Slingbox demise: iPlayer/Virginmedia alternative?

HI there,
Wondering if Channels is for us.... Here's our situation.
We spend a fair amount of time in the UK and have a Slingbox there. We pay a TV Licence fee which allows us access to all terrestrial channels and BBC iPlayer. iPlayer is a feature the BBC have which allows users to 'catch up' to watch recent programs, series etc. iPlayer is not available outside of the UK and using VPN's to access it is not legal. We also have subscribe to a Virginmedia package of channels and we can watch all of this on our TV when home in the US using our Slingbox and Firestick.
The Slingbox connects to our Virginmedia supplied Tivo type recorder and we can record and play them remotely - all entirely legal.
Slingbox owners, Dish, have just announced discontinuance of their services from November, 2022 so the search is on for a replacement.
Will Channels fit the bill? Will we be able to watch BBC and use iPlayer through our Virginmedia device or otherwise?
Thanks in anticipation for responses!

Channels will not be able to re-create the experience you describe since it has no way to interoperate with iPlayer. It requires a SiliconDust/HDHomeRun brand tuner that you connect to your antenna or cable feed. But if an HDHomeRun tuner is able to receive the live programming you're interested in, the ChannelsDVR will be able to record it and make it available for you to watch remotely from anywhere in the world.

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Thank you for the guidance. Appreciate the response.
Allan

Take a look at a device called the Hauppauge Broadway. It can be found very cheaply on eBay, and have one on the way myself to test out. While it does not support anything greater than 480p (atsc stateside) the device actually has its own 100% dedicated web server and doesn't need to rely on a hosted service for activation or port forwarding (unlike Sling). With the demise of slingplayer I would guess that these little boxes will start to get some attention again. Bigger picture, there may be a fairly simple way to add the stream to Channels as well since it has a well documented REST interface.

I have extracted the urls for the bbc channels and have added it to the Channels m3u8 support. It works fine. The problem is that BBC change their stream urls ever now and then. So far it has changed once in about 6 weeks. I can share that with you to get you going

Are you getting this to work outside of the UK without the use of a VPN? Or are you in the UK?

Outside but that's irrelevant in that its the urls that keep changing so its not a reliable set and forget solution

with Sat>IP server you could get BBC from satelite and generate always working m3u for yourself.
As @VTTom said it's impossible to recreate full iPlayer experience - well, not impossible but not worth the effort.
If you run Channels client on Apple TV you can have iPlayer anyway it's only a matter of switch apps. There won't be "single app solution to everything" I am afraid never.

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