I know this is beta enough that everything is going to have problems, but I’m trying to get a good sense for what to try first. I currently have two plex servers–one on a Windows 10 PC (that I’m upgrading to at least 16 GB of RAM soon) and one on an NVIDIA Shield. All my media is on a 4TB 2 disk RAID 1 external drive that is currently connected to the Shield but I am thinking of connecting to the PC instead because the transcoding and transmission on the Shield are slooooooowww.
ANYWAY, we are currently using a TiVo Roamio OTA for DVR services, but we are looking to move everything to Plex. So my questions are these:
If we get a SiliconDust or Hauppauge tuner, do we need to subscribe to their guide for them to work, or does the Plex service cover that?
Does the DVR service work better on a Windows Plex server or Nvidia Shield? (We have a Roku to watch through if need be, though I know I can’t use that for the server).
I know we need at least 2 tuners in whatever device we purchase, though I’d like possibly 3 or more. And I know that those compatible with the Shield are extremely limited. But which, on which server platform, do most of you recommend?
Are there any actions (rewind, pause, time shift, etc.) that don’t work well or at all right now?
Is the Plex DVR service still too buggy to spend money on and commit to as a primary DVR?
I have serious enough hearing loss that subtitles/closed captions are mandatory. Are there known problems with captions with the Plex DVR service or any specific tuner?
I should add…can we set something like TiVo’s ‘season pass’ with shows? Like, tell it we like Supernatural and to always record new episodes, and it will always record them even if they move time or channel (and it can tell new from rerun)? And how well does the commercial skip actually work?
@dymunson1 said:
I know this is beta enough that everything is going to have problems, but I’m trying to get a good sense for what to try first. I currently have two plex servers–one on a Windows 10 PC (that I’m upgrading to at least 16 GB of RAM soon) and one on an NVIDIA Shield. All my media is on a 4TB 2 disk RAID 1 external drive that is currently connected to the Shield but I am thinking of connecting to the PC instead because the transcoding and transmission on the Shield are slooooooowww.
ANYWAY, we are currently using a TiVo Roamio OTA for DVR services, but we are looking to move everything to Plex. So my questions are these:
If we get a SiliconDust or Hauppauge tuner, do we need to subscribe to their guide for them to work, or does the Plex service cover that?
Assuming you are in the USA then yes the EPG is included and you don’t have to do anything other than run the setup. Plex will take care of the EPG for you.
Does the DVR service work better on a Windows Plex server or Nvidia Shield? (We have a Roku to watch through if need be, though I know I can’t use that for the server).
I have both and run the DVR on my Windows Plex Server. Using a real computer over the ShieldTV just has more options in general.
I know we need at least 2 tuners in whatever device we purchase, though I’d like possibly 3 or more. And I know that those compatible with the Shield are extremely limited. But which, on which server platform, do most of you recommend?
I would go with network tuners. This gives you the most options in use compared to USB dongles or PCI boards. HDHomeRun would be the brand to go with IMHO. They make both 2 and 4 tuner models for OTA. I’d go with the 4 tuner model personally as that gives you breathing room in use. Record 2 things while watching 2 things live, record 4 things, etc.
Are there any actions (rewind, pause, time shift, etc.) that don’t work well or at all right now?
Plex DVR/LiveTV is in Preview/Beta at present. There are issues but they are getting fixed at a good pace. Compared to the Tivo setup you presently have Plex will feel rough around the edges in some regards (for now). For example there is no standard grid style EPG guide that most people are used to. When watching live TV there is no up or down channel changing. For normal DVR use it should work pretty well for you.
Is the Plex DVR service still too buggy to spend money on and commit to as a primary DVR?
For DVR use it’'s probably fine for you. The live-tv side of things is more “buggy”.
I have serious enough hearing loss that subtitles/closed captions are mandatory. Are there known problems with captions with the Plex DVR service or any specific tuner?
CC may be an issue right now for you in live-tv mode.
Thanks in advance for all your help and advice!
