Giving up

Correction: Reboot 1-2X/week, i.e., every 3 days :grinning:

Lost hardware transcoding again. Downloaded ffdshow now web is playing perfectly

I’m pretty surprised to hear people having trouble like this with Channels DVR. I have perfect reliability, and it is one of the only things in my home tech ecosystem that “just works” without any intervention. FWIW, I’m running the Channels DVR Docker image on a Synology DS918+ NAS, and using an nVidia Shield TV as my client.

The reliability of Channels DVR comes down to the hardware you provide for it.

A Synology or QNAP NAS will be extremely reliable, since it’s connected to the HDHR and clients via ethernet, has a powerful Intel CPU that can transcode, and direct access to the hard drives.

By contrast a Windows PC will not be as reliable, especially if it has other random software/services running on it, is connected to the HDHR and clients over Wi-Fi, and is also trying to write the video to a network mount instead of local USB storage.

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Can you recommend a NAS under $300 complete. My main issue was setting a recording path, which is resolved. Streaming at home with my setup hasn’t been an issue

IMO, you would be best served with Synology DS218+ ($300 at Amazon) + a WD Red 2 or 4 TB disk.

Another option, since you already have a WD MyCloud…you could crack open the case and utilize the disk…many rumors/reports that these at one time contained WD Reds, but no promises.

IIRC, @jseymour has a DS218+. He can relate his experience, also see:

How about the Play https://www.synology.com/en-global/products/DS218play

DS218play has an ARM chip = slower comskip, no transcoding

DS218+ has an Intel chip = great performance, fast comskip, hardware transcoding

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The play says 4k transcoding. Will look into the 218+, thanks

Channels DVR doesn’t support transcoding on ARM chips. That NAS has a proprietary transcoder that the bundled apps can use but it’s not currently available to Channels DVR.

Ok, everything seems to be playing well with the setup I have now. Will look into the 218+ when I plan to upgrade. Thanks When you say Comskip is that the marker that shows where the commercials are or you can skip automatically with one press?

Careful of this, these days the external drives have proprietary connectors inside the enclosures. WD started doing this specifically to cut this trick out.

That’s on their USB drives, I believe, not their small NAS’. ICBW.

i just bought two of the easystore 8TB, they have the white drives now but fit in perfectly to my synology nas

Hi @maddox, I have one of the original WD MyClouds (really wonky ATM) which I used 3 years ago with SDDVR before upgrading to Channels DVR…I was planning to do above procedure, but am now a bit hesitant. Can you supply any links so I can read about these proprietary connectors and timing.

Right now, I can only access <2tb on a 3tb WD MyCloud…and I don’t really trust that low cost NAS. I’d like to utilize the total 3tb disk for other purposes…but maybe not, if I’d brick it.

Additionally, I have 2 original easystore (BestBuy only) 8tb drives…which also supposedly contained WD Reds. Possibly before the white label emerged?. I bought them with the express purpose of cracking them to add to my Qnap drive bays.

Being lazy and In the interim, I attached as USB3 drives to my Qnap for Channels DVR…as a master and a backup. This has worked fantastically, so I never did crack them open.

I use the one “real” 4tb Red, I purchased, in one of the Qnap drive bays, for other back-ups.

Of course, since this config works so well, I am now going to try a Win10 mini pc set-up…just to mix it up a little :sunglasses:

Those white label drives appear to have highly variable provenance. I don’t think I’d trust anything that was important to me to them.

if that’s true that ok…I honestly don’t have anything I can’t recover if needed…plus it’s a 4 bay running as raid.

Went with a wd pr2100. ebay has 8tb for $349 with

As always, a risk with refurbs, but if no problems…a great deal. Congrats!