Hardware Suggestions and Reviews

DebbieFL · January 4, 2017, 2:28am

Being an alpha tester and having only a My Cloud (single disk) as a NAS (not powerful enough for DVR), I initially tested on a 2011 I-7 iMac and external 3.0 USB drive. Perfect combination to run all of the DVR functions…including Web UI on browser for viewing On Now and Recordings.

Not wanting to tie up my iMac 24/7 and wanting to utilize a network disk and the higher GB on the MyCloud, I changed to running the DVR on an older, basic Core 2 Duo 2010 Mac Mini with the recordings being saved to the MyCloud (single disk). This combo works great for recordings on the DVR, however it is very limited when trying to view On Now and Recordings from the Web UI. Can only achieve 240p playback and only when other DVR functions (recordings/commercial detection) aren’t being used.

As we are an Apple concentric household, in addition to viewing on ATV4, we utilize Channels iOS for Live TV on both an iPad Air 2 and an iPad Mini 2. For iOS recording playback… currently, we typically utilize other 3rd party apps, until Channels DVR is available on iOS.

Once Channels DVR is available on iOS, playback of recordings and live TV will utilize the hardware capabilities of the various iOS devices rather than depending on the DVR server (in my case, a very underpowered Mac Mini).

krblgc · January 4, 2017, 2:20pm

Here’s my setup:

QNAP TS-453A
HDD Slots 1-3 = [4TB each] Forrmatted in RAID5. this is for my stuff, media, and other personal files
HDD Slot 4 = formatted as a single drive [3TB capacity] solely dedicated for DVR recordings.

worked well for me and so far recording, viewing recordings, watching live TV are all seamless and glitch free. best of all, i can see the recorded files in the HDD as mpeg2 files that you can play anywhere in your house [tablet, PC, media servers, android or appletv boxes]. now my DVR recorded shows are no longer tied on a single TV unlike my current Fios DVR. pretty soon i will be returning the DVR box back to Verizon Thanks to the Channels development team!

TeddyR · January 8, 2017, 8:42am

The WD MyCloudEX2Ultra is not powerful enough to handle transcoding. It is fine for recording and playback to the ATV, but transcoding to web interface the CPU is not sufficient.

Wizard · January 13, 2017, 11:43am

Is the Raspberry pi 3 supported? I have TVheadend set up on it currently but moving everything to channels would be ideal.

photosmike · January 13, 2017, 1:58pm

I installed the DVR on a Raspberry PI and the playback to my Apple TV worked good. I only ran 1 stream and I don’t know if it would support multiple Apple TVs. The encoding for UI interface did not work.

tmm1 · January 13, 2017, 4:36pm

rPI shares a bus for both USB and the network, so you cannot record more than a couple streams at once. The hardware also does not support transcoding or commercial detection.

Catfish · October 7, 2021, 4:09pm

Good day all. My current setup is hp mini desk 600's. I'm using one as a dedicated server recording to a 500 gig ssd. No issues on space as we delete nightly.

With the advent of windows 11 and the new system requirements I'm seeing my systems will not take 11. So I'm looking for a good recommendation on a 2 or 4 Bay Nas that can record and stream up to 4k content. I have several movies that are 4k currently and the collection continues to grow. I would also like to use this as a file server so a 4 Bay Nas that has the power to do that is what I'm looking for or a2 Bay that I can attach an external drive to would work as well. As always thank you for any insight you might have.

Macnbaish · October 7, 2021, 6:36pm

The Synology DS NAS line is very popular around here. You’ll want to get a plus model, and if you’re hoping to do a lot of 4K content including possible transcoding the bigger the processor the better.

Catfish · October 9, 2021, 4:57pm

Thank you for the suggestion. With that in mind I'm looking at this model of qnap

QNAP TS-251D-4G 2 Bay Home NAS with Intel Celeron J4005 CPU and One 1GbE Port

Features & details
Intel Celeron J4005 dual-core 2.0 GHz processor
Intel HD Graphics 600
4 GB SO-DIMM DDR4 (Max 8GB)
2 X 3.5-inch SATA 6Gb/s, 3Gb/s (Diskless)
1 X Gigabit Ethernet Port (RJ45)
3 X USB 2.0 port
2 X USB 3.2 Gen 1 port
PCI-E Expandability

Would this be sufficient to run channels with no hiccups?

Catfish · October 9, 2021, 5:09pm

Also I'm considering the Synology ds220+. Would this be powerful enough?

Macnbaish · October 10, 2021, 1:49am

I run an older generation of the Synology. It’s one of the most popular NAS models used with Channels. Works great.

scooter_scott · October 21, 2021, 1:44pm

Yes the DS220+ is one of the cheapest and best solutions out there to run Channels.

Matthew_Atkins · July 5, 2022, 5:41pm

Hello! Currently running channels DVR on a Raspberry Pi4 (2GB RAM). Can anyone help me with a server hardware recommendation for the following requirements?

(5) concurrent remote streams via hardware transcoding
Rack or wall mounted
Expandable storage with USB3.0

What would the bandwidth requirements be for a channels server with 5 concurrent remote streams?

Thanks!

oxybv · November 30, 2022, 9:05pm

Has anybody tried or considered Channels server on the Libre Renegade as a Pi alternative. Slightly slower GPU than the Pi 4 (2.4 vs 2.5), but supposedly has hardware h.264/h.265 encoding. Seems to be more widely available than Pi at the moment.

tmm1 · November 30, 2022, 9:08pm

We don't currently support hardware encoding on Rockchip boards, but its something we're also looking into given the Pi shortages.

Dennis_L · April 28, 2023, 10:27am

I currently run the Channels server on an M1 Mac Mini with no issues. But my office is littered with aging external hard drives and yesterday, I got fed up with the mess and ordered a 4 bay DS418 Sinology NAS and 4 big drives.

I'm hoping the transfer of Channels from Mac to DMS 7 will be easy but will appreciate any helpful hints. Will I be able to transfer existing DVR recordings now residing on the Mac???

Plan B is to leave the server on the Mac and put the files on the NAS

Tim99 · January 25, 2024, 8:31am

See RP5 compared to my RP4 & iMac here.

rouvyjd · April 27, 2025, 2:00pm

I am getting ready to switch over to new hardware since the RPI image I’ve been using goes out of support.

I use channels for my local OTA and TVE no need for transcoding. For those using Mini PC N95 is the N100 also an option any brands that have been more reliable over others. Also input on Windows vs Linux. I want to have it running 24x7 in headless mode like I’ve gotten used to with the RPI image.

Tim99 · April 27, 2025, 2:35pm

The 95 and 100 both seem popular. My personal preference would be to avoid Windows 11 and use Linux as Microsoft seem to have decided that they own your computer, and can change whatever they like.
Not necessarily a recommendation, but my 2GB Raspberry Pi5's uptime is currently 78 days 10:37. Set up to use 2 cores for comskip, recording on to a 2TB SSD, the performance has been faultless. Note it cannot use hardware transcoding (I don't need it).

rouvyjd · April 27, 2025, 2:46pm

My uptime on my RPI 4 is/was incredible. It’s been going strong for over 2 years and only down time was during a power outage. So disappointed to move off it however the TV Everywhere support is key for the channels my family likes to record and want to leverage that option as long as possible. My preference will be Linux as well. I also don’t need transcoding.