Channels Monitor

Channels Monitor answers one question about the household Channels DVR: is the News Magazine collection growing, shrinking, or quietly losing shows? The collection is built by a smart rule that matches show names, and when a guide listing changes its name the show drops out without any warning. This app makes that visible.

Open it and it checks the connection to the DVR server, pulls the current shows, and lists every show matched by the smart rule terms with its episode count, marking which counts went up or down since the last snapshot. Press Take Snapshot to record the moment: the total and the per-show counts go into a local SQLite database, and the Episode Count Trend chart redraws from the full history. Snapshots can be reviewed or deleted from the sidebar.

Other things it does:

• Check Collection compares the DVR’s own content count for the collection against the number of shows the rule terms match, and a banner points out when the two disagree so the rule can be fixed.
• Settings holds the smart rule terms as a comma-separated list; saving re-evaluates everything with the new terms.
• The current counts view groups shows by which term matched them, so a term that matches nothing stands out.
• The connection status is rechecked every 30 seconds.