Recommended Setup

Channels DVR Server
#1

Hi. First time poster. This looks like a really exciting project. I am looking to move away from WMC for my DVR needs. I am OTA only through a SD connect and an older SD tuner. I formerly used WMC with Ceton Extenders and an Xbox (like many others I would suspect). I recently purchased 2 ATV4s and the Channels IOS app. I think it works great and am ready to make the jump to the DVR beta, however, I have a few questions. Any input from others in the community would be greatly appreciated.

  1. Any reason to upgrade the old (legacy) SD tuner? Would it help with reception? Mine is pretty solid, but a fringe area.
  2. I have limited experience with Linux, Apple computers, or NAS boxes. Can someone give me a recommended set up that won’t break the bank, but will work as needed. I have a couple 1 TB internals drives looking for a purpose. I was looking at maybe an apple mini, but reading that the product may be discontinued by Apple has me a bit hesitant. Any thoughts on what NAS is the most stable or will be best supported by these wonderful channels developers?
  3. Will my wife use this? Is the product ready for a wife to use? I think she has grown to accept and even like those damn ceton echos, but change can be tough, and my media center set up has been rock solid for the last 5 years.
#2

Here’s what I think:

  1. You won’t get better reception with a new tuner, maybe just a marginal improvement due to hardware upgrade over the years. But I would recommend an Extend so OTA MPEGs are instantly transcoded to more flexible, lighter H264.
  2. I’d say a Mac Mini is the way to go, even if it goes discontinued. It’s light, pretty much silent, very stable and powerful enough to handle every task the server needs. If you want to spend a little less and make use of those hard drives, get a QNAP TS-251+, it’s slightly bigger than a Mac Mini, slightly less silent, slightly less powerful, but equally stable. Less flexibility than a Mac, though.
  3. Absolutely yes.
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#3

FYI, Channels DVR does not support the older DUAL models at the moment.

#4

tmm1 - by “DUAL models” do you mean dual core Mac Mini?

Also - I was about to purchase the “QNAP TS-251” NAS - NOT the 251+ – It’s described as “Intel 2.41GHz Dual Core CPU (Celeron) with Media Transcoding” – would this work?

Thank you for your time!

#5

He’s referring to HDHomeRun Dual, it was sold under different variations but SD does not sell them anymore.

For NAS, I’d invest a little more and get the +, it’s quad-core and that helps in transcoding and multi-tasking. Future-proof.

#6

Do you want/need a computer for any other purposes?

If so, going with the Mac Mini or another computer might make perfect sense. You can then get hard drive enclosures or a multi-bay enclosure, attach it to the computer, and use that as your storage. It would also give you easy expansion of your system to hold music, run a Plex server, etc.

If you you do go the NAS route, keep in mind that the consumer-level NAS boxes from QNap, Synology, Western Digital, and other manufacturers, while extremely simple to use, small, and power efficient, are simply not very powerful devices. They have low capability processors.

You might want to consider using a true server, such as a Lenovo TS140 or a Dell T20. You can use your existing hard drives, then install a NAS operating system such as FreeNAS or unRAID (there are others too). They are really not too complex for a novice. This will be a significantly more powerful setup than a pre-configured NAS box, and potentially even cost less.

I know that the Channels DVR will run on unRAID as I’ve used it. It was simple to setup.

#7

Thank you for the replies. Seems like the general consensus is to keep the specs above the minimum to speed along transcoding and that I will need to upgrade to a recent model SD tuner. Still not sure how I want to proceed on the backend.

The Mac Mini solution would probably be easiest and not piss off everyone in my house as I tinkered…

jdag- I have a somewhat recent homebrew htpc (early model 3 GHz Intel i5, 4 GB ram, MSI board) running windows 7 solely for media center use at this time. Any thoughts on re-purposing this box for use with FreeNas or Unraid instead of buying a boxed solution? Any specific things come to mind that I need to check my hardware for ahead of time? I am thinking about just taking out the SDD containing the windows OS and giving it a try tomorrow.

Thank you!!

#8

I’m in the same position so interested in this thread. I have an older i3/8GB RAM/SSD/2TB Storage drive HTPC that I built years ago for WMC. I’d like to use this…and hoping that I can run FreeNas off of a flash drive and leverage the 2TB storage for the DVR.

#10

Repurposing that with a Linux based OS would be perfect. Turn your old HTPC into the centra server, while using thin clients around the house. The dream!

