Hi
Is there a way to have Channels do some transcoding in advance? I sometimes find the transcoding goes wrong/lags while I'm watching something. But the machine had ~3 days of being idle in between when it recorded the show and now. So it could have done this as homework 
Channels is awesome in general, btw. It's been a real step forward from the other things I have used in the past.
At the moment, no. Since each client can its own preferred resolution/bitrate, that makes predicting which version to make more difficult.
(If I understand your question correctly, you're asking for a feature similar to Plex's Optimized Versions/Downloads. Channels does not have an equivalent version, and I don't think one is in the roadmap.)
Curious. Why are you trying to transcode? Are you trying to watch on your phone with limited bandwidth or something?
People transcode to download to a tablet or phone ... especially on kids tablets. Not everybody has unlimited data on their phone so I can see transcoding and downloading shows to the phone or tablet.
Plex does this very well.