I've been using Channels DVR for over 1 1/2 years now and love it. But I am going to start playing around with next generation TV (ATSC 3.0) in the next few weeks when it goes live in my TV market.
I've upgraded one of my tuners to the new HDHomeRun FLEX QUATRO 4k tuners. So my question is (as it relates to performance of ATSC3 broadcast channels), does Channels DVR do a better job on Apple TV "versus" an Amazon 4k firestick?
I would appreciate any insight into this question?
It's not so much the performance of Channels per se, but rather the overall performance. Amazon's devices are fine for basic streaming streaming needs. But their meager storage is a huge detraction, especially if you are using Channels, as your pause buffer for live TV will suffer. (And the more additional apps you install, the smaller your pause buffer becomes.)
If you want the best experience with Channels, then your first choice should be the Apple TV. Overall, the entire device is much mire pleasant to use, and if it is not quantifiably faster, it certainly feels that way. In addition, it is the primary target of Channels, meaning you will get features first before Android devices.
If you are heavily invested in Amazon/Alexa, then maybe the Fire TV devices are the best. But if you can afford the cost of the Apple TV—and don't like your TV constantly shoving ads down your throat—then I saw go for the Apple device; you'll be glad you did.
If you want or need HLG support then the Fire devices fully support it Apple TV's do not.
then I say go for the Apple device; you'll be glad you did.
Triple the recommendation for Apple TV 4K:
1: Top Shelf > to see what's recently recorded, what's "On Now"
2. Apple TV App > yes the ATV APP - it does "TV Tracking" across most streaming apps (except Netflix)
3. Siri Remote: best one device, one remote you can get (I know because I have over 30 remotes over the years)
Try it for two days and you too will be touting and praising how great Channels on ATV 4K really is !!!
I really hate when developers favor one platform over the other like with Channels and Apple. It used to be a really big problem 5 or 6 years ago but now it's nearly unheard of for a app not to get the same features simultaneously for both platforms when Android has very high end hardware comparable to what Apple has like my Nvidia Shield's. The AI Upscaling alone is reason enough to choose it over Apple TV. It does better at making lower quality video look the best it can without looking overly done then anything I've ever used. Channels is one that truly benefits from it with the lower quality streams that many providers offer. I understand Apple TV is an amazing product and very popular and I even used one up till last year when I got the Nvidia Shield Pro but a product like Channels dvr that people on both platforms are paying and using on a daily basis really should be developed simultaneously. Just think about how Apple TV users would feel always waiting months or even longer to get the same features Android users have had.
Well, remember how small this team is. It’s the same guys doing both, so it’s easier to figure out how to make a feature work on one then replicate it vs keep building up and tearing down a feature in 2 code sets at the same time till ya like it.
And they aren’t apologetic that they use Apple at home, they don’t like clocks on the interface, and everything should be shades of purple.
It really is not that they favor Apple is that the DVR was originally written for AppleTV and then expanded to Android devices which I fully appreciate as I only use Fire devices. I do not care much about the GUI or the display features but do favor the DVR functionality which is outstanding.
3 people doing this, do the math. Apple really only has two platforms and they are basically identical.
They then have to port the app for 9765739369376937 different android devices and make sure it works for the next guy who comes here with their $43 Black Friday Spectre or whatever other crap brand android tv that they demand for it to work.
They do good supporting android toasters, the reality is that android will always be last.
I would not knock android devices as they constantly are first for supporting new formats ... Fire devices support HLG which Apple TV does not.
If the app is written for Android TV/Google TV it will work on basically any hardware running that platform. Just because there are different hardware vendors doesn't mean the app his to be re-written for each one. That's not how the api works. It's meant so that different hardware runs the same across the board. Yes Some might run it faster or slower but they all should run it in the same way. I'm not saying Android is just as easy to develop for as Apple but to be able to run Android TV you have to have certain things making different hardware run the software the same. I knew I would receive backlash for wanted equality but I won't apologize for it. I never said I am demanding it. I only stated that it sucks is all.
In theory, yes. But reality is different, especially with an app that cannot make use of the system-level media player that most every other streaming app can. In those cases, there are myriad caveats about how the hardware video decoder treats things differently across platforms. (For a real-world case study: how the TS4K's first major firmware update messed up hardware video decoding, and took about a year to fix; and how about how the Fire TV couldn't handle interlaced H.264 content for years, which had many UK/EU users up in arms.)
Also, being a TV focused app, Channels also has to deal with how different custom versions of Android are treating different remote buttons in myriad ways. Support for the "Live" button on the TS4K is spotty at best, because it is not exposed as a standard button, but something TiVo has cooked up to sidestep the Android APIs.
On top of all of this confusion, Google is constantly changing their "Android TV" platform—or is it Google TV now? No wait, that was 10 years ago …—depending upon their whim. And Amazon's fork of Android is often years behind the base APIs that get updated annually, meaning the ability to use newer and better APIs is out for that chunk of devices.
So yes, it would be nice if everything was equally supported. But Apple devices share a single consistent API, as opposed to the mess that developing on—and worse, supporting—Android entails.
Exactly what I said.
No matter what Google calls it the software api isn't different. The new Google TV does use a somewhat different launcher but it's Android TV and unless an app developer disables the ability you can run the same software on anything running Android TV including Google TV it's all the same so that defense is out the window. You can even side load the Google TV launcher on Android TV if you really wanted to.
Again in this day an age it's just not done anymore. Apps release the same features on both platforms at the same time and all I was saying is it would be great if Channels was the same. Hate me for wanting equality but it not going to change me wanting it.
There will always be reasons for developers not bringing things to certain platforms but when they are developing for both these days it's really not common practice to favor one or the other so completely.
Again I understand small team but I pay as an Android user the same as a Apple user so why should I expect to always be okay with having to wait sometimes over a year to get the same functionality is all. It sucks reading all the things being developed and released for Apple and wondering, that's great to bad I have no idea when or if Android will get it.