Giving up on Live TV/DVR and other Plex Pass Features in disgust

[MovieWiz]

Server Version#: 1.20.1.3252
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I originally got a plex pass back in Nov 2018 to use Live TV/DVR and syncing. After a month of neither feature ever working, I demanded a refund of my Lifetime Plex Pass fee and got it. This was a particularly bad month because of massive problems with the EPG provider at that time.

About a month ago, I got a lifetime plex pass again and it is turning out to be a huge mistake again that I regret. I found out that I can’t actually use sync on my TV box when I travel because I regularly switch between TV mode and mobile mode depending on the situation. I lose all sync’d files when I switch to TV mode. There was a whole series of posts on this issue already. So scratch one major plex pass feature that I can’t use.

About a week ago, I decided to try out the Live TV/DVR again and within a week I am finding huge problems. After getting a full two weeks of listings when I did the setup, the Guide is now basically blank for primetime on Sept 9 and extremely sparse after Sept 9. I don’t know why and I don’t really care why. I deleted the guide entirely and still the same problem when I reloaded the guide from scratch.

Today, I tried to set a recording for AGT tonight at 8:00 which is available for me from WGRZ 2.1 in Buffalo and CityTV 57.1 in Toronto. I prefer to record CityTV because it has a much higher bitrate/quality. But if I selected to record on that channel, it would not show up in the DVR schedule. It would only end up in schedule if I selected channel 2.1 (or All). Either way I ended up with a recording schedule for 2.1 which is not what I wanted.

I mean, this is supposed to be a DVR. There isn’t anything more basic that trying to record a program at a particular time on a particular channel and I can’t do that.

The one piece of info that I can provide is that for CityTV, the channel name for the tuner is slightly different than what the EPG provider has which might be messing up the UI logic. But they were properly mapped. And the program was showing in the guide on both channels 2.1 and 57.1 as having a recording set. Both were marked as new in the guide and I was doing a one-time recording anyway (not a series). But if I selected to record on 57.1, the recording would not appear in the recording schedule screen.

Afraid I cannot provide anymore info since I have deleted the DVR and have gone back to my reliable NextPVR software. To say that I am disappointed with Plex is a big understatement.

I will certainly be telling anyone that will listen not to waste money on a Plex Pass.

[CWallace]

I feel your pain I was there as well. You don’t mention what hardware you have but if it’s the HDHomerun you might try Channels DVR

Channels — Watch TV Your Way

It’s what I switched to after Plex’s offering didn’t fit my needs. And the recordings work well with Plex.

Check out the forums for all sorts of information about the product. The devs are very active and answer all sorts of questions…

[MovieWiz]

Thanks CWallace. I’m actually very happy with NextPVR. It doesn’t have all the scheduling limitations that Plex has. If I want to record a program on two different channels at the same time (so I have a back up in case one channel happens to have a bad signal that night), I can do that. Plex can’t. Today, Plex wouldn’t even let me record on a particular channel.

The only reason I even gave Plex DVR another chance was that NextPVR happened to get a bug that I couldn’t live with. So, while waiting for it to get fixed, I figured I would try Plex again. But it turned out that NextPVR fixed the bug within two days and it’s working just perfect again.

I’m honestly just astounded that basic functionality in Plex’s DVR still has so many problems after 20 months ago when I first got a plex pass. Compare that to NextPVR (a free program) that fixes a reported problem in 2 days.

And you can’t tell Plex anything. 20 months ago I mentioned that in most people’s mind, PrimeTime starts at 8:00. But, nope, Plex thinks prime time starts at 5:00 and there is no convincing them otherwise. It amazing how time consuming and how many clicks are necessary on the Guide if you want to “quickly” review what will be on in prime time for the next week. And god help you if you need to look at the guide 10 or 11 days from now. The guide has the content but the grid only lets you select from the next 7 days. So you have to select day 7 and then press the right arrow 48 times per day since it only lets you advance the grid 30 minutes at a time. They are just completely oblivious to the mediocrity of what they have provided.

[manish_vallabh_mv_gmail_com]

I’ve been using beyondtv for years, the company no longer sells the consumer product and I’ve been very happy with the stability and transcoding features after recording, got a Plex Pass and not impressed with he stability and features of the DVR. Transcoding while recording seems promising if only it would use the hardware transcoder instead of pegging the CPU on my Synology NAS.