However, your FAQ specifically says watching TV is free and doesn’t require a plex pass. Just the DVR portion.
But I have found no way to successfully add and use my TV tuner in plex!
All online guides state to go into setting - Live TV and DVR to add the TV tuner.
However, when I go in there, the only option is “Get a Plex Pass”
But this shouldn’t be necessary just to setup the tuner without DVR options.
I’ve even found youtube videos specifically labeled as adding a tuner without plexpass, that guide one to go into this exact place to be presented with a setup button. But all I get is a button trying to take money from me.
Not sure I would bother, without the PP the guide is limited to 4 hours.
Just going to through this out there that it can be a little fussy if you are not using an HDHomerun tuner and a something with a reasonable processor.
What might be confusing here is (and I blame Plex for this) that Plex’s OWN online “Live TV Streaming” is combined with the “LiveTV/DVR” section that requires a Plex Pass. The “Live TV Streaming” consists of dozens or hundreds of free ad-supported streaming channels, that display a specific episode/show at a specific time, just like original TV OTA broadcasts. You are not able to record from this channel even if you have a DVR and/or Plex Pass.
Because this is integrated in with an existing self-owned tuner in the menus, it may sound like simply getting a tuner and using that without a DVR is non-Plex Pass related, but it is not. Doing a quick google, I came across a FAQ for “Live TV Streaming”, but note the “streaming” part of the name, this refers to the Plex online ad-based channels. The second question “How is this different from the Live TV/DVR premium feature?” spells out that Plex Pass owners can provide their own tuner and view their own OTA broadcasts.
If this does not seem an acceptable answer, we can discuss some more about what exactly you are seeing (and where you are seeing it) so we can find out if you are seeing something that does seem to explicitly imply that self-owned tuners can be set up without a Plex Pass.
This statement implies that there is a TV tuner option that is limited without plex pass.
Yet Divideby0 is implying that there is no TV tuner option without plexpass.
All this paywall BS is infuriating. Why would I pay for a product that has gotten so many things wrong? Make something worth paying for, and I’ll consider it.
I understand. I was reluctant to pay as well, but ultimately most of our paying for a cable package was simply to record a few items that were available OTA, so I broke down and bought the lifetime pass. It was well worth it, saving us more per month than the Pass cost by itself.
It does seem to me that one reason to lock it behind a paywall may be for the guide data. Looking around, any “self-hosted” tuner and DVR setup usually has a monthly fee for maintaining the up-to-date guide data for the channels all across the country/world. So it seems that Plex doesn’t want to provide guide data that may be costing them without getting that money back from us Pass owners.
What is odd about my theory is that I seem to recall that Plex has support for third party guide data, but you need to retrieve that yourself. I recall when setting up my DVR that I thought I could look into automating the addition of a free third-party guide for my DVR, and ended up buying the Pass. If you MUST have the Pass to use the tuner (and the guide to make it usable), then I see no reason why I thought there was a way to add a tuner for free.
@armyofquad1 thanks for reporting. @SwiftPanda16 thanks for troubleshooting. I’ve filed an internal issue for this. Sorry for the inconvenience but glad you were able to get around it.
i have plex web version 4.136.1 and i have the same problem as poster. all i see is a button that says get a plex pass. no option to setup free live tv from my antenna without using the DVR. the workaround mentioned by swiftpanda16 no longer works either.
thank you, that shows the correct options to allow me to set up a tuner. why does the task bar icon option to “open plex” use the local IP address version if that version is not the current version with the updated features?
If you have no internet and such the via local IP is the only way to access. It’s just something that has always been there before we started doing much online.
it is a good point though I will pass along to maybe have an alternate menu item to go to the site instead
