More control. New episodes only, padding, I decide when my recordings are deleted
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My situation is my condo in Florida I already have spectrum as part as my fees so why should I pay another provider for TV package. I setup the antenna for my local channels and TVE with Spectrum for the rest. Channel DVR gives me that ability. I only have Fios internet in my home.
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For someone on YoutubeTV (or any internet-based TV) - what happens to your YTTV DVR content if you move to Fubo?
Poof. Gone.
Maybe the easiest/best use case for a third party.
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I sure do not do this at alllllll 
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I pay for Fubo, just to get the TVE. Fubo (and most others) are only 720P, TVE is mostly 1080i. Channels lets me integrate TVE, Antenna, and Locast.
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I pay for cable b/c it's cheaper - at least in my area - than internet+Sling or another OTT provider.
For years I used a Tivo. But when Tivo got merged with Riva, the guide data became a disaster.
The result was missed recordings due to bad data, missing data or downright missing channels. I struggled with it for years and finally gave up a few months ago.
I now use an HDHomerun PRIME with Channels and it's working great. The commercial skip is awesome and the interface is easy. I miss the Wishlist recordings the Tivo had, but otherwise it's pretty much a feature match for me.
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All of these are good points in my opinion. Especially the Tivo replacement and the ability to keep your recordings in this day and age when people are switching streaming services every few months.
I use TVE along with an HD Homerun Quatro 4K. I hope that Boston will pick up some ASTC 3.0 signals this year to really make my setup justified. My wife still uses Youtube TV purely because its what she knows and it just works, but I'll default to Channels DVR moving forward.
My primary motivation was/is about creating a simple and consistent user experience for all of the content. I am saving quite a bit of money, but that was not the primary goal of this (ongoing) project.
We use the HDHR for OTA broadcast as it still offers the best picture/sound. I have traditional cable service principally for the TVE, netflix, hulu/espn+/disney, amazon, hbo max, and a few others as well as a fair sized library of movie/tv content.
All running through 6 ATV4s on a variety of TV and AV equipment. Say what you want about the silly ATV remote, but it is dead simple.
Now my wife/family (and her mother and family when they visit!) can easily and reliably access all of the content on any TV without ever having to call tech support (me).
Channels (live tv and recorded content, now including the library) and the ATV app to aggregate and manage the streaming services are what make this possible and I am extremely pleased with the result.
While there is still plenty of room for improvement, the folks here at Channels continue to delight and surprise with new and compelling features. Now if I could just get Apple to take a few steps forward...
Anyway, thought I would share a different perspective. Hope you find what is best for you.
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Because the subscription money is being invested in new features for the system. PIP is a classic example of an awesome new feature that will have taken a lot of man hours to accomplish.
Opensource is fine but in the end its dependant on a few individuals who volunteer their work. Thats why I lost faith with Plex. They stopped doing enhancements and started doing naff features like web streaming and vintage games.
Channels is simple, high quality and quite frankly for its level of quality extremely cost effective. Long may they continue to improve it.
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Channels is by far the best DVR I have ever used and I have used a lot of them and most of them are absolute crap. I have a cable subscription but don't even have a cable box. And if I find a better deal, I can change to a new provider in the background with very little impact on my family. The channel number may change but they don't know what they are anyway. The DVR used to be a big barrier to changing providers because you loose all your recordings and you have to train the family on a new remote. I stayed with directv for years for that very reason even though I wasn't happy with the service. I actually was still with directv when I started using Channels. After a few months of shake down, I switched providers and my family didn't have a clue. I guess you might be able to do this with some sort of cable card solution but most people don't have more than one provider that offers cable cards -- and they are going away anyway.
I have Verizon FIOS and I also pay for Channels. Channels is the best DVR around. With TVE (which restored missing DRM channels) and Pluto TV and commercial skip... it's really a great solution for me.
I'll stick with my current setup until either my Primes die or FIOS stops supporting cable card and then I'll consider my alternatives. Whatever I move to, I hope to continue using Channels in one way or another.
Have you tried using an advance pass from the web ui to replicate a wishlist recording?
YouTube TV is mostly fine, but too many streaming services charge you extra for DVR storage, make it hard to skip commercials, delete your recordings after a fairly short period of time, and on and on. With Channels, you don't need to worry about any of that.
You can also record your over-the-air networks, so you don't need to pay to get them from a streaming service.
New Plex convert here...wanted a single app with DVR for all my sources, and Channels provides that with a great UI. OTA + Philo + Locast + Pluto for $36/mo, can't beat it. Occasionally use the Philo native app.
I use my mother-in laws login to give her an all in one place where she can also get locals (I supply the antenna, she supplies her login) since these service providers seem to always argue over contracts with various networks and hold the customer hostage.
Since switching from DirecTV, I have subscribed to DTVNOW, then PSVUE, then Hulu, and currently I am with Fubo. I have an HDHomerun for OTA stations. By using Channels, the user interface is the same regardless of which "backend" I am using for service so going back and forth between services isn’t a concern.
Tech support is top notch and very fast. For example, I’ve had issues with NFL Redzone or certain TVE channels not working and they issued fixes over the weekend (sometimes within 30 minutes of when I reported an issue).
The DVR itself is the best I've ever used. Even compared to the last gen DirecTV boxes, Channels is so much better and nearly instantaneous when skipping back/forth. It’s just so much faster you really have to try it. This applies to other computer-based DVR’s such as NextPVR.
I watch a lot of NFL football and always record and watch at least a little delayed (usually an hour or two). Channels allows you to set different back/forward skip times for sports vs other content which is great from something like football where there are frequent stoppages. I’ve found that online DVR’s (from Hulu or others) to be fine for watching something like a recorded movie where you start it, maybe pause once or twice and then watch the remainder. There are also some weird situations where certain programs won’t let you fast forward (or skip commercials) after you’ve started watching something.
Using an online DVR can also be infuriating for sports fans (or any content where you skip a lot). Skipping is slow and sometimes freezes the content. PSVUE’s DVR had a bug where once a sporting event went past the scheduled end time (say 3 hours on a football game), it would completely disappear from the recordings list (even while you were still watching it). If you accidentally stopped watching, you then had to wait until about 30 minutes after the event ended, in order to start watching it again. Very weird.
Even the DirecTV Genie DVR had a well-known bug where once in about every 50-100 “30-second skips” it would jump to the end of whatever program you were watching (often showing you the final score of a game you were just starting to watch). This has never happened to me with Channels.
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I concur with this assessment. The ability to handle one's own recordings is a huge plus for me too. It frees me up from other companies' whims and makes me in charge of it.
The UI is also improving a lot and is much more responsive than the boxes one can get from cable providers.
This still incredible that cable operators cannot hire UI designers for their boxes interface
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I imagine they could hire anyone they want. It's clearly not a priority for them. Fortunately we have a choice.