Feasibility of Channels Plus over internet for home use

Channels DVR Server
#1

I’ve got Channels Plus installed on a Synology DS220+ NAS in my house, feeding four 4K TVs via Apple TV, and a few mobile devices (iOS). This all works fine.

Programming source is a mix of OTA antenna (HDHR) and Locast. I’m less pleased with this. In good weather, the OTA picture quality is great, but there is a stand of tall conifers between me and the broadcast tower (which is about 15 miles away), so signal becomes basically unusable when it rains and blows, which is a frequent occurrence here in the Pacific Northwest. Locast quality is fine for mobile or small screens, but not so much for my 77 inch TV (my main interest is NFL football).

My father lives about 15 miles away, in a high-rise apartment. I set him up with an OTA antenna, and he gets fantastic reception, with no weather degradation.

I’m contemplating moving my NAS and HDHR to his apartment, so that it can record off his antenna. It would then stream to my TVs using internet. We both have 250M down/10M up internet service (as measured) with plenty of monthly data.

Questions:

  1. Would his 10M upload limit bandwidth enable high quality streaming to my home, including for my 77 inch 4K TV? (I assume I would be limited in simultaneous streams, but if I could get one good one, I would be satisfied).
  2. Would the Synology DS220+ be the best hardware for this approach? (It’s still within the Amazon return window, so I could easily switch it for something else). Would the Raspberry Pi build be suitable, particularly for a single stream? (I would actually prefer to keep the NAS at my house, since I use it for other stuff as well).

EDIT: after reading the conversation on another thread related to channels use in multiple locations, I’m wondering if it might make more sense to connect the HDHR to the router in my father’s apartment, and then establish a connection (via VPN?) between my network and his. Any suggestions on whether this is feasible, and if so, how to make it work?

#2

The 10Mbps uplink speed is going to be a problem for you here, no matter what route you take. It’s not enough to use original quality for OTA broadcasts. The next step down is 8Mbps. That may be good enough quality for you, but you’d probably want to test it somehow to be sure. Maybe by taking an Apple TV to his place and trying it in reverse. Even if the quality is good enough you’ll be taking up to 80% of his upstream bandwidth so if he happens to do anything else that needs significant upload bandwidth you may have buffering occur. The VPN also wouldn’t work well across that link due to the slow speeds, and it would be sending the uncompressed stream across the wire. If you have the option of paying more per month for a faster upstream speed this becomes much more doable. Even 25Mbps would probably allow you to stream everything remotely at original quality pretty reliably, I would think.

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#3

That makes sense -- I think the speed can be increased (gigabyte down, not sure of upload speed), but at that point, the cost of an OTT streaming service starts to be more competitive. Thanks for your feedback.

#4

What do you have for an antenna? Seems to me you efforts would be best spent improving the reception at your own house. Maybe try a more directional antenna? A less directoional antenna? Can you put it high enough to get above the trees? Maybe plant a pole in the ground and install it on the far side of the trees? Lots of things to try, IMHO.

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#5

You make a great point - if I could get a solid antenna signal, I would have no problem, and I’ve given that lots of thought. But the trees are not on my property, so I can’t put the antenna beyond them. And they are 100’-200’ feet tall, so going over then isn’t feasible either. I’ve experimented with a couple different antennas (Clearstream 4 Max most recently). My signal strength is actually quite good (>75% quality on the four main networks, which is all I care about). My sense is that signal strength isn’t the issue, it’s the water-logged trees blowing in the wind that’s the problem, and I don’t know if I can solve that on the receiving side.

Thinking out loud — I wonder if there is a way to get Channels to record programs using both OTA and Locast. That way, I could view the OTA recording when the weather is good (which is most of the time), and fall back to the Locast recording when it’s bad.

Based on my understanding of the Channels guide, recording priority, favorites, etc, it only records the highest priority showing of a specific program. Is there a way to force it to record duplicates? And then select the one to view on the client side?

#6

Not really, no. But if the antenna has a bad signal and the tuner fails to lock, then Channels can fall back to the Locast stream. However, that will only happen if the OTA stream is so poor that the tuner cannot lock; if it's marginal, then the antenna feed will record.

