Private Beta for Channels DVR support for iPad

Beta Community DVR Beta
#1

Hey everyone, we’ve been working real hard, and we’re really happy to finally push out a beta for Channels DVR support on iPad!

We know it’s been a long time coming, but a lot of things have been rewritten from the ground up to support both tvOS and iOS. There’s still a lot of polish to be done, but we decided it’s finally ready to put into your hands. As the iPad version gets more stable and complete, it’ll support the iPhone as well. That’s not too far behind, we promise!

So please take it for a spin! Please report any bugs you’ve found by creating a new thread in the Channels DVR > Public Beta category.

Thanks!!

Features

  • Everything that you know and love from Channels on Apple TV!

Known issues

  • Some buttons on recording modals are truncated.
  • Some layouts still a little rough around the edges.
  • Can’t start a recording while watching a program.
  • Can’t schedule a recording from the Guide.

Beta Sign Up

You can sign up for the beta automatically by just clicking this link.

1 Like
#2

I don’t have an iPad but I do have an iPhone. If I’m interested in ultimately testing for iPhone when you roll that out, should I sign up for this beta now or wait?

1 Like
#3

Just signed up on my 10.5 iPad Pro, thanks! :stuck_out_tongue:

Haven’t seen you posting in awhile so I assumed @tmm1 had locked you in a closet to work on Channels DVR for iOS, so it’s nice to see he let you out for some air!

5 Likes
#4

LOL

#5

I just watched an hour recording and it worked great. Holding the jump forward 30 sec button let me fast forward through the commercials to the marked spots with comskip. It’s working very well for a beta.

#6

You can also double tap the +30s button to skip past commercials.

#7

I just looked and saw why it didn’t work for me… if it’s not in a commercial section it won’t jump to the next marker like it would on tvOS, so since comskip was a little off it wasn’t jumping like I thought it would. Just tested in a commercial section and it works.

#8

TestFlight is still showing the 3.29.259 build for me, even though the description says the DVR features have been added.

#9

I’ve removed the old beta. Click the link in the post above to request a new invite.

#10

I also had the “old”. It has now disappeared, however haven’t received a new invite. Tried link several times, 1x before old was gone and now 2x since.

#11

Kicked the server and all pending invites should now be delivered.

#12

Just got my invite and loaded it up on iPhone (I know it’s for iPad) but, “Wow!”. As always works great! It picked my DVR almost instantly and watching is flawless thus far.

#13

Got the new version here now too. Looks good, and quick. I assume this still won’t work for remote viewing though, right?

#14

No remote viewing right now. Everything just works locally like tvOS.

#15

I :two_hearts: it.

Exceeded my expectations. Very polished, feature rich already, and fast.

1 Like
#16

Looks great! Any ETA on remote viewing? I cant seem to get the browsers on my iPad to work.

#17

No ETA on remote viewing yet. It will come after the iPhone version is done.

IIRC, you had problems with hardware transcoding in the past and switching to software transcoding fixed it. If not, please open a new thread with logs and more info. If remote viewing is not working in browser, the same problem will likely occur in the app as well.

#18

I have tried both hardware & software transcoding with my ipad & neither have worked. I will send the logs.

#19

017/06/16 14:26:24 [TNR] Opened connection to 10543A93 for ch7.1 [transcode=mobile]
2017/06/16 14:26:25 [HLS] Probing live stream for codec/bitrate took 1.7319992s
2017/06/16 14:26:25 [HLS] Starting transcoder for channel 7.1 (encoder=libx264, resolution=720, deinterlacer=blend, bitrate=2000)
[h264 @ 000000000264dde0] Increasing reorder buffer to 1
2017/06/16 14:26:49 [HLS] Stopping transcoder session 10543A93-ch7.1 @ 21.888534s
2017/06/16 14:26:49 [TNR] Closed connection to 10543A93 for ch7.1
[h264 @ 00000000026fdae0] error while decoding MB 8 3, bytestream -5
2017/06/16 15:00:00 [DVR] Deleting expired job 1497639600-49 Blue Bloods
2017/06/16 15:00:00 [DVR] Starting job 1497643200-49 Blue Bloods on ch=[282]
2017/06/16 15:00:00 [DVR] Waiting 59m59.9801621s until next job 1497646800-49 Blue Bloods
2017/06/16 15:00:00 [TNR] Sharing existing connection to 131F22F1 for ch282 (clients=2, len=0)
2017/06/16 15:00:00 [DVR] Recording for job 1497643200-49 from 131F22F1 ch282 into “TV\Blue Bloods\Blue Bloods S01E04 2010-10-15 Officer Down 2017-06-16-1500.mpg” for 59m59.9791866s
2017/06/16 15:00:00 [DVR] Finished job 1497639600-49 Blue Bloods
2017/06/16 15:00:00 [DVR] Processing file-4044: TV\Blue Bloods\Blue Bloods S01E03 2010-10-08 Privilege 2017-06-16-1400.mpg
2017/06/16 15:00:00 [DVR] Waiting 59m59.4404497s until next job 1497646800-49 Blue Bloods
2017/06/16 15:18:46 [NAT] Successfully mapped port 8089 using natpmp
2017/06/16 15:28:34 [TNR] Opened connection to 131F22F1 for ch107
2017/06/16 15:28:34 [HLS] Starting transcoder for channel 107 (encoder=libx264, resolution=720, deinterlacer=blend, bitrate=2000)
2017/06/16 15:28:52 [HLS] Stopping transcoder session 131F22F1-ch107 @ 14.247567s
2017/06/16 15:28:52 [TNR] Closed connection to 131F22F1 for ch107
[mpegts @ 00000000026ebfa0] Dropped corrupted packet (stream = 1)
2017/06/16 15:29:14 [TNR] Opened connection to 131F22F1 for ch107
2017/06/16 15:29:14 [HLS] Starting transcoder for channel 107 (encoder=h264_qsv, resolution=720, deinterlacer=blend, bitrate=2000)
[h264_qsv @ 0000000002ecd280] Error during encoding: device failed (-17)
Video encoding failed
[aac @ 000000000259c280] 2 frames left in the queue on closing
2017/06/16 15:29:37 [WRN] Buffer for 131F22F1 ch107 is more than 50% full (clients=1, len=16777684)
2017/06/16 15:29:37 [HLS] Stopping transcoder session 131F22F1-ch107 @ 0s
2017/06/16 15:29:37 [TNR] Closed connection to 131F22F1 for ch107

#20

I realize that you’ve released for iPad primarily, however, I just couldn’t limit to testing on iPad (like the scorpion, it’s just in my nature “to push limits”) and therefore set up on iPhone (for me iPhone 6).

I found that iPhone is very close to functionality on iPad.

Two glitches noted:

  1. Trying to playback a “movie” recording, one must orient the iPhone to portrait to enable/pick the ‘watch’ option…however, this orientation change is not needed for ‘watch’ on shows.

  2. After setting up a new recording (using search feature) the search feature isn’t available again…unless a restart is done for the iPhone iOS.

To me, neither is a “deal breaker” for being able to use iPhone iOS app, one just needs to be aware of current limitations.

Being primarily a user of iOS apps, this iPad/iPhone addition is fantastic for my purposes.

Thanks so much to the Channels team for this awesome addition.