Just get a external hard drive, a cheap one. Leaving computer on isn’t a big deal for me. Tablo is slow
1 Like
This. An external hard drive and have Channels store everything there. 2TB drives are really cheap and can store a lot.
1 Like
This! As great as Tablo was when it launched, the user experience seemed slow on the Apple TV. Channels is much more responsive and almost instantly starts a live channel or recorded show.
1 Like
I used Tablo. I do NOT recommend it. Channel changing is very slow and the smallest fixes or enhancements take the engineering team forever to implement.
1 Like
When you do the math, consider how many TVs are you going to watch from. In my case, there are four TVs in the house, so besides the one-time purchase of an AppleTV, there is no other incremental cost on adding a TV.
I tried the Tablo prior to switching to Channels so I can compare them with the disclaimer that it has been almost a year since I’ve used the Tablo so there may have been improvements since I’ve used it.
Tablo works differently then Channels does. Tablo converts the OTA feeds real time to a format that streams well over the network. I found this worked OK for recording, but results in a poor live TV experience. Because of this conversion, there is a noticeable lag between changing a channel and the display starting. The pause is great enough to negatively impact live television or time shifting features like ffw, pause, rewind to the point that my family didn’t find it acceptable.
Channels offers a much different Live TV experience. Channels can preserve the native OTA format and because of this there is no pause when changing stations or time shifting live shows.
The other aspect that I found important in comparing the two is the overall quality of the applications. I found the early 2017 beta Channels DVR to be easier to use and less buggy then the Tablo software that was more mature. When there are bugs in the Channels software the devs provide quick advice, feedback and fixes. Tablo is much slower with updates and bug fixes.
That said, Tablo is fairly turnkey so it might a bit easier and cheaper to get up and running. In your price comparison don’t forget that the Tablo does not come with storage so you have to add the cost of a USB drive. Tablo receivers do not support USB3.0 which I thought was a silly limitation as USB2.0 speeds have to negatively impact performance.
I chose Channels and haven’t looked back. My family all finds Channels very easy to use I highly recommend it.
3 Likes
Thanks for the info. Since we have a MacBook Air with little space, we use an AirPort Extreme 2TB router. I have it auto-mount a volume on the MacBook so we can have our iTunes library on it. Could I do the same thing for using DVR? I know it wouldn’t record if computer wasn’t running, but it would be much easier than a plugged in hard drive, since the MacBook moves from room to room an awful lot
You can try it. It is unlikely to consistently work well, though, unless the macbook is plugged in.
A Raspberry Pi is cheap and works for in-home viewing.
I’ve never used one before. Is there a guide for setting it up to use with channels?
You can try this, but it probably won’t work very well over Wi-Fi. The problem is the video files from the hdhomerun are huge, and this doubles the bandwidth requirements since the Mac has to both download from the hdhomerun and upload to the network volume at the same time.
You would need to buy a rpi and SD card, then set up the SD card on your computer with the raspbian Linux distribution to install Linux on the rpi. Once the pi is up, you can ssh in and run the Channels DVR installer. You’ll probably want to buy a case for the pi too. And a drive to plug into it. The costs add up quick and it’s a bunch of work, plus hardware is limited as it only supports usb2.0 and the USB port shares a bus with the Ethernet port. Still if you’re comfortable with Linux and are looking for a low-cost option it’s a good route.
FYI, we are also working on an entry-level solution set to launch next month, based on WD’s new MyCloudHome (available at BestBuy starting at $140 for 2TB). It isn’t very fast at commercial detection, but for basic in-home viewing it should work well. It even has some transcoding capability for basic out-of-home viewing.
That sounds great. Thanks for the spoiler. I may go pick one up for my daughter for Christmas, since I still have a connect and antenna lying around.
With a RPi/case/SD card and disk w/ enclosure, that’s about the same cost and none of the hassles.
The MyCloudHome runs makes a pretty terrible NAS (you can’t plug it in via usb, you can’t network mount the drive without special kernel drivers), but for a stand-alone DVR it’s a great solution.
If you decide to pick one up and want to beta test the our DVR package, send me a private message.
Would a 128GB thumb drive plugged into an always on computer work decently for DVR? Record about 6-10 hours a week and watch it pretty quick
1 hour of video can be as much as 12GB. So 10hr would be the max you could record. Thumb drives aren’t the best for read/write speeds, but would probably work fine for your use-case.
Ok. I looked and it’s usb 3.0, and there’s also a 256 for not much more but doesn’t show speeds. $48
Just get a 1TB hard drive for that price.
It’s just the ease of portability…moving a laptop with a thumb drive in much easier than an always plugged in with cable external
The ones that are about $50-$55 you don’t need to plug into the wall, just the laptop.
I am moving from Tablo to Channels DVR, mainly because I’m not happy with how slow the interface is, the occasional (it’s gotten better but still…) delay in audio with the video (sometimes the audio does not match the mouth movement…kind of annoying), and also because Channels DVR offers commercial skip (something we have missed since leaving TiVo to go to Tablo).
My wife and I have gone from owning a TiVo Bolt with 3 TiVo Mini’s, to Tablo, and now to Channels DVR. I’d say that in a nutshell, we have tried just about everything except for Plex.
I’ve been told that Plex runs very bloated, and has a bunch of stuff you may or may not use…and that Live TV and DVR is not very good. Anybody out there want to correct me on any of the above? I’m new to Channels, but I did the TiVo thing for 6 years, Tablo for almost 2 years.
1 Like