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I moved from MythTV to SageTV ~15 years ago or so, for the hardware client. A few months ago, I moved to Channels. What I like about it is it works really wel

I moved from MythTV to SageTV ~15 years ago or so, for the hardware client. A few months ago, I moved to Channels. What I like about it is it works really well on Firesticks and AppleTVs that I already have attached to my TVs, so that means I can finally get rid of the hardware sagetv clients (one of which I've had to replace the caps in) and simplify my setup. When looking to move last fall, I first looked at MythTV. It was still horrifically hard to setup. Given I'd never use a pc client, I then moved on to tvheadend, which had its own issues (mainly on the side of the kodi client). I finally settled on Channels because they have FreeBSD support for the server, and more importantly, It. Just. Works.

patja 4y ago
for me, Comskip is the killer feature I would be very sad to give up. With Channels do you have to manually FF through ads?
- drewg123 4y ago
  No, it also uses comskip. I should have mentioned that..
gregmac 4y ago
I did the same! I ran MythTV on a PC connected to my TV for a while, but when I wanted to add a second TV I had a really hard time getting a decent fanless client at a reasonable cost (this was mid/late 2000's). I ended up switching to SageTV purely for the hardware client. A year or so after SageTV was acquired, I moved to Plex. The biggest miss was the hardware client. I went through several sub-par iterations of PC-based hardware -- including mini-ITX PCs and Raspberry Pi -- but never got a setup that could run Plex, Youtube and Netflix and work 100% without a keyboard/mouse involved. I also tried some hardware -- Roku, original Chromecast -- but nothing was even remotely good as the SageTV HD300's, even years later. Until I found the Nvidia Shield -- though it's more Google TV doing the real magic, I think. I still have the original 2015 model in my living room, still working perfectly. My newer "media room" TV uses built-in Google TV stuff -- I originally intended to use the Shield but it requires upgrading my just-before-4K-came-out AVR to be able to do 4k, so this setup was simpler. I also have a cheap "Chromcast with Google TV" on an old smaller set in front of my treadmill. Over the past few years, I have all but stopped using Plex, though, as we went to pretty much 100% streaming services, but it is still running. It's really thanks to MythTV, though, that I started down this path 15+ years ago. I've never had a cable/satellite TV subscription in my name, ever. It's interesting now to look back, because all my media sources have entirely changed since I started. I do still have everything needed for OTA in a box somewhere, but I never hooked it up in this house -- maybe it's time to give it a shot again.
ubertaco 4y ago
Can I run Channels for free if I selfhost everything, or do I still have to pay them a monthly fee?
- EricE 4y ago
  They have an annual fee - well worth it though as it clearly funds development; the developers are VERY active and constantly updating/improving it.

patja 4y ago

for me, Comskip is the killer feature I would be very sad to give up. With Channels do you have to manually FF through ads?

drewg123 4y ago
No, it also uses comskip. I should have mentioned that..

gregmac 4y ago

I did the same! I ran MythTV on a PC connected to my TV for a while, but when I wanted to add a second TV I had a really hard time getting a decent fanless client at a reasonable cost (this was mid/late 2000's). I ended up switching to SageTV purely for the hardware client. A year or so after SageTV was acquired, I moved to Plex. The biggest miss was the hardware client. I went through several sub-par iterations of PC-based hardware -- including mini-ITX PCs and Raspberry Pi -- but never got a setup that could run Plex, Youtube and Netflix and work 100% without a keyboard/mouse involved. I also tried some hardware -- Roku, original Chromecast -- but nothing was even remotely good as the SageTV HD300's, even years later. Until I found the Nvidia Shield -- though it's more Google TV doing the real magic, I think. I still have the original 2015 model in my living room, still working perfectly. My newer "media room" TV uses built-in Google TV stuff -- I originally intended to use the Shield but it requires upgrading my just-before-4K-came-out AVR to be able to do 4k, so this setup was simpler. I also have a cheap "Chromcast with Google TV" on an old smaller set in front of my treadmill. Over the past few years, I have all but stopped using Plex, though, as we went to pretty much 100% streaming services, but it is still running. It's really thanks to MythTV, though, that I started down this path 15+ years ago. I've never had a cable/satellite TV subscription in my name, ever. It's interesting now to look back, because all my media sources have entirely changed since I started. I do still have everything needed for OTA in a box somewhere, but I never hooked it up in this house -- maybe it's time to give it a shot again.

ubertaco 4y ago

Can I run Channels for free if I selfhost everything, or do I still have to pay them a monthly fee?

EricE 4y ago
They have an annual fee - well worth it though as it clearly funds development; the developers are VERY active and constantly updating/improving it.