So I have an HDHR Extend right now that I like becasue it transcodes on the fly. I use this for DVR and it works fantastic for not having to transcode in PMS when recording.
But I want to expand my setup and get a HDHR Connect because sometimes my Extend is recording two shows at once and I have no additional streams to watch Live TV.
But Plex does not currently have an option to limit DVR recordings to a specific tuner. So if I get a Connect, it may end up doing a DVR recording and will force PMS to transcode.
Can this feature please be added? That way I can have my Extend do DVR recordings and use my Connect to watch Live TV.
Plex devs, what do you think? This shouldnt be that hard to implement.
Would hate to have my favorite recording schedules fail because my family didn’t stop livetv playback when they were done watching. Having a configuration mechanism that prevents conflict would help me maintain my outstanding WAF.
I thought the CONNECT could stream with no transcoding needed to the Plex Shield app. I thought the Plex shield app could Direct Play .ts mpeg files that are not h264. I guess your saying I’m wrong in my assumption?
I assumed so and therefore thought:
EXTEND will be relegated to DVR recordings because it can transcode on the fly and therefore will allow me to save hard drive space and CPU resources(no PMS transcoding).
The CONNECT will be used for LIVE TV because transcoding is not needed and can be Direct Played through Shield Plex app(Plex app plays TS files).
OK I get your thought on it now. Thanks for that.
Yes the ShieldTV will direct play the TS files just fine.
Unfortunately there is no easy to do this on one Plex server since you can’t delegate what tuners are used for what purpose. You might be able to create your own workaround.
You could try setting up the server on the ShieldTV and setup ONLY the CONNECT for it’s use. Just the most basic server setting to allow you to use it purely for Live-TV. Keep the EXTEND on your normal server for DVR.
This way you can manually use the connect for Live-TV on the ShieldTV from any app while your server happily uses the EXTEND for recordings.
The ShieldTV has the muscle to transcode if needed for other clients who can’t direct play the Live stream.
That’s why I am asking for it to be added as a feature. Plex already knows how to detect individual tuners. So adding code to only allow DVR recordings from a specific tuner should be fairly straight forward.
Also, I use the Channels app for AppleTV and iPad. In that app you can set tuner priority, so you can set all devices including AppleTV to point to one tuner (for viewing), and then add the other tuner on Plex as the only DVR (for recording).
In Channels…it also seems that the tuner with top priority is the one that the Favorites list is taken from, but it will pull a channel from the 2nd tuner. For instance, I have 2 different antennas feeding into each tuner. Tuner A gets most channels, but not PBS. Tuner B gets PBS, but not all of Tuner A channels. When I have tuner A set as priority, I don’t have PBS in the favorites list to view (because it is not found as a valid channel), but if I choose all channels view, then PBS, it tunes in fine on Tuner B.
This is a good workaround if you are willing to pay for the Channels app (last i looked it was $15, per device), but I agree it would be useful functionality to be built in to Plex DVR options. Priority DVR (per user? stronger signal) and assigned DVR per channel.
