About Channels for HDHomeRun!
Watch live TV, right next to your apps. Channels lets you play, pause, and rewind local or cable TV directly on your Apple TV with your HDHomeRun TV tuner. If you are a Channels Plus subscriber with DVR Service, search...
Watch live TV, right next to your apps. Channels lets you play, pause, and rewind local or cable TV directly on your Apple TV with your HDHomeRun TV tuner.
If you are a Channels Plus subscriber with DVR Service, search for the free app: Channels: Whole Home DVR.
Channels requires an HDHomeRun networked TV tuner to watch live TV on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch. Learn more about how this works below.
• Pause, rewind, and fast forward live TV
• Guide Data
• Full grid guide
• Full HD streaming (bandwidth permitting)
• 5.1 Surround Sound
• Closed captioning
• Full support for VoiceOver
• Channel favoriting
• Jump back to last channel
• Auto Discovery
• Browse what's on other channels while watching TV
• Manage your HDHomeRun devices from Channels
"If you’re a cord cutter, then Channels coupled with an HDHomeRun and antenna is one of the best purchases you can make." — 9to5mac
"If live television has been a missing or irritating-to-use piece for your viewing pleasure, Channels plus a networked tuner pulls it neatly into your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad." — Macworld
Channels requires modern iOS devices and 802.11AC wireless for HD streaming. But as usual, your milage may vary.
Supported devices: All iOS devices with an A7 chip and up.
Note: Channels does not support Picture in Picture mode on the iPad or AirPlay on any device due to the video format provided by the HDHomeRun tuners. This is an iOS limitation.
-- Why Use Channels? --
Channels is the missing piece of your puzzle. If you already watch everything through streaming apps, Channels lets you finally watch sports, award shows, local news, and other live events on your same device.
• Watch live primetime TV, local news, and sports on your Apple TV.
• Netflix, Hulu, Movies, Games, AirPlay, and now live TV on the same device.
• Already using antenna for live TV? Channels lets you use one antenna to watch TV on all the devices in your home.
• Want sports on your porch? News in the kitchen? Channels lets you watch these anywhere in the home. Let your TV watching follow you around the house.
-- How Does It Work? --
An HDHomeRun is a simple TV tuner that can broadcast television over your home network. Channels streams that video directly to your device.
1. Plug an HD antenna or your cable into your HDHomeRun.
2. Plug your HDHomeRun into your router.
3. Watch live TV via the Channels app.
-- How Do You Use It? --
Here's some protips on how to get the most out of Channels.
• Pick your favorite channels by selecting your HDHomeRun device in the Settings tab and tapping on a channel.
• See quickly what’s currently on your favorite channels with the On Now tab.
• Tap on a channel to view more info about it (or just 3D Touch it).
• Live TV buffer works for ~90 mins or less depending on how much storage is available on your device.
• Skip ahead 30s by swiping right. Skip back 7s by swiping left.
• Double-tap with 2 fingers to switch to the previous channel.
• Swipe up/down on the Quick Guide to see what else is on your favorite channels. Tap it to change to that channel.
-- HDHomeRun Device Support --
All HDHomeRun devices are supported by Channels.
• HDHomeRun PRIME
• HDHomeRun EXTEND
• HDHomeRun EXPAND
• HDHomeRun CONNECT
• HDHomeRun CONNECT DUO
• HDHomeRun CONNECT QUATRO
• HDHomeRun DUAL
• HDHomeRun ORIGINAL (blue and white tuners)
Learn more about HDHomeRun tuners on silicondust.com. Simply plug a compatible tuner into your home network router and start watching Live TV with Channels today!
• DRM protected streams are *not* currently supported.
• Channels does *not* work outside of your home. It only works when connected to the same network as your HDHomeRun Device
For questions, concerns, bug reports, and feature requests, contact us on twitter @getchannels or via email
[email protected]. You can talk about everything Channels on our community site at: https://community.getchannels.com.
