I just realized that Hallmark has some movies that you can watch on demand right on their website as long as you are logged in with your TV provider.
In action:
Could Channels provide a way to browse the VOD library and let the user choose the stream?
It seems to me that once the stream has been started, the DVR engine could capture the stream as if it was a live channel.
Our dvr only works with live streams.
OK. I was hoping that as long as you could get a stream started, the capture would just work.
I understand that there is a technical limitation and there is no way to trigger a stream, it has to be live.
Fair enough. It was worth the try. 
The generic answer would be to use PlayOn to record VOD content and use Channels to automiatically import it into your library. However, PlayOn doesn't support Hallmark at the moment either. Maybe someday.
Thank you for mentioning PlayOn. I know of it but so far I haven't found a use for it based on my needs. I'm keeping an eye on it though and do not exclude the possibility of using it in the future. 
A chunk of Hallmark content is available on-demand for free via Xumo. Video quality is so-so but certainly usable with Hallmark style content. Playback via a custom channel is possible, but requires some custom backed services to enable.
99% of all content viewed through Channels is VOD. The only meaningful "live content" is live sports and live news. Outside of that, it is just prerecorded VOD content stitched together by the content provider. To use VOD, you need to force Channels to play it and figure out how to present it as a channel (so you can select it).
The annoyance of playing sequential VOD content via Channels is that it always gobbles the initial M3U playlist content (presumably as a real-time synchronization mechanism). Simply looking for "#EXT-X-PLAYLIST-TYPE:VOD" and using that as a flag to disable the pre-gobble would let Channels play sequential VOD content via what I have to believe is a trivial change. Otherwise, you need to point the channel to a custom server that feeds back the playlist incrementally to make Channels happy.
Seems like it would also be trivial for Channels to recognize a per-program tag within the EPG. If you select a program with such a tag, use that URL instead of the M3U list URL. Suddenly the EPG becomes two dimensional and a large amount of non-linear content can be integrated with ease.
The key to these kinds of changes is they enable the community without requiring Channels to get into the VOD content discovery or integration business.
I have a proof of concept running on one of the free streaming providers where when you choose the channel, it always starts playback from the beginning (regardless of where the program is timewise). My Tivo could not even do that (unless it happened to be on that channel). Non-linear programming is the present and future-- would be great to see Channels take some baby steps in that direction.
There is definitely some truth to this, when you think of it.
I like the way you think.
Younger people these days are used to this thanks to Netflix, Hulu, etc.
I'm perfectly fine with it too and can easily see a future where most of TV programs are VOD.
The hardest part is to change the mindsets of older people who are so used to live (linear) TV. In my family, I'm slowly starting to see a change in behavior in this regard but it will take time.
It does help to have DVRs that make it easy for TV to be on our schedules and not the other way around anymore.
You can never say never. Times are changing. Maybe Channels will support VOD in version 10.0. 