Something you didn’t ask but I’ll comment on. I personally would use Plex DVR if you only have Rokus. All of your OTA broadcasts will be in mpeg2 format and Roku’s don’t support this. That means that Plex will have to transcode everything TV related in order to use the Rokus. Now if you switch to a different device such as a ShieldTV you will have much better results and will be much happier overall as the ShieldTV can play back the mpeg2 format (as well as mostly everything you throw at it) and can de-interlace in hardware which is important for sports or action movies.
Optionally, if you aren’t so worried about live-tv and only care about the DVR portion you can setup automatic optimization of files to convert them from mpeg2 to H.264 which the Roku’s will easily handle. To me this isn’t worth it compared to switched devices.
Unless you plan to sell the Roamio there is no reason why you can’t use them both at the same time for a bit while some of the current issues get worked out that might bother you otherwise.
Carlos and nokdim, you guys have been very helpful, thank you!
We don’t watch live TV much (mostly recorded), so the biggest problem it sounds like is the closed captioning. Based on your advice. I’m thinking of getting the HDHomeRun and connecting it to our Windows server, then possibly watching it over the Shield. I wonder if converting the file format via Handbrake would work (and if it did, if the closed captions, if they exist, would still work). (Have I mentioned how much I hate losing my hearing?)
Our ultimate goal is to drop the TiVo over the next few months, since we pay $15/month for service through them, and we have the Lifetime Plex Pass so this would be cheaper (and would pay off the new tuner in only a few months, especially since HomeRun line is on sale at BestBuy right now). Not to mention how nice it would be to access everything from one place and be able to watch my shows remotely. That would give me time to buy the equipment, set everything up the way I like it, and allow for a few more Plex updates.
Plex on the ShieldTV right now doesn’t work with CC for LiveTV or DVR recordings during playback.
However the CC is captured and stored in the recordings.
There are 3rd party free open source tools you can use to pull this information out of the files and create srt style subtitles that can be used by Plex.
Cayars, YOU ARE AWESOME. I realized last night that I could actually use the tuner with BOTH servers, since it just needs to be connected to the network, so I’m trying something on the Windows server today.
The only real reason we even tried the Shield server was because we thought at first the tuner had to be physically connected to whatever server, and no one in the house was willing to crawl under the house to move the CoAx.
@cayars said:
Plex on the ShieldTV right now doesn’t work with CC for LiveTV or DVR recordings during playback.
Carlo, is it supposed to (kind of) work on Windows server? Because I can’t figure out how to do it if it does.
However the CC is captured and stored in the recordings.
There are 3rd party free open source tools you can use to pull this information out of the files and create srt style subtitles that can be used by Plex.
Do you have any recommendations on these? I’m not sure of the best verbiage to use for a google search. ‘open source program to pull srt data from ts files,’ perhaps?
Try playing with that. Once you can use it from the command line it shouldn’t be hard to automate that into the post processing if you need to.
I haven’t played extensively with this but was thinking of adding that or something like it to my scripts to automate this process of converting CC data into SRT style subtitle files.
Post back or PM me with any success or let me know if you need more help. I’ve been wanting to dive back into playing with that but keep forgetting about it.
I downloaded ccextractor but I also downloaded ivideoconverter and am trying that first (since it looks easier. :P). It is telling me there aren’t any CCs or subtitles in the file. I haven’t looked at it with ccextractor yet.
So, we were having some troubles with the DVR on Shield anyway (mostly the RAID 1 system connected to it) and moved everything to the PC, so I’m experimenting with ts files recorded on the PC. Should those still have the subtitle files?
I should just try ccextractor. Its wildly ‘alpha’ feel is intimidating me, though.
Here is a recording from my HDHomeRun Prime on Fox News channel. I’m playing the file back in VLC just to show the CC embedded in the file.
I rename my NEWS recordings and have a library just for several shows recorded on CNN, MSNBC and Fox News so don’t worry that my file name might look different then your recordings. It makes no difference.
