Plex introduces DVR features

[wayner]

Plex has announced that they now have DVR capabilities for SiliconDust HDHR devices. It sounds like they support both OTA and cable tuners but the blog post talks far more about OTA. And it looks like they don't currently support LiveTV.

And in the blog they diss' SageTV, WinMCE, etc with:

... or bush league homebrew tools held together with bailing wire and duct tape.

[Taddeusz]

It also appears that it only supports the latest HDHR devices: Connect, Extend, Prime, & Expand.

[stuckless]

Maybe now they'll start to look at supporting comskip as well.

If this supported a generic tuner interface (ie, like sagetv network tuner), and comskip it would be compelling. WIthout comskip I really don't see this as causing much of stir for those "ush league homebrew tools held together with bailing wire and duct tape".

[reggie14]

It will be interesting to see what's actually supported. For now, the DVR features look incredibly limited. There's no ability to schedule recordings on clients. There's no ability to to watch live or time-shifted TV (and certainly no grid-based EPG). I'd be willing to bet it doesn't store viewing history (like Tablo) for the purposes of avoiding recording already-watched shows.

I use comskip now, but honestly that's not terribly important to me. Truth be told, I'd probably happily trade-off comskip for better mobile support. But I'm not going to trade off live/time-shifted TV, and I'd really hate to lose viewing history.

[TimmyToo]

I just installed this to check it out. I'm impressed how well it worked. The installation was easy.

I have a SageTV7/Plex VM running on ESXi. I also have Windows Media Center running on Win8.1 Pro. We have three HD300, Xbox360, and a HDHR Prime.

I used to run SageDCT with the Prime but gave up on that a few years ago. The system was great when it worked, but was too flaky. SageTV is used as our media library playback for TV shows and ripped movies. Though we recently have been using Plex on the Xbox360 even though nothing compares to the HD300 remote control user experience.

The Xbox360 gives us WMC, Plex, Netflix, and Amazon Prime. Running WMC with the Xbox360 works well for our encrypted cable TV viewing.

SageTV is still one of the best pieces of software I have ever used.

[wayner]

Comskip is less important to me than instant SkipFwd capabilities as I watch sports and Skip through the downtimes, like the time between pitches of baseball games, and SkipFwdx2 for commercials. Stuff like Plex doesn't do that very well in my experience, at least not when it is transcoding. And I often am timeshifting by a few hours which sounds like it won't work with Plex DVR. But the mobile capabilities may be useful, but to a certain extent I have that today as my Sage recordings are viewable in Plex.

[reggie14]

Originally Posted by wayner

Stuff like Plex doesn't do that very well in my experience, at least not when it is transcoding. And I often am timeshifting by a few hours which sounds like it won't work with Plex DVR.

Well, Plex doesn't seem to handle growing files. The scanner will pick up files that are currently recording, but you'll run into major problems if you try to play them back- particularly if they're transcoding. It doesn't sound like they've addressed that problem. I assume the lack of "time-shifting" capabilities means you have to wait until a show is finished recording.

[wayner]

Originally Posted by reggie14

Well, Plex doesn't seem to handle growing files. The scanner will pick up files that are currently recording, but you'll run into major problems if you try to play them back- particularly if they're transcoding. It doesn't sound like they've addressed that problem. I assume the lack of "time-shifting" capabilities means you have to wait until a show is finished recording.

Exactly and that doesn't work for me watching sports as I like to start watching a game an hour or two into it. And the customized tools that have been developed for Sage like Dynamic Skip Times, SRE, and hiding the timeline are very useful for sports.

[reggie14]

I've been thinking about this... How likely/difficult is live/time-shifted playback in Plex? I was looking at some of the posts on the Plex forums and it appears as though the developers really don't know how to support that given the capabilities of the clients they use.

From what I understand, most Plex clients use HTTP Live Streaming. Presumably that could support purely live TV, but can it handle time-shifting on files that are currently recording? How would a client know how much of the file is available? What would happen if a user tried to skip ahead into a portion that wasn't recorded yet?

[wayner]

It isn't very convenient but for Live viewing - doesn't the HDHR now their own apps on many devices that support Plex to allow you to see LiveTV from an HDHR. But that doesn't help for currently recording files and it is not a very nice integrated solution.

