Has been driving me insane for months now. Submitted so many diagnostics but it never gets resolved I have given up… I invested in Channels mainly for the ability to pause live TV which HDHomeRunsupports now anyway. I now use the native Live Channels app on my Nvidia Shield which has a nicer guide, allows you to browse the guide with the video playing in the background, and a simple double tap of the volume slider pauses the broadcast, then allowing playback, fast forward etc.
It also has the ability to cache the broadcast but I have not enabled it personally. This is all using the actual HDHomeRun source rather than the Google Network Tuner which still doesn’t work properly in the U.K. unfortunately.
I get absolutely none of the VERY irritating micro pauses / stutters that Channels is still suffering from months later, and a more modern interface to browse and view TV. I do miss the ‘On Now’ tiles a litttle but simply swiping left from the guide in Live Channels brings up the HDHomeRun categories such as Kids and Movies etc but with the advantage of full guide data so you can see what is coming up.
To be honest had I known HDHomeRun would implement live pause I would not have invested in Channels. I have had it for 6 months now and feel like it has never become a truly stable release and that I have wasted £22 on a beta that has gone nowhere. Smooth and continuous playback of a TV broadcast is the absolute basic need for a TV app and unfortunately Channels has failed in this completely. The fact that the native HDHomeRun app never does the micro pauses, nor does the native Live Channels, and when I bother to DVR through Plex that is also fine, shows the fault lies 100% with Channels.
I am still watching this thread hoping for a fix and a modernisation of the interface (continuous video playback while browsing the guide, an updated info bar on screen, a less ‘Apple’ like layout for the ‘On Now’ tiles) and hope that my investment in the app will eventually feel worthwhile.