This file resides on drive H under “News TV” in a folder name “The Five”. The file name is “The Five 2018-02-20.ts”
So now all I do is run CCextractor this way:
ccextractorwin “H:\News TV\The Five\The Five 2018-02-20.ts”
I don’t specify and output file name and just use the default. This pulled the CC info from that file and created an srt subtitle file named “The Five 2018-02-20.srt”
The Shield is by far the best Plex client experience because of its video-related capabilities. But if you don’t care about the LiveTV portion (just recorded TV etc), the Plex Media Player is also a great option, and you can run it on the same Windows machine you run your Plex server, then you only have one machine period (run an HDMI cord from the windows machine to your TV). Then you can use the web client (or the iOS/Android apps) to schedule recordings, see what recorded etc. Also whether you have the Shield or not, you might want to post-process the recordings anyway (I do it overnight). This way you can ‘shrink’ them (convert to h264), extract subtitles, flag commercials etc. I use MCEBuddy for all of that, it is an one stop shop for getting your content in great shape for WAN streaming etc. I would not do it inside of Plex because 1) I don’t want to make Plex any more flaky 2) I want to be able to schedule a window for when this is to be done so I can make sure the system is available for watching only during peak times!
Sorry to be a pest, and I feel like an idiot, but CCextractor seemed to work great, and I got an srt file out of it, but I can’t figure out a way to attach it to the video in Plex. (I’ve done it before with srts I downloaded; but I can’t for the life of me remember how). I am also testing with news programs, and if I go to plex’s support page for adding local subtitle files here: support.plex.tv/articles/200471133-adding-local-subtitles-to-your-media/
Then it tells me I need to name them very specifically, but news programs don’t have normal season/episode schemas, and if I guess and use that general format to rename the srt and ts file so it matches their recommended format, it still won’t recognize the srt, so I’m at a loss how to name or import the srt file so that Plex recognizes it. Do I basically need to use a different program to merge the srt and video file?
tachtevrenidis, that’s good to know, but we found the Shield to be significantly slower (to the point of being unwatchable) when outside of our network. It’s hard-wired to the network the same as the Windows server, so we know that wasn’t the issue. Plus, we had significant problems with the external drives on the Shield. Both of those things made it entirely impractical.
I like the idea of MCEBuddy, that sounds amazing! Because I’m still poking at the best way to extract subs and convert the files in as few of steps as possible, so that sounds PERFECT. My only question is this: I know that MP4s either have forced/burned in captions/subtitles, or none (at least that’s what I was told back when I was trying to figure out how to do optional captions in all my files). I was told that *.MKV is the only way to keep the subtitles in the file as an internal (i.e., without a separate srt file) OPTION that can be turned on and off. (I’ve found that if I rip movies to mkv (I use makemkv for that step), the file is HUGE, but then I can re-process it with handbrake to shrink it by at least 80% without losing the quality or subtitles.) ANYWAY, can MCEBuddy do MKV conversion, and if so, does it keep the subtitle data in the file when it does (thus eliminating the extra subtitle extraction step)?
This is part of the problem I’m finding with the *.ts files. When I rip from a DVD or Blu-ray directly to *.mkv, the subtitle data is appropriately retained. But I’m finding that with the *.ts file, I have to extract the CC data in its own step, then either name it perfectly so Plex recognizes the *.srt file, or else convert and merge the video and *.srt files into one file. Either way is a huge pain.
@dymunson1 said:
Sorry to be a pest, and I feel like an idiot, but CCextractor seemed to work great, and I got an srt file out of it, but I can’t figure out a way to attach it to the video in Plex. (I’ve done it before with srts I downloaded; but I can’t for the life of me remember how). I am also testing with news programs, and if I go to plex’s support page for adding local subtitle files here: support.plex.tv/articles/200471133-adding-local-subtitles-to-your-media/
Then it tells me I need to name them very specifically, but news programs don’t have normal season/episode schemas, and if I guess and use that general format to rename the srt and ts file so it matches their recommended format, it still won’t recognize the srt, so I’m at a loss how to name or import the srt file so that Plex recognizes it. Do I basically need to use a different program to merge the srt and video file?
You are probably hitting a known bug in Plex. Scanning of external files such as subtitles doesn’t work correctly if the file name is date based. When I went back and checked Plex on the example file I posted above I had the same issue!!! I checked with the devs and it’s aknown issue.
