Background:
I first purchases a HDHomeRun CONNECT, and started testing how things work.
I found that if I turned on “Convert Video while recording” it would cause my load average to spike and I had trouble with playback of other videos during recording. When i turn off the transcoding, I found the files to be way to big, and i don’t feel like writing a bash script, setting up a cron job, etc. etc. I thought about setting up a second system just to do the transcoding but then I’m back in the same spot, writing bash scripts, and/or flexget tasks. I figured it would cost less in the long run just to purchase the HDHomeRun EXTEND and have it do the transcoding.
Main Question:
If I setup both the HDHomeRun EXTEND and the HDHomeRun CONNECT connected to same plex server, can I prefer the EXTEND, over the CONNECT when recording shows?
Or in other words force Plex to only use the CONNECT’s tuners if the EXTEND’s tuners are both in use?
Secondary Question:
When testing I had the files writing out to my external storage. If I Saved the transcoding file to my SSD, and then (had flexget) move the file when done, would like help performance significantly?
Plex does not Support more than one HDHomerun unit at the present. You can add them but it will only use one.
If I setup both the HDHomeRun EXTEND and the HDHomeRun CONNECT connected to same plex server, can I prefer the EXTEND, over the CONNECT when recording shows?
Or in other words force Plex to only use the CONNECT’s tuners if the EXTEND’s tuners are both in use?
As of this writing (1.9.0), Plex is having problems using multiple tuner units. It will utilize the first one and then ignore the next one. You’ll be best served by deleting the Connect out of Plex and adding the Extend as the only tuner unit for now. They have to be working on this (I hope) as it used to work. I’m running PMS 1.5.5 and it works perfectly. If you search the forums there was a way to set priority as I recall but it got into the technical guts of Plex. You could also use the Connect via the HDHR Channel plug-in for Live TV.
As a side note, how do you like the Mediasonic box? I’ve been looking at this one: HFR7-SU3S2 (Mediasonic PRORAID 4 bay 3.5" SATA Hard Drive Enclosure - USB 3.0 & eSATA 10TB Support). Amazon’s got it for around $150.
@ChrisAWallace said:
As of this writing (1.9.0), Plex is having problems using multiple tuner units. It will utilize the first one and then ignore the next one. You’ll be best served by deleting the Connect out of Plex and adding the Extend as the only tuner unit for now. They have to be working on this (I hope) as it used to work. I’m running PMS 1.5.5 and it works perfectly. If you search the forums there was a way to set priority as I recall but it got into the technical guts of Plex. You could also use the Connect via the HDHR Channel plug-in for Live TV.
Thank you for the information. Basically what I would like to do. I want to use the EXTEND for recording and the CONNECT for Live TV channels Plug-ins. I will dig deeper for the Tuner prioritizing.
@ChrisAWallace said:
As a side note, how do you like the Mediasonic box? I’ve been looking at this one: HFR7-SU3S2 (Mediasonic PRORAID 4 bay 3.5" SATA Hard Drive Enclosure - USB 3.0 & eSATA 10TB Support). Amazon’s got it for around $150.
I think it’s a good value. My only complaint be that the fan causes the case to resonate a bit. Others have complained it does not automatically power back up after power lose, but all my equipment is behind a APC UPS, so I don’t have that problem.
Hey edennelson,
By design Plex can handle your main question. Just install the Extend as your first tuner. However, in practice it doesn’t seem to work correctly. I have the exact setup you’re looking at. At the start I installed the Extend first and for the most part the DVR always chooses that tuner first. Even after I deleted the devices and tried to make the Connect the main unit. For some reason it just wants to connect to the Extend. That would work in your case but you may get the opposite result where it only uses the Connect. If you run into that issue you may want to try and install the dvr from scratch with the Extend as your main unit.
I, like many others, are having an issue where the DVR can’t use the tuners from a second device. That seems to have been a problem for versions greater than 1.6.1. This may be what nyplayer is referring to.
For your 2nd question I don’t think you’ll get much of a performance gain by switching to SSD. Most drives (internal and external) should be able to handle the data flow from 4 tuners at the same time. If you’re currently experiencing a data bottleneck it may help but from a pure Plex dvr standpoint I don’t think it would.
