How does the Live Channels App Work?

by nickm_27

It does not appear in my app list. I read online that I need a usb channel tuner or something of the sorts. Does anyone have any experience with this and know how to make the app work? Thanks in advance

Andrroid

I'll copy/paste a post I made about this recently:

I'll explain it.

Live Channels is a system level app that "listens" for apps that have video streams and have made themselves available as "sources." If an app like this is installed, when you open Live Channels, you will be able to add said app as a source and whatever channels that app produces will be integrated into the Live Channels tv guide. A good app to test this with is Pluto TV. Install the app, then open Live Channels and you'll see what I mean.

Now obviously with only one source this is pointless; why not just open the source's app? The idea is to aggregate sources into one app. I think right now, most people only use 2 apps: Pluto TV and HdHomerun. HdHomerun is a tv tuner that you connect to an OTA antenna and then your router. The tuner takes the signals, processes them and then broadcasts them over your network. If you have the HDHomerun app installed, you can then view your broadcast channels via the shield instead of changing inputs. You could then choose HDHomerun as a source for Live Channels and have your broadcasts channels aggregated in the same location as all your Pluto TV channels. See what I'm getting at here?

There are a few other great candidates that would be great for Live Channels. Imagine if Sling TV implemented it. You could have your 20+ Sling channels in the same location as your 20+ broadcast channels and as your 100+ PlutoTV channels. Crackle recently implemented a channel like interface; imagine if they got on board. There is a lot of potential with the Live Channels app to aggregate from a lot of content providers and give us the traditional "channel surfing" experience.