The SageTV DVR software is in the public domain, its an extremely polished TV recording system with all the required capabilities the Plex DVR is sorely missing. Its just missing decent clients. And It just works all the time, I don’t believe in the last 10 years, I have ever missed a show recording because of a problem with SageTV. It also uses Gracenote via Schedules Direct, but I would imagine that could be swapped out with some effort.
I’ve been testing the Plex DVR functionality for 60 days and its just missing too much and is fairly unreliable. Its gotten a bit better since Gracenote replaced the terrible guide they used, but still misses recordings due to something crashing, and it still happens more than once a week.
What I am going to start testing is using the SageTV DVR functionality as my primary DVR, and use Plex only to watch the shows due to its many pretty good clients. (sagetv clients are not being updated, hence my looking to Plex)
I sure hope they can coexist on the same machine till Plex begins to take its DVR functionality a bit more serious and can bring it into at least what we had in 2005 for functionality. -Bill
A short list of Functions missing in Plex’s DVR:
Doesn’t run as a service, SageTV does.
Can add future shows not in guide yet.
Can filter guide for Specials, Premiers, Final Episodes, Keyword or type of sports.
Can change Skip forward and backward times to any time-period.
Current Recordings instantly appear in the Recorded field, not after finished.
Can tell if something is recording from the client side (and what is recording).
Skipping thru guide data, 3hrs or 1 day at a time, 30 minute scroll is painful in Plex
Episode Record Conflict resolution is simple.
Has slideshow of picture library come up on screen went show is paused.
Shows 21 days of guide data instead of 14 days or less with Plex. both Gracenote.
DVR record schedule works well has has many more ways to view it. Plus it doesn’t default to starting weeks ago so you have to scroll back each time you look at it.
Guide Data interface clearly shows original air date, and also if a show is already scheduled to record, Plex shows any show that MIGHT be recorded so you cannot tell what will really record at a given time. Makes it very difficult to know if you have enough tuners to record at that time.
Sagetv has 32bit and 64 bit binaries. I’ve been using the 64 bit for a couple years, its still bulletproof.
And the biggest functionally Sagetv has that Plex doesn’t have is the episode delete functionality. Its practically impossible to delete all recordings of a show by mistake. I have done that so many times in Plex already myself that I cannot allow my wife to delete an episode till Plex fixes that atrocious behavior. But at least Plex deletes them to the Recycle Bin, that allows me to restore the shows before they are completely gone. Sagetv doesn’t do that, but they make it extremely hard to delete them all by mistake.
I’ve been happily using SageTV since 2008 and only dipped my toe into the Plex DVR world a few days ago, although I’ve been using Plex for a while. I figured their initial DVR function would suck, so I never tried it and let it bake for a few years.
Have they addressed any of your concerns since this post? How is Plex DVR working for you, other than the obvious feature differences? I’m most concerned with reliability. thanks
I went back to sagetv after attempting plex for a few months. I continue to watch the change logs. I’ve read nothing about adding any of the missing features yet. -Bill
And since going back to Sagetv I started looking at Channels DVR. Its recording Functionality works very well, but its missing so much of the other stuff I just take for granted in STV I am going to uninstall it soon, and stop paying its $8 fee. I am now testing Emby and retesting Plex again, but just as a client, its been 3 years. Hopefully they have made some gains, but from what I can see there isn’t a lot of core functionality it was missing listed as being added. Pretty much all the same issues from the first post are still there.
So I am now hoping Emby will hold water. I have had a few hiccups with that so far, some of my making and others that they aren’t addressing on their support forums. So right now, I am not holding my breath. -Bill
I just uninstalled Emby and Channels DVR. Neither can handle importing shows unless they are in a standardized folder structure for each show. An Emby architect told me they will be adding a “mish-mash” type of import in the future… No time frame though.
So I am keeping SageTV for is bullet proof recording system and am seriously considering using Plex as the Client for watching shows on all sorts of devices. It appears to handle my mish-mash approach that sagetv uses to record shows to a non structured folder. -Bill
I got rid of CableTV, but still using SageTV for OTA via an HDHR tuner. I still have a couple HD-300 boxes so navigation is seamless. I supposed if those two boxes ever die, I may reconsider the DVR landscape.
Yeah, I can’t see a reason to switch from Sagetv as the backend yet for recording OTA, its soo much better than anything else out there, Still which just says Narflex was why ahead of his time, and the others still don’t know how to catch up! If only he would bring Sage into 2024. But now, I am mostly using Infuse as the Client, its Really good. Blows the Plex Client away. Easy Show Deletes. Subtitles just seem to work for the UK shows, unlike most clients I have used. I have Plex running on my Sage server sharing out its content and Infuse just uses Plex as the back-end, pretty seemless. Kodi is also pretty good if you Add the plugin called Afterwatch. But its subtitles plug ins are not good, almost never works and if they do, they are usually soo far off and the interface to add or subtract seconds is very painful at best. I still have to switch tv inputs to watch in-progress shows like football from a SageTV box (200 or 300) And to Add shows to record. I’ve am really impressed with that Infuse Client. Plex client on Apple TV only allows 10 second Skips (WTF?) and Infuse has choices up to 60 second skip forward and backwards. The Only 10 second skip forward seems like the dev’s have never used a TV before. Kind of ridiculous. -Bill
Bill, I’m a SageTV user based in Australia, and have been using Sage since the MVP days! It’s only recently with more and more media files being unable to play on the extenders that I’m getting close to turning off Sage (will be a sad day- my HD-300’s have been amazing, I too wish sage could use more modern clients) I first tried Plex DVR about 3 years ago, and it was nowhere near ready as a Sage replacement. I have just tried it again (using a 100% off for 1 month coupon) and I think it’s close, it’s certainly come a long way in 3 years, but I agree the clients need to change a little to allow for the playback of OTA recordings (particularly with ads in mind - programmable skipping times especially!) I’d use Infuse, but I don’t like subscription models. If Plex clients had programmable skip times, I’d be onto a lifetime Pass instantly!
I am currently testing NextPVR and so far its pretty rudimentary, but I will continue testing it till I can figure out all its nuances and I am sure one way or another. I tried the Nextpvr Client on my AppleTV and it was an utter failure trying to watch an in-progress recording of a football game last week.
That said, I have been using Kodi as a client against my SageTV libraries (folders via SMB) and it works pretty good for watching all types of shows. (you must install AfterWatch plug-in if you want to be able to delete shows after watching them, easily). Programmable skip length changes work in Kodi. But subtitles don’t work for me. ( we watch some brit shows and most are unintelligible without subs working)
I also have Plex Media Server app Installed on my Sagetv server and its library’s point at the local Sagetv folders. I do not use plex for recording after testing it a few years ago, although it sounds like I may need to look at that again. But it works as the back-end for the Infuse Client I am testing on my New AppleTV. Subs work on Infuse pretty well. But the client is a bit flaky. Seems like monthly I need to delete the client and reinstall it, right after finally getting the main screen setup as I like it.
But there is no SageTV PVR client on Kodi so you cannot manage recordings and such like there is for NextPVR. I have not tested that client yet as I am just trying see if the Nextpvr backend is bulletproof for recordings. So far it has been able to record all OTA shows.
Now that SageTV miniclient is not on the Play store I am seeing an end to all this. Where did Narflex go… -Bill
