Clear picture on phone but not on TV

Channels DVR Server Troubleshooting
#1

Hello,

I am a new Channels DVR user (6 days) and I am evaluating it for the first free month. I really want to like it and end up using it. So far, I am really impressed with the software. However, I am a bit disappointed about one thing.

When I use my Android phone to watch live TV or recorded programs, the picture looks crisp and clear as you would expect from HD pictures.

When I do the same thing on a TV using either a TiVo Stream 4K device or directly on a Fire TV, I can notice the digital compression in the picture. It is watchable but it bothers me and I know my family will complain about it and won't want to use it.

I am wondering whether this could be related to transcoding.
I'm running the server on an old laptop that even struggles to record 2 streams at once.

Laptop info/server info:

Screenshot_20201201-124500_Chrome
Screenshot_20201201-124500_Chrome995×705 115 KB

Screenshot_20201201-123651_Chrome
Screenshot_20201201-123651_Chrome995×1251 127 KB

I am seriously considering taking advantage of Cyber week to get a new computer tower that can do hardware transcoding.

Do you think that with a modern computer this problem will go away and the picture will be crisp and clear on a TV?

If there is more info I can provide for debugging, please let me know.

#2

Transcoding is not used at home. Make sure the app is set to Home Streaming Quality: Original

#3

Yes, I just checked the settings in the app on the TiVo device and it is set to Home Streaming: Original
I will check on a different TV to compare.

#4

What would introduce the "digital compression"? Doesn't Channels just record the live stream as it is (no additional processing)?

I have TS4Ks on a TV and a projector, plus a Chromecast w/GoogleTV on another TV. Playback via Channels looks great on all 3 in addition to looking good on PC, tablet, and phone.

Btw: the Raspberry Pi4 is a great host for ChannelsDVR. And cheap!

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#5

This is a good question. The recorded files are in an MPEG container (extension .mpg) but the video stream is encoded using h.264 video compression. Is it the raw data from the live streams or is it encoded by Channels?

It also depends on your source. In my case, my main source is TV Everywhere so the quality of the video depends heavily on what the individual networks provide.
I can definitely see a difference between the recordings from Channels compared to recordings from DirecTV. The compression is more noticeable with TVE.

I'm interested to know what kind of processing Channels does on the streams.

#6

All recordings are saved raw. With TVE, some processing happens on the timestamps but the audio/video data is always untouched.

TVE streams comes from network websites (like nbc.com/live and watch.hgtv.com), not from DirecTV.

#7

Thank you for confirming this.

I have marked your post as the solution since the video quality is as good as it can be and nothing can be done to improve it.

Thank you for all you do. Channels DVR is truly a wonderful piece of software. I especially love the advanced pass feature.
Very well done. :+1:

I wish your DVR software could be used with satellite streams. It's nice to dream. :laughing:

2 Likes
#8

That would be great. It seems like technology has gone backwards. I remember 20 years ago when you could use any satellite or cable providers stb as a tuner for windows mce by adding a simple ir blaster. For me I'm going to dream bigger and look forward to the day when we can create a link from channels to any subscription via stb or the providers app. Now that would be nice just use your youtube tv app as a tuner for channels. Maybe I just need a newer ir blaster.:star_struck:

1 Like