I keep coming back here, hoping things will improve, but I have to wonder if I am the minority here with all these issues with LiveTV. I was going to ditch this thread but I’ve seen others posting and realize it’s not just me. I meanwhile I have found a stable working solution elsewhere, I still would rather have what I paid for…work properly.
I love the media server functionality. The UI polish is well beyond what else is out there. Outside of a few minor bugs that I can live with, this portion of plex works fine, which is why I keep using it.
But… LiveTV/DVR is a disaster. These are the issues I am currently dealing with.
Remote Live TV streaming buffering on Android FireTV and Roku. Sometimes works fine for 20-30 minutes, then just stops, and starts playing from the beginning from the buffer. Other times, just buffers constantly every 30-45 seconds. This is with no one else on the server, and a full 15mbps upstream available.
Chromecast with Google TV still cannot play ANY live TV channels from remote servers. You get about a frame of video, then it errors out until you reboot the device. My firesticks have suddenly started having this issue as well, but not consistently like CCWGTV. My android TV for some reason doesn’t seem to have the issue though.
The guide is still out of order on cable systems that map channels to multiple channel numbers. Plex ignores the channel numbers that you select, and if don’t have the right stream selected in setup, the channel errors out (no parts error) this is especially frustrating since this WAS and issue a few months ago, that was fixed, but returned when the multiple dvr source feature was added.
Commercial Skip, even after adding a comcast specific config for it, it would still cut major portions of the show off. When I switched it to mark chapters, it suddenly has decided not to do anything at all. It will do the post processing but not one single recording has any chapter marks in it.
Recording a show is a gamble. I understand a lot if this is due to the guide data from 3rd party sources, but it still seems like the logic on plex’s side seems to err on the side of not recording things vs recording something it shouldn’t. I would think the former would be the choice to make instead of the later.
I am still finding multiple copies of recordings scattered all over my hard drives. (copy 1) (copy2) etc…these of course despite having the exact same filename, are not detected by the server as duplicates, or even at all…despite the fact the damn file was created by the server itself, it simply doesn’t exist to plex, and I have to find it manually and clean it up.
Live TV STILL doesn’t respect bitrate limits correctly. While I understand this difficult while doing it on the fly, I can see on the server streams which are supposedly locked to 2mpbs hit 11+ mpbs when live streaming.
So I’m wondering…are there happy people out there? What hardware are you using? What are the magic ingredients to have this not be a complete mess?
Hi. I’m very happy with Live TV and DVR. I am an ex Windows MCE user and Plex is better in almost every way (except being unable to schedule split progs recording). I’m using the Plex app on webos (LG tv) and Tizen (Samsung). Recording is done via my PC with a quad tuner hauppauge card. No issues with missing channels or recordings - it’s been 100% reliable. Im in UK recording OTA freeview HD. I have not encountered any of the issues you list. I don’t think comercial skip is working but that’s ok because I manually edit most TV shows and re-encode from TS MPEG transport stream to H264 or h265. My remote users are able to stream recorded TV fine on android, web and fire TV stick. Sorry I cannot help with your issues!
I’m very happy with it.
As to your issues, I can tell you my experiences
I only get a small amount of buffering at the beginning of a Live TV broadcast (usually 1-3 seconds up to 2 times in the first minute) for what I’m assuming is the pseudo-recording that starts for every Live TV stream.
Sorry never tried to cast (with Chromecast or any casting app from Plex)
I only have 16 OTA channels and so far no issue with my EPG for any of them (when it wasn’t the Signal Provider having the tower on low out put due to channel changes)
I use MCEBuddy to cut my commercials and reformat my recordings to MP4 for smaller size in the storage department. Other than having to manual restart the program when updates to Windows happen, I have no issues.
I’ve not had any issue like that.
I’ve never found this issue, but as stated before I use MCEBuddy and have it set to archive the .ts files after conversion, then I have script to delete them after so many days.
Not sure what this means? I have 2 HDHomeruns handling my OTA Live TV one is an Extend with 2 tuners and the ability to transcode on the device (no PC hardware needed) the other is a Quatro with 4 tuners and using the Windows 10 PC for transcoding. I’m running this all on a refurbished Windows 10 HP business machine I bought on Amazon. No fancy graphics cards only 12gb of Ram a 96GB SSD for my live recordings (from either Plex or JellyFin). I am sorry for your frustrations, but I do love what it does for me and my family.
