Channels for HDHomeRun‪!‬ 12+

Live TV, anywhere in your home

Fancy Bits, LLC

Designed for iPad

    • 4.5 • 1.3K Ratings
    • Free

Screenshots

Description

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 support@getchannels.com. You can talk about everything Channels on our community site at: https://community.getchannels.com.

What’s New

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.

Ratings and Reviews

4.5 out of 5
1.3K Ratings

1.3K Ratings

judytunes ,

Channels misnamed but can’t choose a channel

Love the way you can bypass commercials. However, why this app is named Channels is beyond me. You don’t have the option to surf channel numbers thru the guide to select only one series on that channel alone. Instead, it selects every channel a series airs even though it’s duplicating the show on HD as well as lower channels. Then, there’s other channels that airs repeat episodes, like USA, for example and labels them as first run because it is running for the first time on their channel, but they’re repeat episodes. If I could delete all programs on that channel that are being recorded that would be an option, or choose to record a series only on that channel is another option.

Developer Response ,

Hi! This is an unfortunate change with our data provider. It seems some channels like USA Network are adding the NEW tag to their first run airings of syndicated content. We've seen this on some other channels as well.

You can adjust passes via your Channels DVR Server web admin and add advanced settings to passes that allow you to exclude certain channel numbers (and more) from your pass.\

Learn more on our community forms at https://community.getchannels.com

brianbobcat ,

Haven’t been able to use this for month now

(Update: my firmware was more than 10 years old, and their support was able to instruct me on how to upgrade it. I was able to scan for, and find channels. Some came in as “SD” even though they’re all HD, but I made them all favorites and just use the favorites section now.)

I’ve been trying to use Channels for months now, with no success. I have a HD HomeRun Dual connected to my WiFi router and can watch shows using a program on my Mac laptop throughout the house. Channels could never find my HDHomeRun, and now the app doesn’t even load. I open it and only get a blank screen. I deleted the app and reinstalled it and got a splash screen of new features, but when I closed that I got the same blank screen. I’d love to watch live TV on my phone thought the house, but haven’t for a long while.

Developer Response ,

Can you check to make sure your hdhomerun has the latest firmware installed? If you're still having issues email support@getchannels.com and we will help get it sorted out.

unscrum ,

closed caption can be confusing

I bought the iOS and Apple TV versions and it works great but I am disappointed in the closed captioning. Initially I thought it was supported when muted only. My wife being deaf needs CC and I being hearing enjoy the audio. I finally figured out swipe down and then right to switch sap or CC. It would be nice to make this a more prominent feature or add an always on setting. Or simply follow the defaults on the device itself.

App Privacy

The developer, Fancy Bits, LLC, indicated that the app’s privacy practices may include handling of data as described below. For more information, see the developer’s privacy policy.

Data Linked to You

The following data may be collected and linked to your identity:

  • Diagnostics

Privacy practices may vary, for example, based on the features you use or your age. Learn More

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