The Channels App just rolled out one of the more interesting cord-cutting tools I’ve come across in a while: The ability to watch four separate over the air TV channels at the same time when watching on an iPad or Apple TV.
The feature is still in beta, so users will need to obtain the beta app through Apple’s testflight app. A subscription to the Channels App is also required ($8 monthly or $80 annually). I tested it on an Apple TV connected to my antenna through an HDHomeRun Flex 4K, and the experience worked better than I expected. Switching between streams was quick, and I could easily bring one channel forward while keeping an eye on the other three in the background.
If you’re not familiar with Channels, it’s a DVR platform that runs on a variety of devices. It requires a server component—usually a small PC or NAS—and supports hardware transcoding and out-of-home viewing. The app costs about eight dollars a month and works with HDHomeRun tuners for over-the-air broadcasts. It also integrates TV Everywhere channels if you still have a cable subscription and even supports creating your own custom virtual channels.
The multiview feature only works with live channels, so you can’t use it with recorded shows or personal media, but it’s flexible enough to handle both ATSC 1.0 and ATSC 3.0 broadcasts. Setting it up is straightforward: choose a channel, enable the multiview option, and then fill the other slots with the stations you want to monitor. Once you’re watching, you can switch the audio and enlarge a window with a click, or replace a channel on the fly. There are some rough edges at this stage, like the occasional frame stutter, but for a beta release it’s functional.
On the server side, the number of streams you can run depends on your tuner hardware. Each channel you add uses up one tuner, so if you want four channels at once, you’ll need a device that supports four simultaneous streams. Adding an extra HDHomeRun box is one way to scale if multiple people in the household want to record or watch at the same time.
One caveat is the ongoing battle over encryption of broadcast TV signals. If broadcasters succeed in pushing for mandatory encryption, features like this could be limited or disappear entirely, since broadcasters are blocking devices like the HDHomeRun from decrypting over the air broadcasts.
This beta is a fun way to get more out of live TV and is one the coolest things I’ve seen in the cord cutting space in quite some time. It feels especially handy for sports fans who want to keep tabs on multiple games at once. I’ll keep experimenting with the feature and will update as it develops.