[reggie14]

Originally Posted by wayner

It isn't very convenient but for Live viewing - doesn't the HDHR now their own apps on many devices that support Plex to allow you to see LiveTV from an HDHR. But that doesn't help for currently recording files and it is not a very nice integrated solution.

Sure, but then you're stuck with Live TV. There's actually a Plex channel, too, for HDHR live viewing, although it was pretty unreliable when I tried it. And in general I don't watch a lot of purely live TV- a lot of my viewing starts mid-way through a recording.

It wouldn't surprise me if Plex decides to integrate pure live TV support, but if they ultimately are unable to provide time-shifting with current recordings. That would kill it for me. Honestly, the lack of HD-PVR support probably kills it for me anyway, given that FiOS is starting to copy-protect some non-premium channels. Maybe someday I'll drop everything but basic cable or switch to OTA.

[SHS]

Your petty much better off what Emby after it all ready support all the SiliconDust devices

[mistergq]

Originally Posted by SHS

Your petty much better off what Emby after it all ready support all the SiliconDust devices

Have you tried Emby?

[SHS]

Originally Posted by mistergq

Have you tried Emby?

No I can't as I don't have any SiliconDust devices and I ref to at lease with Emby they support Analog tuner with the use of other 3rdparty apps and do think they do support Live TV mode with the SiliconDust devices

[waynedunham]

Originally Posted by mistergq

Have you tried Emby?

I've tried it, as a matter of fact I still have it installed on my backup
SageTV server. I have never been able to get it to recognize any of my SageTV recordings however. My Recordings directories are just standard directories on a native HD to the machine. i.e. D:\PVR Recordings.
I was NOT impressed when I went to their forums to ask for help. Got a snotty, completely unhelpful reply which basically said "Go Away" to my eyes.

[reggie14]

Originally Posted by waynedunham

I've tried it, as a matter of fact I still have it installed on my backup
SageTV server. I have never been able to get it to recognize any of my SageTV recordings however. My Recordings directories are just standard directories on a native HD to the machine. i.e. D:\PVR Recordings.
I was NOT impressed when I went to their forums to ask for help. Got a snotty, completely unhelpful reply which basically said "Go Away" to my eyes.

I think I saw those posts. I'm only trying to be helpful when I say I think you may have been reading more into their posts than was intended. I think they just honestly thought it was a different issue and wanted it in its own thread.

But it is certainly true that the Sage forums are far friendlier than most online forums.

How much have you tried out in Emby? I lurke around the forums occasionally. While it looks promising, it also looks like they don't support time-shifting on currently-recording shows. This seems to suggest that support for time-shifting live TV is quite challenging. Yet, Tablo seems to be able to do it (I think), so it ought to be possible.

[IVB]

FYI, recorded a short vlog of Plex DVR on my channel and did a turbo-short comparison of the guide with SageTV.

I love Plex's ability to transcode content to any device (roku, tablets, phones), multi-user support (watched/unwatched status per family member), and ability to watch movies on the road while also tracking that watched status. I currently dump SageTV and PlayOn recordings into a folder that Plex manages.

To me thats the minimum bar any solution needs to meet in order to be viable. I don't personally use ComSkip, never have, as it often cut out parts of shows. The FF/REW was good enough for me. I also have a Tivo for the wife, we use that for sports timeshifting. I threw in the towel on her using SageTV a year ago when it was too much of a hassle for her to setup new recordings on her own and she couldn't watch on her iPad.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqkTySJRX6c

[wayner]

I upgraded my Plex Server and tried to install the DVR issues but they don't show up on the Settings screen for some reason. I have an HDHR4-US2 (or something like that) which is supposed to be supported hardware.

I wonder what the pre-reqs are and I wonder if it matters that I am in Canada?

[IVB]

I bought the very last Extend in stock anywhere in the Bay area (new model just released a few weeks ago) so it automatically picked it up, but did you type in the location manually on the screen?

[IVB]

Originally Posted by reggie14

I'd be willing to bet it doesn't store viewing history (like Tablo) for the purposes of avoiding recording already-watched shows.

I use comskip now, but honestly that's not terribly important to me. Truth be told, I'd probably happily trade-off comskip for better mobile support. But I'm not going to trade off live/time-shifted TV, and I'd really hate to lose viewing history.

Dumb question, do you mean "watched and deleted so don't re-record it"?