So I’ve been using PMS to stream shows I recorded with NextPVR on Windows with Haupauge tunners for about a year and have been happy with PMS for that. I decided though that I would like to be able to record more channels so I picked up an HD HomeRun Prime and a new nVidia Shield Pro to build a new DVR. So far the recording quality with HDHomeRun Prime and PMS on Shield is terrible, and that is being kind. Live streaming of HDHomeRun Prime on the Shield looks great, but I recorded a few shows and they are nearly unwatchable for all the blocking. I have Convert Video While Recording on the Shield set for Transcode, since recording with it set Off seemed to produce videos I could not play. I’ve updated PMS on the Shield today since my last test and I notice that remux is no longer an option, so I will retry using Transcode and try again with Off. I will also try recording with PMS on my Windows 10 system using both the HDHomeRun Prime and the Haupauge WinTV Quad and see if either of them works any better than the nVidia Shield Pro. I got the Shield Pro primarily so I could live Stream DRM Protected channels through the HDHomeRun app but saw an opportunity to offload my DVR from my Windows PC. So far though I am very disappointed. I’ll update this thread with my recording test results using 1.7.3.3937 for both the nVidia Shield Pro and Widows PMS. HDHomeRun on both and the PCIe on Windows. I could use some advice for setting up recordings on both to improve quality.
Update 1: With the new version of PMS on the Shield I see that I can now Live Stream and Record right from PMS on the Shield… That is Fantastic Work <3 folks (yes I’m from the south, but that’s the best gender neural term I could come up with and since I don’t know the Plex dev’s I figured I’d try not to offend. BTW, I would not mind getting to know them. I’m a developer myself and it’s always nice to build a connection). Anyhow I digress. Live Streaming quality from PMS on the Shield seems to look good. BTW… Plex/PMS crashed or went not responding on me several times while playing around with the live tuning option on the Shield. I click send feedback with logs. Not sure if that goes to Shield or Plex to look at.
<off topic/Enhancement>
My biggest complaint (wish list) for live streaming, since I can’t have the program guide grid right now , is that I can’t easily see the channel that a show is on. When looking at the program guide I see lists of shows/movies, ect, but I can’t tell what channel they are on when looking at the shows without clicking in and that does not work in the under Watch Now. It just tunes to the channel and you can’t tell.But under Watch now you do see the station id before you click in, but not the channel number like when you click in from the other area. I’d like to see the screen overlay during live streaming that has the title, time of show, show description include the channel number and station id… IE 02-WBBM, 201-WBBMDT. I’d also like to see ability to list all the upcoming shows on a specific channel. Under the Browse categories add a By Channel. Have it show a list of channels. user picks a channel, PMS presents the upcoming shows for the next 12/24 hours on that channel in date/time order with the start - end time at the bottom of the thumbnail entry. ie 7pm-7:30pm, 7:30pm - 8pm, ect
2nd Request, When cancelling a recording that is in progress, have the option to save what has been recorded. Right now it seems to delete anything it had already recorded. I’m going to have to pick something shorter to use as a test. Be back with an update after some tests.
Update 2: I recorded a short (2 minutes left) show on the Shield and it looks good when playing via Plex on my Roku. I could not get it to play from PMS on the Shield. It just sits there. I’m going to see if there are any firmware updates for the Shield. It is a 2017 model so it should have more horsepower than the original. They tout the Shield Pro as having the most powerful CPU for that type of machine, but so far I am underwhelmed with the nVidia Sheild Pro.
Update 3: I have a support case opened with nVidia for my Shield Pro performance issues. I am hoping they can find the issue and fix it. I see such great potential in the PMS app on Shield. I especially love being able to schedule recordings from the Shield, just need to tweak the program guide format/data and keep it from crashing on me. I’m hoping that the Plex app update I installed today fixed the transcoding/quality problem permanently. I’ll trying playing some recordings from my Windows 10 PMS system via the Shield Plex app and see how that works. Don’t understand why the recording I did on the Shield would not play on the Shield unless it was just the Shield crapping out on me. I have more recordings set on the Shield. I’ll keep trying it.
Update 4: I’ve recorded a few movies on the shield from the HDHomerun prime, (still waiting on HDHomerun to get back to me to help me activate the cablecard from the cable co, the cable co needs a port and item number in addition to the device id of the HDHomeRun and the Host id of the cablecard. HDHomeRun responded once to my initial ticket and has not responded since to any of my updates. Bad customer service.). Anyhow. The movies I recorded off the hallmark channel all have black lines at the top and left, but not the bottom. In fact I think the bottom of the picture is cutoff a bit. Has anyone else had this issue? I just setup some recordings using the Windows PMS and the HDHomeRun to see if it acts any differently. The Next PVR with the Haupauge PCIe cards on windoes have the black borders all the around, but no cuttoff at the bottom of the screen when I play through PMS on windows.
Update 5: Well… After several days testing I am very disappointed with Plex Media Server on the nVidia Shield. Everything I record on the shield is messed up resolution wise. The video picture is stretched tall then the bottom is cut off and it show like 4:3 format instead of 16:9. I have played back the recordings via my Roku’s, nVida Shield Pro and PMS on Windows. Anything recorded via PMS on the Shield is messed up. I used PMS on Windows with the same HDHomeRun Prime tuner and it works fine. Recordings all look as they should. I tested again after the latest update for Plex on Shield and the problem still exists.
After finally getting my CableCard activated on my HDHomeRun Prime and doing a factory reset on the nVidia Shield I think things are starting to work. Getting the CableCard activated was stupidly difficult and 3 calls to my ISP and a support case with Silicon Dust. Ultimately it we me being a hard ass and asking for a supervisor at the ISP that got it done. I learned a lot about how they have to do it, so I’m happy to share if anyone else has trouble, or you can go to my DSLReports form posts (http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r31475438-WOW-CableCard-Activation-issue-with-HDHomeRun-Prime-in-Chicagoland) which sums it up fairly well.