#11

Should work with no issues.

The biggest downfall of such a solution is power consumption. I went with unRAID because it is less hardware sensitive than FreeNAS. But unRAID is $60 for a license, while FreeNAS is, well, free.

unRAID does offer a 30 day trial, so if you plan to repurpose your existing computer anyhow, you have nothing to lose but time.

#12

I’m in your same boat – WMC with four Echos, old SD dual tuner. Recently added a SD Connect to test Plex DVR but not sold on Plex as my DVR.

Installed Linux (ubuntu) on a spare hard drive and loaded Plex and Channels DVR there, disconnected the old primary HDD with Windows in case I need to go back. So far seems to be running pretty well 24 hours in. Only downside was Plex library had to be rebuilt and lost historical watch data which is not really a problem more of a nuisance.

Running into some pixelization on the ATV4 when playing a DVR while recording is in progress, though it could also be that Plex was probably processing the library in the background. Will give it a few days to see how that goes. (Had been using the old Channels app and that was rock solid.) Hard to say if that was server side or client side.

#13

Also, this was my first venture into Linux – total newbie there. Mostly intuitive, only real challenge was mounting and permissions for my three HDDs with movies and music.

#14

The two simplest and easiest maintained (low maintenance, low fuss) solutions (IMHO)

  1. Use one of the already supported NAS devices (WD, QSNAP, etc) and just load Channels on it. I would get a new HDHR Extend - Worth it for the transcoding…
  2. Use your existing MacMini (hopefully you have a couple of TB attached to it) and also get a new HDHR Extend

Both solutions are extremely easy and the guys at Channels have shown a lot strong support for these.

Building your own Linux (UnRaid, FreeNAS, Ubuntu, Debian…) system Isn’t a big deal either, I have done many over the last 15 years. But they do tend to be a little more maintenance oriented. (Also get the HDHR Extend)

I have run Channels on my MacMini, and it was just simple. I also currently run it on a WD PR4100, and it to is just simple (the reason I switched is I wanted 16TB of storage to consolidate all my various storage devices and the NAS was simply the cheapest way to do it. Adding thunderbolt enclosures to do the same was just too much $$) Both were painless, and just worked. (Actually the NAS was more so, but that was due to my own tinkering on my Mac… :slight_smile: )

I can’t recommend the new HDHR Extend enough for a OTA user. All your recording are transcoded immediately and are fully playable on any ATV4, I am now running all my ATV4 via wireless and don’t see any issues. When I was running and playing the native streams (non-transcoded) I would see issues every now and then. (Still worked). I am running with 3 HDHR Extends and have had all 6 tuners recording (and transcoding) at the same time with great results.

Any of the three options will work well for you. Get the HD HomeRun Extends, they really make the biggest difference… and they allow you to use a weaker system with great success.

#15

I’ll take the “will my wife use this question”. My wife is fairly non-technical and she has progressed from the Appletv Channels App through the Dvr alpha and is very comfortable with the TVOS interface. I found Channels app while looking for an easy to use, family friendly cord cutting solution. I’ve tried a couple of other options for OTA and streaming and all left me down in one way or another: ease of use, stability or performance. Channels has stood out and has passed my wife exceptence test.

As for hardware. My recommendation is to go with something with a modern dual core or better yet quad core CPU. The processing power is nice for advanced features like transcoding and commercial skip scanning. If you go with a NAS you will need to go high end to get a CPU that doesn’t struggle with these features. I think a low end Mac mini might offer a better price performance option then a higher end NAS. Linux would work as well but may be a bit more work.

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#16

Bummer that the DUAL tuner isn’t supported yet. Any ETA on when it might be supported? I also have a Prime, so I will be covered. I can continue to use WMC and ServerWMC until it’s supported. Love Channels on my ATV4s. Dropping all my Spectrum cable boxes with it.

#17

We are currently testing with the HDHR DUAL and plan to add full support during the beta.

#18

Perfect. Thanks for the update. Looking forward to the DVR release.

#19

I current have a HDhomerun prime because my cable company supports cable cards. Are you suggesting that I would be able to record TV shows using my prime and then play them back using a HDhomerun extend to have a more flawless DVR playback because of the compression feature of the extend. Will channels support this? I have three Apple TV’s that are connected through wifi and not hardwired.

#20

No, the Extends will transcode as they record OTA content. If you are using the Prime and recording from Cable, they won’t (can’t) provide any addiontal value.

#21

Thanks