When I try to skip forward there is very often a long delay. This happens mostly when I first start a show or when I hit skip multiple times while watching. This one small but very annoying delay (sometimes several seconds) has caused my wife to fuss so much that I have purchased a Tivo. I like the Tivo but my wife likes the simplicity of the channels ui. I haven’t canceled because I am hoping it will get better.
The delay is often related to seeking to a new point, then requesting that new point from the DVR server. Are you connected with ethernet cabling, or wireless? Also, is this consistent, or is it while the DVR is doing other processes (meaning the device handling your DVR may not be as powerful as your needs require).
Thank you for the reply. I am connected by ethernet. My PC is a core i7 that is a couple generations old. The pc is prettty high end with a raid 0 primary drive and WD REDS for av recording. It shouldn’t be delayed. Maybe there is some issue with setup. I want instant skips and fast forward. The media center on the pic doesn’t have this issue. Sometimes it sticks for what seems like a minute. My wife will holler out what is wrong with this thing. It is great other than this issue.
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Slow seeks indicate a network issue. What device are you running Channels on?
Apple TV 4K
Can you run a speedtest between your ATV4K and PC, as follows:
- figure out the IP of your ATV4k
- make sure Channels app is running and visible on screen
- on your PC, open http://x.x.x.x:57000/speedtest using the IP of your ATV4K
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I will try this when I get home and will reply. Plex works smoothly. I would assume it would have an issue. The pc, Apple TV, and other devices are together in a closed cabinet. I have an in wall rated hdmi 2.0 cable going through the attic to the tv.
Plex transcodes video to decrease the bandwidth usage. You can do the same thing in Channels by setting the Home Streaming Quality to a lower value. But it's possible to get instant seeks at Original quality as long as you're getting gigabit speeds between your DVR PC and ATV4K.
Let us know what the speedtest says and we'll have a better idea of next steps.
Can I do what you asked with only the Tv? I don’t have a monitor hooked up other than the tv. I use the tv as the monitor if I work on the pc.
Not easily, no.
You can download the speedtest app and run that, but that will measure your internet connection and not the connection to your DVR.
I have the same issue. My server is a i7 8700k 6core with and Nvidia 1070 8gig card , 16gig ram and the Win10 on an SSD. My DVR files are on USB3 drive. I'm running cat 6 on my PC and AppleTV and not using Wifi at all. Plex runs smooth and it's set to play original files not to transcode. I'm using NETGEAR 8-Port Gigabit Ethernet Unmanaged Switch with Cat 6 cables. The switch is connected to an Netgear Orbi too if that matters.
I did the test @tmm1 suggested these are my results.
Download - 100.52 Mbit/s
Latency - 7.66 ms
Jitter - 1.03 ms
@jinks you can use Splashtop or similar app to connect to your PC. I have the same set up PC and AppleTV on the same TV. I connected to my PC via using another computer running spashtop but you can use a phone or tablet too.
Looks like you're using an Apple TV 4 (not 4K), so it's maxing out at 100mbps.
With the 4K model you get gigabit speeds and seeks will be much faster (10x faster).
You might actually want to use WiFi since it will be faster than the 100mbps Ethernet. Or you can enable transcoding by changing Home Streaming Quality and it will match what Plex is doing.
@Elias_Neris Thank you for the advice. I have been unable to work on this like I thought. I will try to see if this will help to locate the issue at some point. I am somewhat suspicious that it is an issue with the channels app itself but I could definitely be wrong. I actually went to the AppleTV 4k in order to have the faster ethernet connection but it hasn't really helped. I thought it was better at first but I am still having issues.
Just beware, mesh wifi routers (like Google Home, Orbi, etc.) often have issues with high bandwidth streaming, like live TV. Plain (non-mesh) wifi is better in that instance.
thanks!! that worked 
I didn't know the appleTV4 had a slower ethernet port. Maybe I'll swap out it out with one of my other 2 appleTV4k to run it via ethernet.
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@tmm1 Thank you for sharing this speedtest technique.
I was using an Nvidia Shield Pro 2017 as a client for Channels and I noticed a delay in fast forwarding. I have a gigabit wired network but when I ran the speedtest to the IP of the client my speed was about 100MB/s, which made no sense to me since it is connected to a gigabit switch.
On a hunch, I swapped out the patch cable between the client and the switch with a new Cat 6 patch cable and retested via speedtest and the new results gave 900+ MB/s throughput.
Then I retested fast forwarding and it was much better, sometimes instantaneous, with very few delays.
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