Been using channels for over 5 years and love it
the only issue I have is that when the HDHomerun locks in to some random over the air station, it includes them into the channel lineup automatically
same thing happens in virtual channels when Pluto changes the channel lineup, multiple channels show up
not a big deal but annoying. Would like to automatically disable adding new channels to the guide
Voted! This would be a wonderful option, especially for TVE and other streaming channel providers that seemingly add 5+ new channels every week. Even using collections to filter out any random new channels appearing, the DVR still sees the new channels, potentially wreaking havoc depending on how passes are configured. I find myself habitually checking the guide and cleaning up the mess frequently.
The best way to address this is with the Channels Collection feature. Using this, you specify exactly which channels you want to display to your clients. Any new ones added asa. result of re-scans etc will not show in the collection unless you specifically add them to it.
This is just a workaround, not a fix.
You can still do your suggestion, but give users the option of turning this off all together
I won't debate you. But, this is not a workaround at all. This is what we, as users, asked of the developers a long while back.
What you're requesting is for them to develop a workaround to what SiliconDust considers to be a feature of their product. Likewise, Pluto and any other provider that dynamically adds new channels or other content.
Indeed, Channel Collections address this nicely and add functionality too, being able to push these Collections across multiple clients instantly is great.
It's not a debate - both workarounds can coexist., What in my proposal denies you your preferences?
What has changed is the proliferation of virtual channels and tve
Just because Pluto wants to dump a half dozen new feeds into my guide , doesn't mean that channels shouldn't give its users
The ability to customize their experience
I would like to add another possible side effect of Channels including new stations in the channel lineup. I had a pass set to record a OTA program on CBS. For some reason, when Channels picked up some new far away OTA CBS Stations, it started recording that pass on one of those new stations. I had to go back in and manually tell Channels to record it on my local OTA broadcast.
If Channels prevented these new stations from showing up automatically, I assume it would resolve this possible side effect as well.
I agree with you - ideally there could be configurable options to suit everyone's preferences. Interesting too, there is this flipside perspective, folks who DO want to automatically see every new Pluto addition, especially wth Channel Collections:
In the meantime, In the web ui just favorite your ota channels you want to record from. This will stop any passes recording from the phantom ota channels. You don’t need to change all your passes once your reliable ota locals are favorited in the server gui.
Or the opposite, for some reason CBS signal goes down for maintenance or something and gets removed until you add it back.
Thank you for the info. I have done this, but when a new channel appears it is neither favorited or blocked. It seems it will still pick a non-favorited channel in some instances.
Collections & Favorites do not prevent the DVR from scheduling recordings on newly discovered channels, hence the need to disable them. Adding an option to do that automatically in no way conflicts or diminishes the channel collection functionality, which allows for multiple custom groups and multi-device syncing. While a side effect of collections is preventing new channels from being seen by a human, those channels are still seen and utilized by the application.
If you’re seeing passes record on channels that are not marked as favorites, when you have some channels marked as favorites that the pass should record from, you’re seeing a bug.
The system, prioritizes, favorite channels, and if it’s not doing that there’s some kind of reason.
You should open a new thread and submit diagnostics and details so that we can look at it.
Marking channels as favorites inside Channels DVR Server, is the most significant way you can tell the server which channel to record from on your pass, outside of hard coding the channel number in the series pass.
I don't have this issue cause i only use Favorite channels. And the Guide on the Clients are set to show only favorites. Thus any new random channels (mainly the untunable 5000+) do not showup anywhere in Channels. All the Channels i care about are set to FAV, and the ones i don't are disabled or not set to fav and do not show up.
Interesting, I was unaware the system did anything else with Favorites except group them together. I haven't used Favorites in awhile since Collections became a thing, guess I need to revisit my channel config. That said, I'm still voting for this feature since I'd prefer the extra control.
Using favorites and having a priority order your sources has a tremendous impact. If you go into Schedule view in the web interface, you can see upcoming recordings in the order of station priority. Some examples:
Without favorites and ordering of sources, it is going to go with HD > SD, Highest Station Number. So, in that first example, if I unfavorite 10.1, I end up with this:
You can immediately see the impact in the Pass itself if you want to play around and test it out.
Aaaand now I remember why I stopped using Favorites...
Yea. Apple side, no sync. Android clients there is a sync option.
On Apple, you can just remove the app, then re-install it and it thus syncs fav/hidden channels etc.
If you have sever side settings enabled, there isn't really anything you need to re-configure in the client app.
I tried deleting and reinstalling but it was not pulling the correct favorites - no idea what was happening there. Tbh even if it did, I'm not reinstalling the app on every device in the house every time I want to change a favorite. I reverted to creating my own "Favorites" collection and disabling the built-in one to get working sync, so I'm back to not having DVR channel priority, and I wish I could vote twice for this issue.