Option to steal my live tuner if it's needed

Channels DVR Server
#1

Say I have two total tuners (one Connect), and I have two shows set to record at 2:30pm. If I happen to be watching some other channel live when 2:30pm rolls around, then one of my recordings will start, and the other will (seemingly) endlessly keep checking for a free tuner.

It would be nice to have some sort of notification (ideally right there in tvOS app) saying that a recording wants to start, but there is no available tuner - then I could make a choice to give up the tuner I’m using to watch live, and let my recording start.

Otherwise, if I forget about my recordings I had set, I might completely miss them, without ever realizing I was doing so…

#2

Having this option would be great, I’m running 2 hdhomerun primes because my wife never remembers to stop live tv playback on 3 ATV in different rooms. If the dvr had the option of stealing the tuner i can live with just one prime unit which would save me an additional $9 a month in cable card fees.

#3

The question for the devs would be if it is possible and if the current APIs support it. The ChannelsDVR can keep track of its own tuners, but it is possible that it may not be able to for live (Channels) or for other items using the tuners ( in a mixed environment). One of the best items for the SD tuners is their ability to share. In my case, I have 4 primes and an extend and 2 older Duals and use them with and all are able to “grab” a supported tuner when needed for use with very little problems.

  • Channels DVR
  • Channels ATV Viewer
  • SDDVR
  • SD view software (Xbox1, Windows 10, Mac, Android)
  • DLNA DTCPIP (PS3)
  • other DLNA devices
  • WMC7
  • [did try PlexDVR but that is still not usable for my use cases]

The only workaround I can think of is if the ATVs (or any devices that you want to “steal” live from) had a static address and the ChannelsDVR was told that it could steal from tuners locked by these static addresses. [though this may not work for stealing tuners from SDDVR live view since SDDVR now sends the stream through the SDDVR engine for live to support live pause]