New User questions about iOS/ATV app

Channels iOS
#1

Hey everyone, I'm a new user after having played with Plex/Xteve for a month or so. Holy cow is Channels a better experience for live TV! I've got a couple of quick questions, and I'm probably just not searching the correct way for the answers, so be gentle and point me in the right direction if you can.

  1. I'm seeing two different iOS apps. What's the difference? I used the links from the website, and my phone downloaded the HDHomeRun version and the AppleTV downloaded the Whole Home DVR version. Also, they seem to be the same version number.

  2. In the iOS app, every time I click on a program in the guide to start watching, it brings up the program description, and from there I have to choose watch/record/pass. How do I disable or keep this info page from popping up and go straight to the stream?

  3. The channel icons give an error message when you click them rather than starting the stream. is this by design or something I need to edit in my m3u or epg?

  4. When I'm at home on wifi, the iOS app will ask me if I want to watch on the iPhone or Apple TV. Is there an option to default it to the iPhone when using the app? If I want to watch on ATV, I'll just use the remote to do so.

  5. on the AppleTV app, the stream is discontinued if you go back to the guide. Is there a way to have it still play in the guide screen like in Plex?

Thanks!

Apple TV / iPad "On Later" not functioning correctly
#2

On iOS, there isn't. In general, the non-DVR is $25 in other platforms, and does not require a DVR subscription. The free app requires a DVR server to operate.

To my knowledge, you cannot disable this.

Selecting the channel number itself will open the On Later page for upcoming programs on that channel. If you are getting an error message, it is likely because your DVR server has not populated the database fully. Once the DVR guide update happens again, you should see that screen populated. (You can force recreate the database on the DVR web UI: Settings > Guide Database > Maintenance > Delete and Recreate Database.)

Settings > Playback > Play To Your TV

That would be the Picture-in-Picture feature:

1 Like
#3

Awesome! Thank you for pointing me in the right direction! I tried to force recreate the database, but still getting the same issue. When I click the channel, for about half a second, I can see thumbnails for programs that are on that network, but then it bounces back to the error message "It doesn't look like this channel has anything available". I'll wait a little longer before I seek more help on that, just incase the DB needs more time to populate.

Thanks again!

#4

You can tap and hold on the channel logo or the guide item to access the Play option directly.

Touching a channel logo shows the On Later page which is supposed to show upcoming programs on that channel. It's possible that is not working correctly with XMLTV/M3U tuners.

#5

TIL: Selecting the channel logo of a virtual channel immediately goes to play the content (which was the old behavior for all channels).

#6

Yes I believe I changed that recently, since On Later for something based on your Library didn't seem as useful. But maybe it is and consistency is the better option.

#7

I am actually ambivalent about this for VCs, but lean towards keep the current implementation.

(I cannot think of an instance where I would want/need an On Later page for a VC.)

1 Like
#8

Thanks @tmm1 for your help!

I tried my stream service with a different EPG/M3U editor service and I'm getting the same issue. It'll briefly show thumbnails, but then immediacy gives the error when I click the logo. As I've been playing around with the settings and such, I was in the guide settings on the DVR web GUI and when I click the logo there, It shows the thumbnails for shows "On Later" as mentioned above. So based on this, it appears the epg/m3u is working, but it's not coming through on the app side.

Two other things I noticed are 1.) on the iOS app is when ever I get an iOS notification(email, text, another app, etc) if I am streaming video, it will cause the stream audio to get choppy and sort of cuts out for about 2-3 seconds. No issues if I have the sound to silent, but when it's not, audio gets choppy until the notification passes. 2.) When I go in and out of PIP, the stream stalls, but won't necessarily restart until I pause/unpause the stream. I'd say 75% of the time it will restart after about 5-10 seconds, but the other 25% needs my input.

Not sure if these are bugs you're aware of or are just current expected behavior, but I figured I'd point them out, as I didn't see anything in the troubleshooting area for iOS or ATV that matched these issues.

Again, overall an excellent product and experiences, you definitely have a subscriber in me!

#10

Yea that's fair. I think On Later was kinda broken for virtual channels, because you can't really record virtual channels so it didn't make much sense. Hiding it was easy.

#11

I have the same issue with my iPad and Apple TV regarding the error received when you click on the channel logo to access what's "on later". I have issues with the "on later" functionality as a whole on these devices, but the web front end is fine. I posted full details about it here:

Thanks