Apr 10, 2024
Version 5.8.2
• NEW: Recorded movies now have movie trailers
• NEW: Movies in your library will now be badged as such when viewed in On Later, search results, or from the Guide.
• NEW: Native speed test for tvOS and iOS for testing speeds from your client to your Channels DVR Server
• NEW: Upgraded Default audio driver supports AirPlay, AirPods, Spatial Audio, Atmos and HomePods
• IMPROVED: Consistently sort movies and collections in various views.
• IMPROVED: Performance with a large library
• IMPROVED: HLG HDR format now supported and will switch TV to HDR
• IMPROVED: Provide better error message when device runs out of disk space while watching Live TV
• IMPROVED: UI responsiveness when watching OTA Live TV in Europe
• IMPROVED: Video playback codec support
• IMPROVED: Handling of timeouts while streaming remotely
• FIXED: Virtual channels would not play the correct recording when the recordings were unmatched
• FIXED: Start Up sections were not presenting if the app exited while navigated deep into other sections.
• FIXED: Some corner badges were showing blank for shows
• FIXED: Library Collections under TV Shows were not being sorted Alphabetically
• FIXED: Some sort properties were wrong on Library Collections
• FIXED: Recorded movies were being sorted incorrectly when sorted by Date Released
• FIXED: Library Collection image URLs could be malformed after managing the collection on the client
• FIXED: Rare crasher when deleting recordings from the TV show view
• FIXED: Rare crasher when trashing all items of a TV show
Previous Versions
Here you can find the changelog of Channels for HDHomeRun! since it was posted on our website on 2016-10-03 11:38:18.
The latest version is 5.8.2 and it was updated on 2024-04-19 20:00:18. See below the changes in each version.
Channels for HDHomeRun! version 5.8.2
Updated At: 2024-04-10
Changes: Apr 10, 2024
Version 5.8.2
• NEW: Recorded movies now have movie trailers
• NEW: Movies in your library will now be badged as such when viewed in On Later, search results, or from the Guide.
• NEW: Native speed test for tvOS and iOS for testing speeds from your client to your Channels DVR Server
• NEW: Upgraded Default audio driver supports AirPlay, AirPods, Spatial Audio, Atmos and HomePods
• IMPROVED: Consistently sort movies and collections in various views.
• IMPROVED: Performance with a large library
• IMPROVED: HLG HDR format now supported and will switch TV to HDR
• IMPROVED: Provide better error message when device runs out of disk space while watching Live TV
• IMPROVED: UI responsiveness when watching OTA Live TV in Europe
• IMPROVED: Video playback codec support
• IMPROVED: Handling of timeouts while streaming remotely
• FIXED: Virtual channels would not play the correct recording when the recordings were unmatched
• FIXED: Start Up sections were not presenting if the app exited while navigated deep into other sections.
• FIXED: Some corner badges were showing blank for shows
• FIXED: Library Collections under TV Shows were not being sorted Alphabetically
• FIXED: Some sort properties were wrong on Library Collections
• FIXED: Recorded movies were being sorted incorrectly when sorted by Date Released
• FIXED: Library Collection image URLs could be malformed after managing the collection on the client
• FIXED: Rare crasher when deleting recordings from the TV show view
• FIXED: Rare crasher when trashing all items of a TV show
Channels for HDHomeRun! version 5.8.1
Updated At: 2024-02-11
Changes: Feb 11, 2024
Version 5.8.1
Playlists are here!
Create and manage your own lists of episodes, videos, and movies. Playlists are completely managed from withing the app. Create a new playlist, add content to a playlist, remove content from a playlist, and delete a playlist, all from within the app!
Visit our site for more details on this release. We ran out of allowed space!
Included in 5.8.1
• FIXED: Playback would fail on older releases of tvOS and iOS when the Hardware Deinterlacer was selected
• FIXED: Movie posters were showing with the wrong aspect in On Now
Included in 5.8.0
• NEW: Playlists. Create and manage your own lists of episodes, videos, and movies.
