Good morning and happy Friday to you all!

This one's been in the oven for a while. Lots of stuff. Let's get into it.

Bunny Ears TV ML™ v1

A big chunk of the channel catalog is now powered by something a little smarter than the old filtering system. Call it machine learning, call it AI, call it a tiny digital librarian with strong opinions... whatever it is, channel categorization got a lot better. This has been one of the biggest projects hiding behind the curtains, and I think you'll feel the difference once your new guide loads. Truly the numbers and training on this were crazy, but it's just so much better.

Plus, your Apple TV can finally utilize that Neural Engine, and this is just v1!

The Broadcast Channels Got a Full Makeover (Ch 2-19)

Channels 2 through 19 have been completely rethought with new names, identities, and much more intentional content filtering thanks to Bunny Ears TV ML™ v1. The idea here is these are the first channels you see when you first start the app, and first impressions matter. They're a great way to find something you like thanks to both the variety, and the quality.

• Ch 2: Primetime Prestige content, high ratings only
• Ch 3: Popcorn Blockbuster movies
• Ch 4: The Laugh Track All comedy, nothing else
• Ch 5: Binge Trap Bingeable TV with no end
• Ch 6: Adrenaline Action, thriller, adventure
• Ch 7: The Lineup Crime and mystery (get it, the lineup?)
• Ch 8: Other Worlds Sci-fi and fantasy
• Ch 9: Fright Night Horror movies
• Ch 10: Love Stories Romance
• Ch 11: True Story Documentaries
• Ch 12: The Vault 80s and 90s classics
• Ch 13: Family Room Family safe all the time
• Ch 14: Toon Town Animated TV
• Ch 15: After Dark R-rated
• Ch 16: Sunday Matinee Feel good movies
• Ch 17: Off the Radar Hidden gems with high critic scores
• Ch 18: Fresh Picks Added to your library in the last 30 days
• Ch 19: Dealer's Choice Total randomness

VHS Pause Effect

When you pause live DVR playback, you now get a proper VHS pause effect instead of TV static. Rolling distortion bands, scan line flicker, chromatic aberration, the whole deal. All powered by Apple's Metal technology so it runs on the GPU. Total overkill, but it feels authentic in the best possible way.

Playback Got Smoother

• More media formats should use hardware acceleration for playback. This makes a big difference.
• Buffering is more aggressive, so you should hit fewer hiccups mid-playback.
• Channel switches are faster and more stable. The audio session is now configured once at startup instead of being reconfigured on every switch, which was causing occasional audio glitches. I had previously implemented this optimization for video.
• DVR Seeking is more responsive thanks to better buffering.
• Fixed some memory leaks and orphaned threads that could occur during spirited channel surfing.

New Ways to Filter

Long press on the remote's select button and choose Custom Channels Only and there are all of your custom channels, right up top. Long press again and choose Favorites Only to quickly access your favorites. Long press again and select Show All Channels and you're back to your full guide. Once your muscle memory gets used to the action it's a pretty fast way to move around.

Scroll to Top

Speaking of long presses on the remote's select button... Do just that, click Scroll to Top, and there you are. Up top.

Channel Colors Are More Consistent and Readable

Every channel's color was reviewed and run through the WCAG AA standard. Previously, some were so dark they were nearly invisible on the dark guide background, and others were so bright they looked washed out. Everything now sits in a consistent range that improves readability.

The Guide Behaves Better

• Vertical navigation is smarter now. If you were already on the currently airing slot, d-pad up/down will continue snapping to the airing slot on other channels. If you navigated away from it, say 3 hours ahead, it respects where you actually are and doesn't yank you back.
• After coming back from the background (especially after a long overnight suspension), the guide now refreshes properly instead of showing stale times or an incorrect "now" line position.
• Exiting full-screen and returning to the guide now lands focus exactly where it should, on the right channel and the right time slot.
• No more brief flash of TV static from a stale previous session when opening the guide after certain navigation paths.

Meta Tags Got Pretty

• Warm Quality you can feel. Gold gradients for HDR and premium audio (richer picture, deeper sound).
• Cool gradients for resolution (technical/digital). Flat neutral for containers (plumbing that's not that relevant).
• Traffic Light Age Ratings Green = safe, yellow = guidance, amber = teens, red = restricted.
• All others also got a remake. They're just badges, but they look pretty great!

Cloud Sync Is More Reliable

Cloud syncing and versioning is actually very complex and there are many considerations. I continue to test and work through various situations and race conditions.

That's build 18. As always, thank you so much for beta testing. The feedback is fantastic. Happy watching and have a great weekend!