i like to think i went thru as many searched as i could before asking this question but i didnt see any discussions that really addressed my particular scenario, so here goes my question.
i’m currently running HDHomerun Extended and i like the results ive received with the plex pass integration, i clearly out grew how many tuners i need to record my favorite shows and would like to add a second tuner, without disconnecting my first tuner.
my goal then my question.
SiliconDust now offers HDHomerun Connect Quatro which has 4 Tuners i would like to add this to my setup but its unclear if Plex can handle 2 different products at the same time as a tuner.
my second question is.
does plex self manage what tuner to use for recordings with no user interaction (my preferred method) so that the user gets a seamless experience? or will it always ask me which device i want to use to record my TV show.
the question is the same for live TV, will plex just bring up the available changes to pick what i want to see or will it want me to choose what tuner i want to use to bring up local Tv channels, im also hoping that if i use 2 tuners it wont show both tuners at the same time for available live channels basically showing 2 of everything filling up my screen with duplicate channels 1 from each device.
my comment is not a complaint towards plex, i have had a good experience with it and i hope to expand my usage with it as plex continues to expand its abilities, i just want to know what to expect and or what are its limitation so i can make an informed choice…
like i mentioned i thought i did what i could to find answers ahead of time but didnt see anything that really covered my questions.
thanks to anyone who can provide me with a direction on what i can expect.
Plex can handle multiple tuners that are all of the same type (OTA or Cable). You can even have a Cable tuner added to a OTA DVR Configuration as long as the same channels map to each other. I also have a Prime without a cable card that I can add to my Primary Plex Server and it will work just fine because the same OTA channels are broadcast on the same channel numbers from my cable company. I have 2 HDHR Connects I can use, 1 HDHR Extend, 1 HDHR Prime, and 1 older HDHR Dual that have all been configured on my server at some point.
Second question: Plex will work without user intervention. At no point do I have to select what tuner device to use for recordings. Plex will always utilize the first tuner device that was originally configured on your Plex Server. Once all tuners on that device are being used for recordings it will move to the 2nd device for recordings. I would be cautious with watching Live TV when you have a lot of recordings scheduled. If a tuner is in use when Plex tries to use it you could get failed recordings.
i didn’t realize plex starts with the first tuner to see what is available then just moves down the line till it finds one that is available, that explanation alone quickly brought me up to speed on how things work and made total sense to me.
But how, I wonder, does mixing Connect/Quattro work with an Extend? After all, Extend has hardware-based transcoding where the others don’t. So if you desire (like I do) to have H.264 instead of MPEG-2 streams (eating up lots more disk), then how does that work? Do we need to make sure that one transcode setting applies globally among sources connected to a given PMS?
@btaroli I use mcebuddy to remove commercials and remux shows to a mp4 container as part of post processing. I am currently then using handbrake to transcode the mpeg2 video codec inside the mp4 container to hevc or h265. All of my clients can direct play the h265 video so my system is not hammered by transcoding video streams when played later, plus I like the additional compression that HEVC provides so smaller files than h264 produces. Planning to try to automate the handbrake processing over the next few months. I have my connects shown in image from post above set to not transcode. So I get the mpeg2 video stream that is processed by mcebuddy. My Extend rarely gets used by my primary Plex server. The Extend is actually the only tuner device configured on my backup Plex server which is used to record critical shows that the wife would be very unhappy if they were missed. My Extend is set to Highest Quality so any recordings made using it the video codec is transcoded to h264 before being sent to the Plex server.
I could be wrong but I think if you have Plex remove the commercials, it doesn’t matter if your HomeRun has hardware transcoding or not, the server transcodes it to h.264 during the removal of commercials.
Still kind of new here so my apologies if I am out of place. For Windows users, I created a series of Plex scripts for post-processing using HandBrakeCLI. I posted the info here.
