As I dive deeper into the Channels-life (my Shield server is running beautifully and the client is amazing - my family is not tech-savvy but they are adapting really well to the transition from plex as a live tv source to Channels) - I am wishing for the ability to take the show on the road. 2020 wasn't a big travel year but 2021 might be. Would be nice to take a few episodes of the Simpsons, or whatever, with me (or the kids) on an ipad.
The recordings are stored as plain MPEG files in your DVR folder. Just go into the "TV" or "Movies" folders and browse from there...
If you have a Mac, you should be able to AirDrop the video files to your iPad. Or you can copy them to the iPad's Files app with iCloud Drive or Google Drive. The free VLC iOS app should be able to play them back. (Although if they're MPEG-2, you may want to transcode them first to save space...)
You can also download recordings remotely -- see the instructions here: How to download recorded show
I'm aware of the various workarounds. Would be nice to have the eco-system work without them! But ty for the info.
1 Like
totally agreed — it's a great feature idea! Glad to hear you're already aware of the workarounds 
I'll second that if the Channels iOS app does the download, shows the artwork and metadata like it currently does for recordings on the server and also gets the commercial markers so you can play it offline from the iPad with commercial skip (maybe it also downloads an edl file or downloads the markers from the server).
Otherwise I'll continue using VLC on my iPad to play downloaded recordings.
How are you downloading the recordings and loading them onto the ipad?
VLC for iOS https://www.videolan.org/vlc/download-ios.html
And when they release v3.3.0 will be able to download directly from the SMB shares on my Synology's.
Should mention I currently use either the Sharing via WiFi in VLC or iTunes to transfer videos to VLC in iOS.
Picking a video on an SMB share currently only streams it.
Downloading is planned. It’s just not in the timeline yet. We consider this a major feature and will deliver it. It obviously got deprioritized in 2020.
4 Likes
I'm sure it's a major under taking, not complaining in any way about the timing. As I'm starting to embrace Channels as my main media consumption source I'm just building a wish list
I would like to see this as well just adding my two cents.
Downloads and offline watching have gone into beta. You can read more about it here:
3 Likes