I just upgraded to plex pass and have it setup to have live tv using my tuner card in my pc and while I can watch live tv and record shows I can’t figure out how to start watching a dvr recording while the show is still being recorded. It doesn’t show up in my shows until it’s done with the recording. Is there a way to do this?
The show will not appear in your library until the recording is completed as you stated.
You can use the search function to find your recording or under “Program Guide” and “On Right Now” you should be able to locate your ongoing recording.
Once you locate your recording on a client that supports Live TV you can select Play or Watch.
You can’t currently watch the recording from the beginning of the recording you can only watch it from where you tuned in.
Hope that answers your question.
Thanks. That’s all I’d been able to do so far and was hoping I was missing something for watching the recording from the beginning will it was still recording. Hopefully this is being worked on as a future feature so it can stand up to other dvrs that allow this. Thanks again!
Agree - this is the feature I miss the most since ditching cable. Hope it comes to pass soon.
Everyone keeps reporting this, so I am not sure if I’m existing in some sort of alternate reality.
I’m on PMS 1.9.0.4252, and I view all Live TV/95% of DVR on a Sony Android TV running 7.0 and the 6.4.1.1644 Android TV Plex client. Whenever a program is recording, we just go to the Program Guide, access the currently recording program, and hit Watch. It always starts from the beginning, allows seek, and never ties up an additional tuner. It’s been functioning this way for at least a month.
Can someone please confirm or dispell the crazy notion that this has been working for a while now?
Edit: Just started the currently recording CBS Evening News from the beginning after not touching Plex all day, so no chance the tuner was already in use and buffered it for anything but DVR.
@fecaleagle I just tried it using iOS and it starts in the middle of the show, not at the beginning. I’m going to try a few other clients.
@rodgerzeisler said:
I just tried it using iOS and it starts in the middle of the show, not at the beginning. I’m going to try a few other clients.
Thanks. I’ll confirm that it doesn’t work on iOS when my next recording starts, but I’m fairly confident I’ve only seen this on the Android TV app, since that’s where we watch virtually all Live TV and DVR. Interestingly, when we record two shows back-to-back and try to start the second one via the Live TV program guide, it will actually start playback at the beginning of the first recorded program.
@fecaleagle You’re not crazy - I’ve noticed the same thing, but only on Android TV. It’s still a little confusing IMO, since when you select “watch” in the Program Guide, you expect the show in progress to jump to live.
Another strange thing I’ve noticed is that in order to catch up to live once you start a recording this way, you need to let the player buffer for maybe 30 seconds before you can scrub forward without an error.
I’m using it on my apple tv and even if I find the show in the program guide and go to watch it while it’s recording it only lets me watch it live, not the recording. Does this happen for other people using apple tv?
@johnlago, I haven’t experienced any issues jumping to live, but I can’t be sure I’ve tried to jump to live immediately (before it fully buffers). Thanks for confirming that this does work on the Android TV client. The fact that the server is capable of supporting this behavior means it can’t be far behind for other clients.
@bymclaugh There’s been no mention of this being supported yet on any client. It happens to work on Android TV (actually, John is the first person I’ve heard confirm that it does work), but it apparently does not work on any other clients yet. Still, I expect it will not be long until it arrives for the other clients that support Live TV.
This, along with the ability of non-admin/non-main users to manage recording schedules/programs is key to make it a DVR product that has features that I’ve come to assume a DVR should have. For average TV shows this isn’t as much of a deal (for me), but for a multi-hour sporting event it is a different thing altogether. At least this stands for me, but we all have our desires and preferences.
I’ve seen the same functionality being able to watch a show from the beginning while recording when using Fire Sticks though for whatever reason the aspect ratio is off. It’ll be stretched with black bars on top and bottom when it shoudn’t. It’s better after the recordings are complete. Getting closer though.
I hope this functionality is being worked on for all devices (or at least ATV). Our primary use for DVR is to watch currently airing shows “out of the spool” so that we can skip commercials. I sure as heck don’t want to have to wait until 6pm when the recording is complete to start watching 4 hours of golf just so that I can skip the commercials! I’m stuck with Tivo until this is fixed and will not be renewing my Pass.
I ran some tests myself a while ago, on linux !, where you can check for a hidden directory starting with a “.” where the recording is stored while being in process. You can actually start watching this within Plex, but it will not be annotated - and as it is a .ts stream usually jumping over commercials was not really working well for me on my AppleTV.
I assume timeshifting (as this kind of functionality is called) is on their backlog. But first the optimization of transcoding is required from my point of view.