I’ve almost gotten it to be a usable service after years.
Hdhomerun prime is at my parents house. They have 15mpbs upload.
At first a million issues.
I started breaking down each issue, step by step.
First, I noticed my CPU was hitting 100% with one stream being transcoding, buffering would then occur with anything the server has to respond to. Also it was unable to respect any bitrate settings, so setting it to 4mpbs resulted in a 12mpbs stream that would start buffering if my parents used their internet in the least.
I switched to a J4005 Celeron server since it can hardware transcode and take some load off CPU. First try, I forgot to install video drivers and hardware encoding would crash Plex. Fixed that. This was a considerable improvement but still buggy, CPU usage in the 90%s. Buffering when a second stream is pulled up.
Still being cheap, I then I hit up my warehouse of old parts, we had an old server from a customer that was built in like 2014 we replaced two years ago. Nice Xeon quad core, 16GB RAM, 120GB SATA SSD, 2x 8TB HDD. I would’ve stopped and tested there but we found a used gtx 1060 3GB we had forgotten about.
Between the beefier CPU and GPU for transcoding. It almost works as well as a real internet TV provider.
I only have 1 issue now. It stops between every show. This is a HUGE issue because I watch sports and that’s about it. So when the game goes over by 5 minutes, I have to rush to turn the channel back on before I miss the end
I think this last issue is a bug that will be fixed soon and I’ll finally have my own “YouTube TV”
I’ve run into this one repeatedly. Typically on the Roku, but it may be elsewhere, too. Somehow it always happens at the most inopportune times: The score is tied, my team is at bat, HERE COMES THE PITCH— 33%.
I’ve given up and use the HDHR app on Android for live TV, and when it comes to the DVR functionality…
… I have multiple shows where I set a season pass, and it simply stopped recording them. No clear reason at all, just “no further showings” listed. They’re literally weekly shows, there are definitely further showings, I can see them. It’s a classic example of “I’m not going to bother asking in the forums and waiting for x days/weeks, I’ll just give up on it”.
I haven’t run into your commercial skip issue, except in the rarest of events. But yet again I’ve run into the issue where it scans commercials for native recordings, but not for other recordings picked up on a library scan (I use a third party DVR for the obvious reasons). I’m trying to convince myself to start a forum post about it.
My experiences with Live TV/DVR have also pushed me away.
Yes, the Plex DVR Prime Directive – Never record anything unless Plex can 100% verify that the airing does not look like something you might have already recorded. They’ve been missing a “Just record this” ability for 3 years that I know about – the obvious solution is an ability to just record by channel/time. Probably been asked for hundreds of times – I’ve never seen a response. It’s just easier to blame the EPG provider. Not sure how you can call something a DVR when you can’t record what you want to record.
Server Version#: 1.24.5.5173
Player Version#: 2.58.0.1076-38e019da
Tuner Make/Model: RTL2838UHIDIR
Guide/Lineup name:
Using XMLTV?: NO
Channel number/Name:
Hello Dear Friends,
It’s the first time that I’m posting something about Plex and I need some help.
Excuse me if I write something that it was already debated or seems too stupid to ask, but i’m stucked with Live Tv & DVR.
I live in Portugal and use a Realtek Tuner that is working fine under Ubuntu ( The OS that I use to install PLEX ) After the Channel scan I have this ( picture attached )
I have a HDHR Prime in the US at my mom’s house. Most of the channels are 2mpbs 720p streams as that’s what Comcast sends.
Streaming those channels to my house in the UK I can watch the bandwidth hit as high as 11 mbps…why? The server is set to max out all remote streams at 2mpbs on top of it.
I’m very hard on Plex because of constant major problems in apps. But it’s not exactly fair to be blaming Plex for you not seeing the New Topic button at the very top of a forum.
Thank you for your help.
I was not blaming Plex for not seeing the button. How could I blame Plex for that ? That’s on me… My bad and mistake for being new to the Forum…
And in my life I don’t blame anyone… I was, or, I’m a little sad because the lack of the support ( not on the button ) of Plex… because a product that seems obvious… is NOT…
Again, thank you for your kind response, and sorry for my english, Is not my first or second language