Ok so I bought a NAS (MyCloud EX2 Ultra) that seems to work just fine for everything except for it doesn't work with TVE. So instead I bought a ShieldTV which is supposed to work well for running the DVR and as a client and it does work with TVE. But now it seems to be failing and incapable of handling more than two recordings and play back of one show without failing and having buffering issues. So now that I've spent $500 on two sets of hardware that are supposed to work and don't, I would really like to know what actually works w/o spending another $500 on hardware.
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Raspberry Pi4 works great. You can get a RPi4 with power supply and case for around $70.
This kit works great.
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I thought about that, but I believe the Pi4 is a less powerful device than the ShieldTV. Though you can get ones with more memory.
I think you have other issues. My Shield has none of those problems. One of the devs will be able to straighten everything out.
What are you using for storage. If you are using the Shield Pro 2019 then we have the same setup except for that.
I found out that the hardware you put the DVR depends on how many people will be using it... If it is just 1 person a PI , ShieldTV and any Cheap windows PC will do.... but if it is going to be a family DVR you will need more horsepower.. Most of the low powered Servers will only handle 1 or 2 remote transcodes.
Personally I rather have more horsepower than less.
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I use an old HP USFF desktop that has an Intel i5 with Ubuntu server. It works great and since it is a newer Intel processor (anything after core2 Duo), it can do hardware transcoding. You can find these computers on eBay all day for $80-$100. I was thinking of changing out to a smaller computer like the HP 600 D1 mini computer which is on eBay for around $100-$130. If you get something with an i3 or i5 that should work really well for you. I'd keep the Shield as your viewing device.
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After experimenting with a variety of hardware setups and OSes, my personal opinion is that running the Channels DVR server on a computer with Linux OS (I chose Ubuntu), a SATA-connected harddrive (or SSD), and Gigabit ethernet is going to be rock-solid and wicked fast.
I bought an Intel NUC for this purpose.
That being said, before the NUC I ran an old (2012) Apple Mac Mini with an external USB3.0 HDD for a year as my Channels DVR, and that worked pretty damn well.
Although my usage profile it pretty tame - recording at most 2 streams at a time, and never watching more than 1 stream at a time, and pretty much never using the remote watching feature outside the house. And I don't use TVE, I have a Cable-compatible HDHR tuner with cable card (in addition to HDHR tuner for broadcast TV).
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Your two choices for hardware thus far are purpose built devices that you are using for something entirely different, in my opinion. Not a lot of CPU power in reserve. I'm running the DVR on a 2012 Mac Mini (cheapest model at the time) and I have now 2 10TB external drives for storage. I've got 8 OTA tuners (2 x quad HDHRs), and TVE. I've seen it doing 10+ simultaneous recordings, while also serving up streaming to our Apple TVs. An old Mac Mini is cheaper than $500.
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i second the RPi. It's more than capable and maintained by the channels devs themselves.
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This sort of media task really doesn't need much power, and modern ARM SOCs running Linux are usually perfectly acceptable, as long as you can get hardware encoding to work if you want to do remote streaming with Channels rather than via other software.
I have an RPi with a 4 TB USB-3 harddrive, which is used for all of my media. The RPI4 is definitely sufficient for most purposes, and hasn't resulted a single issue, or been rebooted once. The only use case I have found where the RPI4 is sub-optimal is that it can only transcode for remote (out of home) viewing one stream at a time. If you need that, almost any Intel/AMD-based systems can manage multiple streams, as can NVidia Shield. Within the home it has no such issues.
Anything Intel with hardware transcoding should also be fine. The Nvidia Shield TV is great hardware, but it uses Android TV which I personally found problematic. While I used it, every once in a while it seemed to lose recordings due to the system demanding software updates. That being said, that was a couple of years ago and it may have improved since.
I'm using an 8Tb Seagate external drive. It's plugged into the USB3 port of the Shield and works flawlessly.
Edwin has a point, I only use the Shield but I'm considering moving to a Pi. Right now it's only myself using the system as I'm still learning the ins and outs. As soon as I've got it to the point where I and just use one screen, the Guide, it will be my self and my 96 year old mom. I still won't be using a lot of horsepower as I very seldom watch anything when she does. I don't think my Shield would cut it if I had more than two TVs working at the same time. For now though, the only problems I've had are from not knowing how everything is supposed to work.
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OS: I've run a home lab for a few years, Linux and Windows (2016), used mostly for streaming and storage server services. I agree with VTTOM, Linux (I also use Ubuntu, free) has been rock solid. IMHO keep the server that is running Channels as slim as possible. I don't install add ons/apps, use command line for config and WinSCP/FTP client for file transfers. Unless an app/package/add on is needed to run Channels, I don't install it.
VM: I'm a believer in virtualizing. Troubleshooting, backups, reinstalls, restarts, alternate access. I run everything in a virtualized environment. For me VMWare ESXI has proven to be rock solid. (I hear Linux has some built in virtualizing options but I have not used it). ESXI takes very little of the CPU, ram and disk space to run. VMWare has a feature limited free version I use.
Hardware: I look for used servers that are selling on the cheap (or that rare super sale for new). You want a solid CPU(tougher to expand CPU). Other than that it just needs good expansion capability. You add ram and disk drives as it becomes needed. I was able to score fairly barebones Dell T30s on the cheap (had to be patient and wait for right deal). I populated the second RAM bank when it became needed. I've added 2 hard drives since I bought them (t has room for 4 hard drives). (note, T30s aren't officially supported on ESXI but I haven't had issue even when updating the Bios).
I don't know which was is cheaper but it probably is cheaper to go with a NUC or NAS. But i prefer the expansion capability and better flexibility of a server that can utilize VMs.
Separate power supply or USB power HDD?
Thank you for everyone's input. Based on use cases mention that would tax a ShieldTV I'm no where near that. I am seeing issues with just one recording task running while watching one recording on a single device not using transcoding. I just went and got a different HDD that is self powered (switched from WD My Passport to My Book. Transferring files now and then will attempt to break it and see what happens.
Previously I was running the DVR on a MiBox3 with an external HDD on USB 2.0 and it was able to handle ~6 recordings while watching 3 with minimal issues. I'm hoping the HDD fixes this. If not I will probably just get one of these.
And then rip the casing off my My Passport and stick it in there.
Is it a 3.5in desktop HDD inside? or is it one of those smaller 2.5in portable My Passport drives.
Note that many of the portable 2.5in My Passports are not SATA drives inside but instead WD uses a PCB board that is direct to USB on the hard drive itself, making it impossible to use in a normal computer via sata.
Separate.
Ok it hasn't been running for long (~20minutes), but am now using a powered 3.5" HDD. Currently recording 8 shows (4 OTA, 4 TVE) and watching recordings on 3 devices (the ShieldTV and 2 Chromecasts). I am not getting any stuttering or buffering errors in the log. 
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Sorry GettMatt, this might not be relevant to you, but it might just help someone else:-
2019 iMac desktop with an external 1TB USB 3 HDD drive works well, even when running comskip on 2 channels at the same time (CPU load ~45% - 3.6 Quad-Core i3, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD). The only issue is that I need to be logged in, but "Sleep" seems to wake-up when a recording starts...