Rename both the file and srt to use a name other than date based and it should work.
@dymunson1 said:
tachtevrenidis, that’s good to know, but we found the Shield to be significantly slower (to the point of being unwatchable) when outside of our network. It’s hard-wired to the network the same as the Windows server, so we know that wasn’t the issue. Plus, we had significant problems with the external drives on the Shield. Both of those things made it entirely impractical.
I like the idea of MCEBuddy, that sounds amazing! Because I’m still poking at the best way to extract subs and convert the files in as few of steps as possible, so that sounds PERFECT. My only question is this: I know that MP4s either have forced/burned in captions/subtitles, or none (at least that’s what I was told back when I was trying to figure out how to do optional captions in all my files). I was told that *.MKV is the only way to keep the subtitles in the file as an internal (i.e., without a separate srt file) OPTION that can be turned on and off. (I’ve found that if I rip movies to mkv (I use makemkv for that step), the file is HUGE, but then I can re-process it with handbrake to shrink it by at least 80% without losing the quality or subtitles.) ANYWAY, can MCEBuddy do MKV conversion, and if so, does it keep the subtitle data in the file when it does (thus eliminating the extra subtitle extraction step)?
This is part of the problem I’m finding with the *.ts files. When I rip from a DVD or Blu-ray directly to *.mkv, the subtitle data is appropriately retained. But I’m finding that with the *.ts file, I have to extract the CC data in its own step, then either name it perfectly so Plex recognizes the *.srt file, or else convert and merge the video and *.srt files into one file. Either way is a huge pain.
To the best of my knowledge MCEBuddy won’t do what we are doing with CCExtractor. It can pull out subtitles but not closed captioning which are two different things. CCExtractor pulls out the CC data and converts it to a subtitle format. If I’m wrong I’d love to be corrected bt I use MCEBuddy and haven’t seen an option for this.
@dymunson1 said:
tachtevrenidis, that’s good to know, but we found the Shield to be significantly slower (to the point of being unwatchable) when outside of our network. It’s hard-wired to the network the same as the Windows server, so we know that wasn’t the issue. Plus, we had significant problems with the external drives on the Shield. Both of those things made it entirely impractical.
This comment begs for more information. I know I use and recommend the ShieldTV to almost everyone. It’s fast and works really well for those I’ve setup. This is the first I’ve ever heard of something like this so I’d like to get more info from you on it if possible. Can you elaborate more on this for me?
Are you talking about using it as a server or talking about it as a client in this regard?
This is part of the problem I’m finding with the *.ts files. When I rip from a DVD or Blu-ray directly to *.mkv, the subtitle data is appropriately retained. But I’m finding that with the *.ts file, I have to extract the CC data in its own step, then either name it perfectly so Plex recognizes the *.srt file, or else convert and merge the video and *.srt files into one file. Either way is a huge pain.
The TS files you have are recorded from a TUNER and are broadcast with Closed Captions. When you are dealing with ripped media from disc they use subtitles.
Closed Captioning in the USA and subtitles are two completely different things. They may sort of work the same by putting text on screen but the underlying workings and data formats are quite different.
I understand that CC and subs are 2 different things, but when you are hard of hearing and you’re desperate for any text translation of what’s being said, they produce about the same results and I take whatever I can get! So I don’t much care if I use subs or CC, as long as a) it’s in sync with the video, b) I can turn it on or off, and c) I can get this working in as few of steps and as few of programs as possible.
With blu rays/DVDs, I have the process down pat to do this well. Now I’m trying to figure out how to do it with recorded television.
Of course, I could just be patient and wait for Plex to get that worked out so it’s more automatic, but where’s the fun in that?
Carlo, the naming schema is what I’m talking about. I renamed the news program with no date at all, and renamed the srt file to the exact same thing with .en.srt at the end, as indicated by their naming conventions I linked to above.
I obviously had to make up the name, since news doesn’t use ‘season’ and ‘episode,’ but it shouldn’t make much of a difference. But it flat out would not recognize the srt file.
That would give me time to buy the equipment, set everything up the way I like it, and allow for a few more Plex updates.
