I'm about to purchase a RPI 4b (4Gbs RAM) to run the Channels DVR server and I am wondering if the server can be used for anything else? If so what is some other software that has been installed alongside the DVR?
Depends on which os you choose to install. Channels provides an image to run the server and I don’t think anything else can run on it. If you choose raspberry pi os there are many things you could run along with the server application. WireGuard server would be handy as you can vpn into your home network and ssh into the pi and run a reboot command if something has gone awry as an example. Some people like to run pihole.
Unless there are are major performance/reliability reasons to run the Channels image, I'll likely just install it without the Channels image. Thanks for the info. I'm open to any additional tips you or anyone else has!
I installed it (the unix example way) on a rpi4 alongside a lot of other things in a currently deployed pi supporting plex and other things. You just have to make sure you install the dvr on a native filesystem location that supports things like symbolic links, not on an external USB drive/exfat that doesn't support links. You can use the usb drive to as a media storage location fine.
I think it works well like this so far.