• NEW: Completely overhauled context menus across the entire app for exploring and managing all of your content.
• NEW: Apple TV app now uses native context menus for an incredibly improved experience.
• NEW: Manage Library Collections entirely in the app: Create a new Collction, add content to a Collection, remove content from a Collection, delete a Collection.
• NEW: Recently Watched channels. View your recently watched channels as its own native channel collection. Turn it on in Settings > General > Live TV
• NEW: Optionally show the last 3 recent channels in the Quick Guide - Settings > General > Live TV > Show Recent Channels in Quick Guide
• NEW: TV Shows and Video Groups now have an Auto Play setting to set their own Auto Play style.
• NEW: On Later, guide search results, and guide modals now indicate if the movie or tv show is already in your library.
• NEW: Movies scheduled to record are indicated when viewing them in On Later.
• NEW: Future airings in search results are indicated if they are already in your library.
• NEW: Optionally use the Thumbnail for TV Show episodes and Video Group videos when displayed in Virtual Channels. This can be set globally or per TV Show or Video Group.
• NEW: Siri Shortcut action for Search. Provide text and Channels will open directly to search results for that text.
• NEW: webp image uploads now work in the client
• NEW: Setting on iOS to force playback to start in landscape. Useful for those that keep Orientation Lock on.
• NEW: Channels is now available on Apple Vision Pro and visionOS via iPad compatability mode.
• IMPROVED: All sections are now available from the Start Up setting and Siri Shortcut action.
• IMPROVED: All Movies and All Shows filter views now use menus for picking filters.
• IMPROVED: More improved and consistent icons across the app.
• IMPROVED: Guide will update automatically when sources are added/removed or priority is changed on the server.
• IMPROVED: Show download tab when offline if there are partial downloads but no completed ones.
• IMPROVED: Automatically retry downloads that have timed out.
• IMPROVED: Allow for pressing Play to restart the stream when an error is displayed after playing a recording.
• IMPROVED: Allow partially downloaded recordings to be played in more situations.
• FIXED: PIP button would randomly recieve focus keeping the timeline visible.
• FIXED: Audio would sometimes distort on the default audio driver when using Siri or receiving notifications.
• FIXED: TV Episodes were leaking into Recently Watched, News, and Sports sections when AllowList and BlockList were employed.
• FIXED: Hidden content was showing up in search results.
• FIXED: Seek icons were sometimes missing.
• FIXED: Skip Commercials and Start From Beginning buttons were dismissing weird.
• FIXED: Seeking was not always using the correct seek times from settings.
• FIXED: The Sidebar was showing whenever the app opened directly to Recent Recordings or Playlists.
• FIXED: Guide and On Now would scroll to the last watched channel on a fresh boot.
• REMOVED: Auto Play Videos setting has been removed. TV Shows and Video Groups now have their own individual Auto Play setting.
• REMOVED: Embedded Tailscale client - Use the System Tailscale client for better reliability and performance.
Channels for HDHomeRun! version 5.7.5
Updated At: 2023-10-04
Changes: Oct 4, 2023
Version 5.7.5
IMPROVED: ATSC3 tuning speed
FIXED: On Now would sometimes show the wrong logos
FIXED: Sports Seek Timeline setting was not toggling correctly
Channels for HDHomeRun! version 5.7.3
Updated At: 2023-09-19
Changes: Sep 19, 2023
Version 5.7.3
• FIXED: Episodes would not open in Callsheet correctly
• FIXED: Time format was bad in the Timeline on tvOS/iOS 17
• FIXED: Sort type was breaking for some collections when adding/removing items
Version 5.7.0 Notes:
Introducing the News & Sports sections.
Now you can collect all of your news and sports content into their respective sections.
These dedicated sections give you a central destination to find all of your news or sports content. When you activate these sections, their library content is available exclusively from the section, cleaning up your library a bit.
