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Channels DVR to drop support for Raspberry Pi, other platforms

Channels DVR allows users to record movies and TV shows from free, ad-supported channels and stream them from a centralized server in their home. (Courtesy photo)
Channels DVR allows users to record movies and TV shows from free, ad-supported channels and stream them from a centralized server in their home. (Courtesy photo)

The developers behind the popular Channels DVR home server solution says the company will stop supporting installations on Raspberry Pi computers and others that run certain obsolete operating systems.

On Tuesday, developers sent a note to customers warning them that Channels DVR will discontinue support for computers running Windows 7, Windows 8 and Windows 32-bit Intel instances, as well as Raspberry Pi machines, computers running FreeBSD and Mac computers running Mac OS X.



After May 1, the only machines that will support the installation of the Channels DVR server software are computers running Windows 10, Windows 11 and Mac OS 11 or newer, the company said.

“A lot of thought goes into deciding which platforms we support,” Jon Maddox, the co-founder of Channels DVR parent company Fancy Bits, wrote in a note to customers. “We have to weigh the cost of supporting a platform against the number of users on that platform.”



Maddox said the decision behind which Windows and Mac computers to support was easy, because the named operating systems reached their end-of-life support by Microsoft and Apple some time ago. FreeBSD was one of the earliest platforms Channels DVR supported, but few customers are running instances of the home media server on those devices, Maddox affirmed. No reason was given for the decision to pull support for Raspberry Pi machines, which tend to be the cheapest way to build and maintain a Channels DVR server.

For Channels DVR users who run their instance on Raspberry Pi 4 machines, Maddox said those devices will still be able to install Channels DVR’s server software “using the normal Linux instructions with Raspbian installed on your Pi,” but the company will be pulling back on “some support,” including hardware acceleration for transcoding. The biggest change will involve remote streaming, which will be limited to original quality, he wrote.



Those who want to migrate their Channels DVR installation from a soon-to-be-unsupported machine to a newer computer or operating system can find instructions on how to do just that by clicking or tapping here.

Channels DVR is a whole-home media server solution that allows streamers to watch their own TV show and movie files across different devices, including phones, tablets, computers and most popular smart TVs (except Roku devices and TVs). Channels DVR also works with SiliconDust’s HD Home Run line of network-connected tuners, which allow streamers to watch and record free broadcast TV using many of the same devices, as well as custom M3U playlists for watching and recording channels from most free, ad-supported streaming TV providers, with a few technical integrations.

Channels DVR costs $8 per month or $80 per year. Streaming apps are available for Apple and Android phone, tablets and smart TV devices, and for Amazon Fire TV.

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About the Author:

Matthew Keys

Matthew Keys is a nationally-recognized, award-winning journalist who has covered the business of media, technology, radio and television for more than 11 years. He is the publisher of The Desk and contributes to Know Techie, Digital Content Next and StreamTV Insider. He previously worked for Thomson Reuters, the Walt Disney Company, McNaughton Newspapers and Tribune Broadcasting. Connect with Matthew on LinkedIn by clicking or tapping here.
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