Thought I would give Channels DVR a try.... Again

[Cornstick]

I can’t get it to work. I’ve been using Plex DVR exclusively for 13 months now and it was progressively getting better until the past month or so.

I already used my free month back in December so I had to pay the $8 to reactivate my account. So far it’s a no go. My DVR is a QNAP TS-677 (AMD Ryzen 5 based NAS) and is installed at a remote location. I went through the installation and setup but when I try to tune a channel on the iOS app the circle just spins and no video starts.

Also I see no real progress has been made on the Roku app. I realize the Roku is a H.264 device which requires a DVR server with a decently powered CPU. But the Roku is the most popular streaming device on the market so…

Any ideas why I’m not having any luck?

[tmm1]

What iOS device are you using?

[Cornstick]

Xs Max running 12.0.1

[jseymour]

Also I see no real progress has been made on the Roku app. I realize the Roku is a H.264 device which requires a DVR server with a decently powered CPU. But the Roku is the most popular streaming device on the market so…

The Roku app was experimental and never made it out of development/Beta.

May 4, 2017:

NEW: Roku app for Channels DVR (experimental)

We have our hands quite full with Android/FireTV, and Roku is not really a priority at the moment. The fact that the majority of Roku devices cannot decode mpeg2 combined with the fact that the Roku SDK is quite limited and not very fun to work with makes it hard to get excited about that platform.

Sep. 8, 2018

Full Featured Roku App?

The Roku app was nothing more than an experiment and has never been considered a sanctioned Channels release. We don’t provide support for it and it hasn’t had a single improvement in a year.

Without native MPEG2 support, we cannot support Roku as a platform. The only way to get video to play on it is with transcoding, which requires extra software like our Channels DVR server. This means a stand alone Channels app isn’t possible.

We don’t love the requirement of transcoding locally inside your home. It’s why we made Channels, so you didn’t have to wait for your TV channels to start up.

If anything changes for the Roku platform in the future we will reconsider the platform.

Comments I’ve seen elsewhere lead me to suspect Roku doesn’t go out of their way to make things like Channels apps easy, or even possible, to do. I’ve been seeing this complaint for years. That was one reason I was happy enough to switch to other streaming platforms and wave Roku hasta la bye-bye.

[Cornstick]

All this points to Channels DVR isn’t for me. Since ALL my TV viewing is outside of the home, there’s no way I can do that with MPEG2.

I need a nice lean 3 Mbps or lower H.264 stream.

[johnmarkdyer]

Have you tried Plex? They seem to unnecessarily transcode everything. This is frustrating for me since almost all of my viewing takes place at home, so I continue to pay for Channels even though I have a lifetime Plex pass. It’s definitely not as good as Channels, but seems like it might be a good option for you. Also, they have Roku apps.

[Cornstick]

Lol! You didn’t read my original post. I’ve had a Plex DVR setup since the first day it was released the Friday before Labor Day 2016. I dumped Windows Media Center and switched exclusively to Plex DVR exactly one year later on Labor Day weekend 2017.

It has been far from perfect, but tolerable. About three updates ago they did something to the transcoder that broke it on a few channels on my cable TV DVR. I have two separate Plex DVR servers and one Plex Server for my movies, music, etc.

The last update completely broke my OTA TV DVR. No recording… No Live TV.

So that’s why I thought I would pay for a month of Channels and see what has changed in the past 10 months.

[tmm1]

There’s a bug we are tracking which affects some new Xs devices. I sent you a TestFlight invite for a beta with a fix.

[Cornstick]

My bad. I forgot that my cable company still has SD Channels. Once I went to an HD channel it looks good.

iPhone app still won’t stream.

[tmm1]

Did you try the iOS beta app? Can you click Submit Diagnostics on the bottom of the Settings tab after attempting to play a channel.

[Cornstick]

Yes. Beta app through TestFlight. “Video Player” log submitted.

[tmm1]

Sorry I sent you the wrong version. There’s a new build available in TestFlight now.

[Cornstick]

Ok. So far that seems to have done the trick. I’ll keep you posted

[jrudd]

I thoroughly recommend Plex DVR. I tried it because Channels DVR is not supported in Australia. Plex are improving their DVR every update and couldn’t be happier with it.

[Cornstick]

@jrudd Please see original post.

[Cornstick]

Am I just not seeing a “Search” on the guide or does it not exist on the iOS app?

[tmm1]

The search is at the top of the DVR tab on iOS

[Cornstick]

@tmm1 Thank you!

I just uploaded a video player log. Watching the baseball game tonight on TBS after awhile the video started to become jerky and eventually stopped completely. The only way I could get it to restart was to back out to the guide and restart. I am watching remote on my Apple TV so it could be a number of factors that caused this but I sent it just for tracking purposes.