Not sure if it has anything to do with channels DVR or not... I have noticed that my fire stick 4K gets very choppy after running for about a week or so (a restart restore has it snappy performance). However after a week or so, when you go to play a video from Amazon it is extremely choppy.
I do the restart trick of holding the select button and the play button and all is well. But I'm wondering if maybe the channels app is running in the background? Has anyone else experienced similar issues?
Are your decoder setting in the app set to Hardware or Software? If you change the setting does it fix the issue?
You should take a look at my recent post here: Glitchy live video
In short, I sometimes have a simialr problem, tried all kinds of things to fix it, and nothing short of rebooting the Fire Stick fixed the problem.
Just for others considering a Fire TV Stick 4K, this seems like a very rare issue. I use one regularly for Channels and streaming services, with no performance issues whatsoever. On this and other forums I've seen a great many posts about the product, with no reference to a problem like this. Wish I could help, but thanks to the good luck most of us have had, I got nothing.
Pokemon_Dad, out of curiosity, how do you power your Fire Stick? Is it plugged into its own (always on) power source, or do you power it from a USB port on the TV itself? I imagine a scenario where powering the stick from the USB port on the TV results in the stick getting power cycled every time the TV is power cycled, which I would think would mitigate the choppy/glitchy video problem some of us are seeing. (I tried powering my stick from the USB port on my TV and I couldn't get it to work - presumably TV is limiting the current of the USB port)
I use this Cable to Power my Firestick from my TV ....
The problem with powering devices from the TV's USB port is that they often do not provide ample power. This might be a contributing factor to some issues.
However, if you are going to use the TV's port for power, I'd recommend something more like:
This one has a little battery that charges from the TV's port, and then powers the FireTV from that, delivering more power than the USB port alone. (Of course, this is not an endorsement of that product, as I've never used it, and it has mixed reviews. It's just used as an example of using a USB cable backed by an intermediary battery to deliver more power to the device.)
Hello all, sorry for the late reply. I checked the encoder settings and it is set to hardware... I will try software and see if anything changes. What is interesting is that content from channels will play fine all the time. The issue is with Amazon prime content. My kids watch bubble guppies and it will buffer every 5 seconds. Do a reboot and the video plays perfectly. That’s why I was wondering if it had to do with the channels app running in the background. The only apps I use are channels, pandora and amazon prime video. Also my fire stick is powered through the ac wall adapter.
It's powered off one of the Sony Bravia TV's own USB ports, which is marked "5v 500 mA max", through the Amazon Ethernet Adapter. In other words, both the Ethernet Adapter and the Fire TV Stick 4K are powered off the same USB port. It's been running flawlessly for so long, about 14 months, that I had to take a look back there to remember what I'd done.
So yes, it powers on and off with the TV, but that happens while the TV itself is also starting up, and adds no additional delay. It's been started thousands of times with no problem. I don't think it matters what apps you have running.
For all I know, it's the regular restarts that keep mine working well. Aside from that, the best suggestions I see here here revolve around the hardware/software encoder settings, and I would add also maybe your network speed.
While a wired connection is usually better, the ethernet adapter is only 100Mbps. Depending upon your wireless network, you may actually get better network throughout going that route ... my FireTV sticks regularly get 350+Mbps on wireless.
I should probably amend that to "over 400 times". I'm having trouble remembering life before Fire TV. 
That's worth repeating. Also this:
No way the Channels app is affecting streaming in another app. Sounds to me like the solution is restarts, and maybe a good hard look at local and ISP network speeds.
So, seems to me the conclusion is that regular rebooting of the Fire Stick is a good thing. I already automatically reboot the computer that's running the Channels DVR server once a week. I should get in the habit of doing the same with the Fire Stick. Will have to figure out a way to automatically do that as well.
For the record @VTTom I don't regularly restart my Channels DVR server app or the Synology NAS it's on. Channels currently reports an uptime of 11 days. I think you're right: regular rebooting of the Fire TV Stick may be your solution.
Is there any way to make it automatically do it in the middle of the night?
Depending upon the OS of your DVR server, there ought to be some form of scheduled tasks to run. Most NAS units have a Scheduled Task feature, as does Windows. Nearly all Linux and BSD systems (including macOS) support cronjobs. Newer systemd-based Linux systems also support timer units. Simply schedule one for a reboot.
An NAS, yes. A Fire TV Stick, no.
@elbow513 I believe you can use your remote to restart the Fire TV Stick though. My Google-fu has led me to "Hold down the Play/Pause and Select buttons simultaneously for 5 seconds."
You can do it if you have a smart-plug or smart strip where you can schedule power-off power on.
Something ike this for firestick
Actually, if you install the Android tools, you can remotely cause a reboot from another computer on your network. While it does require pairing your computer to the FireTV and enabling developer options, once done you can do:
$ adb connect ${FIRETV_IP} && adb reboot
Is it the easiest to set up, no; but it's not prohibitively difficult, either. The point is that it can indeed be done. And just like rebooting your NAS or computer on a schedule, you can use the same tools to schedule reboots of your Android/FireTV clients, too.