#7

OK, so getting really out of the box here — what if I setup a second channels device (like a RPi4) and told one to record off OTA and the other to record off Locast? Assuming that’s feasible, how would the client side react with two sources available? Would I just pick the one I wanted by IP?

#8

Interesting problem you are solving so I have been following just for curiosity sake.

RF signals can be difficult, even in the best of circumstances. I am pretty rusty on the topic but offering thoughts for what it is worth.

If I understand what you are describing, I would probably experiment with the antenna placement if that is an option (e.g. closer/further from the trees or at different angles and verify the orientation to the broadcast towers). Sounds like it is more of a signal quality issue versus signal strength. If so, then the trees (or other objects) could be causing multi-path signal interference exacerbated by the wind. Other than placement, you might look at adding the "reflector" option to your Clearstream 4 Max to make it more of a directional antenna. That would also improve multi-path noise issues. I would not amplify the signal though, as you will also amplify the noise.

In any case, best of luck.

#9

You can have two separate DVR servers running, but a client can only connect to one at a time. So in the client, you can manually select which server to connect to by IP.

#10

I think we are over complicating things here. He can just setup the antenna, Locast and Server at his dad's place, just as he alluded to, and then just watch at his house using Out of Home Streaming.

I have been doing this with a server, HDHR Prime, Shield Pro in PA transmitting to HI and have been able to use Original Quality. But even if he can't use Original, I just last weekend had to use my VPN instead of Out of Home and tried using Original which stuttered on a 1080i channel (NBC) for Sunday Night Football, but fine on 720p and below. I switched to the 8Mbps option which cleared up the stuttering and it was virtually indistinguishable from Original, and this was on a 137" CinemaScope screen using an LK990 "HarperVision modded", ISF'd and tricked out projector!

My thoughts are, try moving the server to dad's place and use it that way for a bit. If that doesn't work well, then explore these other more complicated solutions. No reason to waste your time until this is tested and verified.

#11

You probably could stream with the 10 up but your experience may vary (just because you pay for 10 up doesn't mean it always will be, some days it may be slower). I would recommend trying that setup first. Next step would be to try and optimized the antenna. If you are surrounded by thick trees, you are going to have to mount it outside on the roof or on a pole. Mounting inside or in the attic will have too much signal loss. Something like the low profile 4MAX might not have enough gain / be the right design for the stations in your area. You may have to get a larger, more directional antenna and possibly run it to a good pre-amp.

#12

I do this with my brother in Germany and it all works fine. My upload is about 11-12 Mbit on average and he can watch everything though channels no issue. I have two antennas and 3 HDHomeRun devices and 5 additional streaming sources defined and it works.

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#13

So as not to leave everyone hanging, here's what I decided to do.

As I mentioned, Locast works fine, it's just that the picture and sound quality for NFL games is not that great on my large screen TV. But I pretty much only watch the Seahawks, and nearly all of their games are carried on Fox (I'm in the Seattle area). I didn't mention it previously, but there is a Fox broadcast tower about 10 miles from me, on a different bearing, with almost unobstructed line of sight (so excellent signal strength/quality, even with an indoor antenna). So I setup Channels to use OTA for Fox, and Locast for everything else.

I think that's going to be good solution for me, with OTA quality for most of the Seahawks games, and adequate quality for everything else (which I usually watch on my smaller TV's anyway). I'll just have to suffer through any post-season games that aren't on Fox. :slight_smile:

(Maybe, just maybe, the NFL and/or networks will come out with a NFL streaming service that shows local games without having a cable account. The OTT climate seems to be changing fast -- you never know).

Thanks for all the great suggestions -- I suspect this thread will be beneficial to others in a similar situation.

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#14

I was going to suggest grabbing https://www.channelmaster.com/Digital_HDTV_Outdoor_TV_Antenna_p/cm-3020.htm or the slightly smaller Advantage 60 for your through the trees needs. Indoor antennas literally suck in the scenario you're describing. Given the 10 miles from Fox antenna distance in the Seattle area means worst case you're 35 miles from the other cluster according to antennaweb.org. Given the trees in the line of sight and working during non stormy weather, I'd probably go for the 60, which should give you plenty of signal strength. You can continue to use your indoor for the local Fox channel that you already get well - Channels lets you set channel affinity for tuners, and just use multiple tuners to get all your OTA goodness.