• Browse and watch what (sports or news) is currently airing on live TV right now
• Browse and watch (sports or news) that were recently added/recorded to your library
• See what (sports or news) is airing on live TV later in the day
• Browse your (sports or news) shows directly.
Check our website for more information on the News & Sports sections.
--==== Full Release Notes ====--
• NEW: Added a dedicated Sports Section. Turn on in Settings > Library.
• NEW: Added a dedicated News Section. Turn on in Settings > Library.
• NEW: Updated pass editor that also supports manually entering a channel number
• NEW - Optionally set the commercial skip style on a show by show basis. Use the setting for the show under Show Options.
• NEW - Optionally automatically show captions for shows. Use the setting for the show under Show Options.
• IMPROVED: All movies, TV shows, and Episodes are now eligible for opening in Callsheet now no matter which indexer was used.
• IMPROVED: A focused PIP button no longer keeps the timeline showing forever
• IMPROVED: ATSC 3 audio fixes
• IMPROVED: Speed up persistence of DVB EPG data to prevent UI hangs
• IMPROVED: Better notifications and errors when remote streaming encounters a lot of timeouts (often due to trying to stream Original quality over Cellular)
• IMPROVED: Handling when experiencing signal issues when watching at home
• FIXED: iPhone lock screen remote will now disable the scrubber when watching Live TV
• FIXED: Various bug fixes
• FIXED: Explore Show buttons were missing their icon
• FIXED: Spoiler Free mode was being disabled if Allow Recording was set server side
• FIXED: Rare issue where seeking forward would jump back a large amount due to issues in encoders
• FIXED: Unusual crash when a guide filter returns no channels
• FIXED: Unusual crash that can happen when parsing DVB guide data
• FIXED: Memory leak related to DVB EPG
• FIXED: Audio track selection for ATSC3 channels was sometimes wrong
• FIXED: Recordings view did not render cleanly on a fresh start
Channels for HDHomeRun! version 5.6.7
Updated At: 2023-08-10
Changes: Aug 10, 2023
Version 5.6.7
• FIXED: Crash that could happen during discovery
• FIXED: Audio issues that could happen with ATSC3 broadcasts
Previously in 5.6.6
• IMPROVED: Playback Speed is now available for Live TV and in-progress recordings
• IMPROVED: Remote DVR is able to be used on a network with another Channels DVR Server running on it
• IMPROVED: Improvements to ATSC3 audio handling
• IMPROVED: Speed ups for ATSC3 tuning
• IMPROVED: Reduce stuttering that could happen during playback
• IMPROVED: Reduced network traffic for initial connection to DVR for faster startup times
• IMPROVED: The last connected bonjour discovered host will be forgotten when clearing a manually selected DVR entry
• IMPROVED: Internal diagnostics
• FIXED: Movies were not showing in Recordings
• FIXED: Watch button was being initially focused on the Shows view rather than the first recording
• FIXED: Duration was incorrect when viewing a recording in the Trash
• FIXED: Label filtering was not working
• FIXED: Some channels would not show under Manage Sources after being hidden
• FIXED: Some channels could not be unhidden after hiding them in Manage Sources
• FIXED: Schedule view could crash if there were multiple jobs with the same Airing attached.
• FIXED: Crash that could happen when hitting play
• FIXED: When beta Tailscale integration is enabled, discovery will wait for Tailscale to connect before attempting to connect to the DVR
• FIXED: Connections made over beta Tailscale integration could have trouble reconnecting after the app was in the background
• FIXED: DVR updates were not being received when connecting over beta Tailscale integration
• FIXED: Reconnection to DVRs connected via beta Tailscale integration is now reliable
Channels for HDHomeRun! version 5.6.5
Updated At: 2023-06-15
Changes: Jun 15, 2023
Version 5.6.5
• FIXED: Top Shelf was not working on Apple TV
Channels for HDHomeRun! version 1.1.1
Updated At: 2016-07-30
