around something like an old 2012 Mac and not to mention power consumption and efficiency is light years better. The Raspberry Pi is woefully underpowered - even the "4" is already 4+ years old and was already behind performance-wise when it was released in 2019. Today it's not worth even considering, especially at the prices the scalpers are hawking them for. It's certainly true that almost any $50 PC will make a fine DVR it just comes down to size, looks, and power consumption. Some people don't care if it's a huge tower that looks fugly and uses 150 watts sitting at the desktop, but most would prefer one of the small PC I mentioned that uses the 11/12gen Intel chips...they're just incredible and at the $200 price point they really can't be beaten right now.
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Rpi4b is not at all underpowered. It is plenty powerful for its intended purpose for singe use.
Channels DVR itself is not heavy on cpu or ram.
Channels even makes a special image for the Pi and many people use it and love it.
Only if you need multiple transcode streams, and faster com skip processing, does one need a more powerful hardware.
Channels also has a different commercial detections system on many channels, that uses no cpu at all.
I have been running multiple Rpi Channels DVR servers for years now.
They are rock solid and far more powerfully and useable than any cable company cable box(every one of those i had, were ancient large clunky Scientific Atlanta boxes from the mid 2000's that they force me to rent monthly.)
They also were the most affordable way to setup a dedicated appliance type device.
In the "before times", Rpi's were cheap and readily available.
(You also can get a decent performance boost by overclocking the pi to 2ghz. Mine are and are stable, and stay cool in a case that has a small quite fan)
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Well by 2023 standards, the RPI4b is a real dud. And at the prices people are currently paying for them from the scalpers (as much as $225 for an 8GB model...) it just doesn't make sense. I'm not saying they can't be used for Channels DVR, just that it doesn't make any sense given the prices today and what you can get as an alternative at a similar (or even less) cost - much more versatile and powerful x86 hardware that will be far better suited to a whole host of other tasks beyond Channels DVR as well, that you can run on the same little cheap box. So it's all relative. I'm not a Pi hater - heck I'm still running a couple old 3B (not even +...) models in the back room for various lab projects and play.
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RPi 4 can not transcode anything. The quality of video produced is terrible. Channels for RPi should have transcoding disabled instead of providing poor user experience.
I also have an RPI4 and it seems to chug right along as a one or two stream box also doing Plex. Can’t complain (pre-scalper acquisition), its tiny, running a normal *ix with Plex, Channels, and other things all fan-less. Mostly personal use case.
My N5095 is definitely more for about the same $ outlay these days.
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Disagree. The few times i have had it transcode a video stream, i can not tell the difference in quality vs original on a small 7in phone screen. Pi does just fine for one remote stream, I am the only user, so it works great when needed for my setup. I almost never remote stream though, and when i do, it has always been on Original.
If you don't need transcoding/remote viewing, the Pi can handle several users in home no issue.
(recommend it be running of a fast ssd though)
I got my Pi's back in mid 2019, when Best Buy had the 8gb CannaKits Ultra or whatever for around $70. Microcenter sold the raw 8gb board for $50, and the lower ram models even cheaper. Have 2gb and 8gb models in nice cases just collecting dust on my shelf at the moment. Use them on occasion for random projects. The few other i bought and setup for friends/family, still going strong.
Can't say why the maker of them have not recovered from stock issues by now. I thought i read an article while back that said they had somewhat. Pretty much all other industries have recovered, even automotive parts now are much more normal availability.
I did read they announced they would not be releasing the Pi5 until at least 2024 0r 2025, and plan to still focus on making the pi4 models. I do agree that the pi4b is outdated now, there are plenty of other more powerful SBC alternatives out there now.
In 2023, yes, it is much easier to find stock of alternative SBCs, or mini/micro form factor pcs at sane prices. That is not to say it is impossible to find Pi's at good deals, there are easy to find tracking lists and other ways to get them at good price, even during the pandemic, just have to have patience and take the time to find them.
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Sounds like you might be a contrarian. Nothing you said would indicate any disagreement with my post 
You contradict yourself. 
Incorrect. It transcodes.
Since you state it does not transcode, then you must mean the "original" video quality output?
The output by the pi via original passthrough or when it transcodes is fine, indiscernible difference to me on my devices. (iPhone 12PM, Ipad Mini)
This would result in a worse user experience. As, the device provides excellent user experience, as indicated by the users here. Its transcode/remote stream abilities are limited to 1 stream, this is clearly noted and advertised on the Channels DVR website and docs. For many, that is all they need.
You seem to indicate you believe the Pi is not a good device for a Channels DVR server, I disagree.
It makes a great rock solid server device. You just need to consider its limitations and use cases. Which, with a little bit of reading on the Channels site, and these forums, is easy to learn.
If the RPi4 was not a good device to run Channels DVR server on, then why did the devs spend the time and resources making a custom image and detailed Guide/ support pages for the device?
The only point i agree upon, which, is not a point you mention in your post sdust, but instead others, is that value wise, $ cost, in 2023, the RPi4 is certainly not a good value at scalper prices. If one wants a ultra low power SBC, there are alternatives now.
Energy consumption wise, however, all those Mini pcs, NUC, or USFF machines etc, use far more energy than a SBC.
If you are a user that values performance/raw processing power, a use case beyond a SBCs abilities, or don't care about energy usage, than, said user would not even be considering any SBC.
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You're right, for absolute total lowest power consumption, the RPI4b setup wins every time. But I will argue most people aren't gonna cry over 5-10 watts when they can get many times the overall processing power and performance. Especially (again) at the current prices being demanded for Pi's today. It has become a scalpers' market and so the bots and resellers are just hoarding every available unit 24/7/365 which is why we still don't have any availability after 3 years of pandemic.
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I would like to hear from somebody with a display device bigger than 7" to tell us about the quality of RPi transcoding. For me it is simply unwatchable. Try transcoding a program with a scrolling news ticker and see how smooth it is.
Like i said, i also have a ipad, that is 8.3 in.
Also, remote streaming is mainly done when someone is on a mobile device, ie, a small screen.
Some do have setups on normal tvs and stream remote when staying somewhere else, but that is not a typical setup.
I am not sure if you can override and force transcode for local in home playback, (aside from using the web browser playback). Either way, TVE stream are already encoded mpeg4 compressed streams and rarely need transcoding unless you have extreme bandwidth restrictions.
And if it looks like crap, that is expected if you have it set to a low bitrate.
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Using my main display, a MSI Creator PS321QR 32in 2K. And Apple TV 4K (2022)
Just set via server Quality settings to the highest transcoding setting, 8Mbps for Home viewing.
Tuned a few OTA stations, TPT weather, NBC news.
Is a tad blurry and mushy with some artificing, compared to Original.
But the bottom thirds I can still read clearly.
I do notice a discrepancy though, the server setting is 8Mbps, but the server reports:
Activity
*Watching ch2.1 from AppleTV (Transcoder Running at 7mbps)
In fact, the Activity always reports 1Mbps lower than the server setting for 8 and 6Mbps.
The lower bitrates report in activity correctly.
Anyway, setting it to 4Mbps, text does start to a tad look worse, but overall picture is still good.
2Mbps, is decent, still quite readable.
1mbps alot worse, with heavy mush and blur. That my point of "not watchable".
(But any 1Mbps bitrate video probably would be to me, save for maybe h265 or AV1 encoded streams)
I would say, to me, 4Mbps and higher is perfectly acceptable.
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