I hope you all had a nice Thanksgiving! I have read a bunch of threads on the topic above and still find myself confused. I currently am running a plex server on a 2014 Mac mini so not the most powerful but it has worked well. Any recommendations on whether the extend or quatro would be best for my situation? I am more interested in the DVR function vs the live tv. So ideally 4 tuners is better than 2. If I decided to go with the quatro is it possible to run the recordings through handbrake after to make the files smaller and eliminate the transcoding issue? Majority of the devices used to stream plex are Gen 4 Apple TVs. Seems like the extend is transcoding files on iOS and AppleTV devices even with the built in Transcoder. Any insights would be greatly appreciated.
I’ve got the Extend and love it. Transcoded before Plex saves disk space and post-recording transcoding. I also have a 2014 Mini for a Plex server. I can record a couple of streams and watch another at the same time without a problem. Having the 4 tuners of the Quatro would be nice though. I’m holding out hope for a 4 tuner Extend.
Thanks Chris! I think I will stick with the Extend. I ordered both today so I will return the quatro. I agree I would love to see an extend with 4 tuners.
I have both, Currently running both but I right now I like the quatro more. The extend is great but it doesn’t offer the flexibility that the quatro does. When you record a show with the extend it’s going to be what ever resolution you set it to. You can record one show in 1080p/i and the next in 480p without involving another computer. I run my recordings through mcebuddy which involves another computer anyway to remove commercials so I find more use in having more tuners then hardware encoding. I am also converting my shows to h.265 which saves even more space over h.264 so maybe once an extend comes out supporting h.265 I will again favor it.
Plex654 thank for you insights. That makes the decision harder. I do worry about only having 2 tuners. I will have to check out mcebuddy. I have another more powerful computer available to process videos after the fact. This definitely complicates the decision.
