Streaming Quality Settings Help

[cshipman]

My Channels server is in Minnesota running on M1 Mac mini with 30mb upload speed. I have Transcoder set to Hardware and "Use HEVC for transcoding" toggled ON.

I primarily use Channels on iOS and Apple TV in my home in New York and have great performance with Fios 300mb download and Playback > Streaming Quality Internet Streaming settings set to 4mb.

I need help understanding the best recommended Internet Streaming Quality settings both for when I am at home in NY on a cruise ship using slow satellite internet.

[VTTom]

Since "Quality" is subjective, seems to me you should just experiment with the various settings and pick the lowest rate that gives you a tolerable picture. I, personally, am quite happing with 1Mbps while on the road (typically watching recorded content through my Google Chromecast on hotel TVs).

As an aside... I think there's an opportunity here for the Channels DVR to support some kind of server sync arrangement for people who have a stable secondary location from which they would like to watch DVR content. Just install an instance of the DVR server in the secondary location and tell it to sync content over from the DVR server in the primary location. Then you can watch content at the secondary location at full "Original" quality without begin constrained by the upstream speed of your primary DVR server.

[maddox]

You may be confused in how Streaming Quality settings work. They are client side. So you would make the adjustment in the app, not the server.

So, when you are away from home, just experiment with your streaming quality settings in the app based on how fast your local internet is and how fast your home upload bandwidth is.

Start at original quality and work your way down to see which is best. Depending on the size of your screen, you may find even at 2Mbit/s, it sill looks ok.