When Plex DVR was originally in beta, I ran into a big problem: As soon as Plex first initiated a recording or live TV session, Windows Media Center could no longer access any tuners on the HDHomeRun afterward, even if all three were idle. Live TV could see no tuners, and recordings would fail with a viewing conflict. This is a problem I never saw with multiple Windows Media Centers, or Windows Media Center plus NextPVR sharing tuners. In both cases, they seamlessly shared the three tuners from the pool.
I tried it again a few months later (a long time ago) and had the same problem. I’d love to test Plex DVR with the prime, but the “Wife Acceptance Factor” of losing Windows Media Center during testing has made it a non-starter.
I’m overdue for a check-in as Plex DVR slowly matures: Does anyone use both Plex DVR and Windows Media Center simultaneously with one HDHomeRun? Do they coexist nicely, and hand back tuners successfully? What are your stories about sharing the tuners?
Big sigh. I was worried that’s the case. Just to be safe, is there anyone else reading that can confirm this experience? Others have said in the past that this shouldn’t be an issue, but it has never worked for me when Plex DVR is involved.
Is there any hope that Plex will offer to only use 1 or 2 tuners instead of all three? That would theoretically do the trick in a pinch.
Plex doesn’t want to share the tuners with other apps. Plex expects all the tuners of the device to be under it’s full control.
So even though there is nothing that stops you from using the tuner with LiveChannels, HDHomeRun, Emby, etc it can have bad consequences.
As an example if you have a Prime with 3 tuners on it and use the HDHomeRun app on an android tablet you will use 1 of the tuners. That still leaves 2 tuners for Plex to use.
Plex will then allow the use of those two tuners for live-TV or for DVR. However the 3rd use by Plex will fail since the tuner is in use. Honestly this isn’t so bad since you already know and expect this to happen.
However if you have multiple Primes like I do then it’s a bit nastier.
In this case if I’m using HDHomeRun app and tie up one tuner on the first device. Plex still has 2 tuners free on that device PLUS 3 tuners free on the second device. This is similar to the above.
However, once plex uses the 2 free tuners you will have issues. Now Plex still thinks one tuner is free on the first tuner and will try to record on that tuner. Everything will fail and Plex will never use the second device (since there is still 1 tuner free it thinks).
If you have two CONNECTS or similar with only two tuners per device the situation is worse since Plex will then only allow the use of 1 of 4 tuners due to the foreign app getting in the way.
What makes this a bad situation is that there is no way to setup HDHomeRuns on a normal home network without them being usable to all other devices on the network. These devices require DHCP for IP allocation so you can’t easily put them on a separate subnet only available to Plex (unless you have a spare home router with DHCP). The only other way is via VLANs but again this isn’t common on most home networks. The devices of course advertise on the network and show up in network explorer and make it easy to install the HDHomeRun software.
You might think, OK I’ll just purchase a 2nd device and only setup one for Plex’s use and allow the other to family members. Good luck with that because it’s easier said then done. HDHomeRun software will use the “discovery” info and will grab a tuner from any device on the network.
The only semi-workable solution to this issue is to forbid anyone in your home from using the devices with any other software.
@cayars said:
What makes this a bad situation is that there is no way to setup HDHomeRuns on a normal home network without them being usable to all other devices on the network. These devices require DHCP for IP allocation so you can’t easily put them on a separate subnet only available to Plex (unless you have a spare home router with DHCP). The only other way is via VLANs but again this isn’t common on most home networks. The devices of course advertise on the network and show up in network explorer and make it easy to install the HDHomeRun software.
There is one kind-of solution that can be used to get around this concept: HDHomeRuns can be plugged into a second NIC on a multihomed server. You don’t even need a crossover cable. In that scenario, a NextPVR server (for example) could have exclusive rights to that HDHomeRun Prime, while still having access to the rest of the network (and internet) via the other NIC.
Obviously you’d only want to do this in a scenario where you want exclusive access to this HDHomeRun, but that could also be handy. Plus, there’s a bonus of removing any other networking gear from the equation, since some switches can cause occasional UDP packet loss with the HDHomeRun.
(I’m truly disappointed to hear this problem is still happening, btw. There’s no reason Plex can’t code the DVR to handle this situation gracefully.)
You actually wouldn’t need a second NIC if you know how to setup routing properly between subnets BUT you would need a 2nd router that has a DHCP server. DHCP is needed because the HDHomeRun’s don’t support static IPs.
I remember someone asking me previously why I’d allow someone in my house to use a 3rd party app to access the tuners. Best answer is that Plex can’t touch DRM channels period. So when you have a PRIME(s) the only way to view channels like HBO is via the HDHomeRun apps that support DRM such as the PC or XBOX apps. Once a person starts to use the apps and see how fast they can change channels, view EPG, watch DRM channels it’s hard to pull that functionality back. Plus Silicon Dust goes out of there way to make the devices discoverable and DLNA aware. So even if you remove the software from computers it can still be accessed view TVs or devices by DLNA.
I couldn’t agree more with your last comment and have voiced myself quite loudly on the matter to no avail. If you have tuners installed in the server or attached via PCI cards or USB3 tuners I think it’s fine for Plex to assume it has exclusive access to those since they are directly attached to the server. But Network devices IMHO should never be considered exclusive use, period. But that’s just my 2 cents.
