Plex’s live TV guide got a facelift earlier this year. (Channels doesn’t deal with music at all, and probably shouldn’t.) Plex Plex also released a new version of Plexamp, which is a fantastic app for self-hosted music collections. Last year, it made a bunch of nitty-gritty server improvements, such as better support for hardware-accelerated transcoding, and a slick new dashboard for monitoring server activity. Earlier this year, the company overhauled its live TV guide and added an option for non-destructive DVR ad-skipping (aping a feature that Channels already offers). To be fair, Plex hasn’t abandoned its media server roots. That means it’s now possible to record free streams from Pluto TV or Stirr, add a live webcam to your channel guide, or even roll your own round-the-clock channels from locally hosted media.Ī $35 Raspberry Pi and external hard drive might be all you need to start using Channels. Last month, Channels took things a step further: For any legal video source that generates an M3U playlist, you can now add it to Channels and record its content. It also added support, so you can record local channels without an antenna in certain markets. Last year, Channels added support for capturing TV Everywhere streams, so if you have a pay TV login, you can use the DVR for cable channels. Where Channels really stands out, though is in what it can record beyond just over-the-air broadcasts. You can read my reviews of Plex DVR and Channels DVR for more details on how they handle recordings and playback, but lately I’ve given an edge to Channels for its superior level of polish despite the higher price. Jared Newman / IDGĬhannels DVR can record live broadcasts from an antenna, along with some streaming sources.īoth DVR services also require a subscription, with Plex charging $5 per month, $40 per year, or $120 for life, and Channels charging $8 per month or $80 per year. That device can be a desktop computer, a NAS box, or an Nvidia Shield TV Pro streaming box. They both require an over-the-air antenna, a compatible TV tuner (such as SiliconDust’s HDHomeRun Connect), a hard drive with ample storage, and a computing device powerful enough to run either service’s media server software. Viewed strictly as over-the-air DVRs, Plex and Channels have more similarities than differences.

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