DVR hardware requirements (why can't we use single drive WDMyClouds?)

Channels DVR Server
#1

For the past year, I’ve been anxiously waiting for the Channels DVR, and it is great to see the product finally nearing completion.

Having said that, I am a little surprised to see the hardware requirements. I am using a single drive WDMyCloud with SD’s DVR and it is working flawlessly. Now I see that the hardware requirements for the Channels DVR are significantly higher; single drive models not being supported and described as underpowered.

Please help me understand what Channels does in addition to what SD’s DVR does, that would explain the much higher system requirements.

Thank you,
Cheers, Felix

#2

SD’s DVR is mostly cloud based. All of your data, schedules, guide, etc are all on their servers. All the installed component does is sync job schedules for when to record, and records to disk.

Channels DVR is a full solution that runs on your computer. There is no cloud component. If your internet went down, it would still work. Because of that, the requirements are a bit higher.

#3

thanks a lot for your response, I see where you are coming from.

In regards to single-drive WDMyClouds: is the current status your last word, or is there a chance you might be supporting these moving forward?

Thanks!

#4

See this thread for more details: WDMyCloud Single Drive

We have a build available in that thread if you want to try installing on your WDMyCloud, but as noted it is very slow to the point of being unusable. You will not be able to transcode, run commercial detection, and the NAS will become slow for hours while it downloads guide data.

#5

thank you, sir!

#6

@fub68 What firmware version is running on your WDMyCloud?

#7

I am running the latest firmware, which is v04.04.05-101.

#8

Okay, that means you have a gen1 which does not allow installing apps.

#9

Are you mainly talking about your installer. As you know I ran the DVR on the Gen1 v04 without Apps. I just did manual install. If I remember the main problem was downloading guide data. Of course COMSKIP would run forever as well. I did not use WebUI for playback.

#10

Gen1 is even slower than Gen2. We do not support manual install on NAS anymore, because it is very hard to manage and you lose all your data if the NAS reboots.

On Gen2, it is possible to enable app installation via some tricks in the web admin, and the unit is fast enough to for very basic DVR functionality. (Two simultaneous recordings + playback on ATV. No comskip or transcoding)

#11

@tmm1 - Before you replied I decide to start it up “for fun” (disabled Bonjour Discovery on Mac DVR) and it actually upgraded to the current version. Maybe because I already had a working version installed. But it did not restart so I rebooted then ran the ./install.sh and it started running. Below if the log (just for fun).

I have no intentions of running the DVR on this box. I will continue to run it on my Mac Mini. But not sure what you mean by “lose all your data”. I have never lost any data even when running the SD DVR. Unless you mean the restart DVR on boot. I think at one point I had that working with SD DVR then a firmware update may have ended it. But then I stopped using SD DVR so not sure about it. AGAIN, this box is way to slow for me to use it for my purpose.

But FYI… Here is the log: WDMyCloud Firmware is v04.04.05-101
Version 2017.04.06.0200
Check For Update
Uptime 18 minutes
Started Today at 7:47 PM

OS Linux Debian
7.1 (kernel: 3.2.26)
CPU 2 cores / ARMv7 Processor rev 1 (v7l)
load averages: 16.18 15.23 9.75
RAM 237.90 MB
28.2% free

2017/04/06 19:47:20 [SYS] Starting Channels DVR v2017.04.06.0200 (linux-armv7l) in /DataVolume/shares/WD_Channels/channels-dvr/data
2017/04/06 19:47:21 [HDR] Found 2 devices
2017/04/06 19:47:24 [SYS] Started HTTP Server
2017/04/06 19:47:25 [DVR] Recording engine started in /DataVolume/shares/WD_Channels/channels-dvr/data/Recordings
2017/04/06 19:47:25 [SYS] Bonjour service running for dvr-wdmycloud.local. [192.168.11.157]
2017/04/06 19:47:25 [SYS] Created database snapshot: backup-20170406.194725
2017/04/06 19:47:35 [DVR] No listings for USA-CA65194-X (0 airings, 0 groups); starting indexer…
2017/04/06 19:47:45 [DVR] Fetching guide data for 99 stations in USA-CA65194-X @ 2017-04-06 7:30PM
2017/04/06 19:48:09 [DVR] indexed 716 airings (99 channels) [9s fetch, 15s index]
2017/04/06 19:48:13 [DVR] indexed 46 movies (20 channels) [1s fetch, 1s index]
2017/04/06 19:48:13 [DVR] Fetching guide data for 99 stations in USA-CA65194-X @ 2017-04-07 1:30AM
2017/04/06 19:48:38 [DVR] indexed 836 airings (99 channels) [7s fetch, 17s index]
2017/04/06 19:48:41 [DVR] indexed 24 movies (13 channels) [1s fetch, 0s index]
2017/04/06 19:48:41 [DVR] Fetching guide data for 99 stations in USA-CA65194-X @ 2017-04-07 7:30AM
2017/04/06 19:49:12 [DVR] indexed 761 airings (99 channels) [9s fetch, 21s index]
2017/04/06 19:49:14 [DVR] indexed 25 movies (14 channels) [1s fetch, 1s index]
2017/04/06 19:49:15 [DVR] Fetching guide data for 99 stations in USA-CA65194-X @ 2017-04-07 1:30PM
2017/04/06 19:49:45 [DVR] indexed 729 airings (99 channels) [9s fetch, 20s index]
2017/04/06 19:49:48 [DVR] indexed 42 movies (19 channels) [2s fetch, 1s index]
2017/04/06 19:49:49 [DVR] Fetching guide data for 99 stations in USA-CA65194-X @ 2017-04-07 7:30PM
2017/04/06 19:50:15 [DVR] indexed 713 airings (99 channels) [6s fetch, 19s index]
2017/04/06 19:50:20 [DVR] indexed 52 movies (27 channels) [2s fetch, 1s index]
2017/04/06 19:50:20 [DVR] Fetching guide data for 99 stations in USA-CA65194-X @ 2017-04-08 1:30AM
2017/04/06 19:50:54 [DVR] indexed 829 airings (99 channels) [10s fetch, 22s index]
2017/04/06 19:50:59 [DVR] indexed 33 movies (17 channels) [1s fetch, 2s index]
2017/04/06 19:51:00 [DVR] Fetching guide data for 99 stations in USA-CA65194-X @ 2017-04-08 7:30AM
…
…
Still loading guide