Live TV & DVR: Fixes and Improvements

Live TV & DVR
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Hi all, wanted to let you all know about some fixes and improvements to our Live TV and DVR feature that are coming to various platforms throughout the next month or so. We know this list doesn’t hit everything that users have been asking about related to the feature, but we think these will be a big step forward and should make life better for folks. So, please keep an eye out for them and let us know what you think. (Our teams are also working on fixes and improvements to lots of other platforms and features unrelated to Live TV & DVR, of course, but that’s not what this topic is about.)

Watch From Start

A fix that resolves an issue where users may not see the ‘Watch from Start’ option when starting an in-progress recording. This will be included in Plex Media Server v1.19.x, which is expected to hit beta within a couple of weeks.

Tune Times

Improvements to reduce the amount of time it takes to tune to a channel in Android (mobile and TV) will be included in v7.29 of the app.

Improved Player

A new player for Live TV on Android—improving playback capabilities, stability, and the player interface—is expected in v7.30 of the app. We think it will be ready by early April, but it’s possible that we may be able to finish internal testing and get it in a beta release sooner.

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Better Channel Browsing

Restore the “Browse” tab where you can do things like view only Sports on a particular channel for example. Both Apple TV (v2.15) and iOS (v6.9) should be getting that this next week.

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Casting Live TV to Chromecast

A long-requested feature is coming in Android (v7.30) and iOS (v6.10). This should be out at the end of the month for all. We are trying to get early betas out, potentially by the end of next week, for those in the beta programs. How to join betas

Picture-in-Guide

A new feature that allows you to continue viewing your current channel live, while you browse around the program guide grid. Coming to Android mobile/TV (v7.30), Apple TV (v2.16), iOS (v6.10), and Roku (v6.2.0). Expected by early April.

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New Recommendation Rows

Some new “What’s On” recommendation rows (like Shows On Now, News On Now, and Sports On Now) are coming, to help discover similar types of content currently airing across channels. Support is expected in the Plex Media Server v1.18.9 release.

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We’re continuing to focus on both improvements and new capabilities for our Live TV & DVR feature and we know there are still other issues and requests that many of you have been waiting for. However, we wanted to give you some insight into what’s on the short-term horizon.

As these new releases and features become available, we’d love to hear what you think about them as well as what other Live TV/DVR things are on the top of your list.

11 Likes
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Two things I’d like to see:

  • Ability to view ALL content on a channel, not just “shows” “sports” “new” individually.

  • Ability to set favorite channel list and aggregate all their listings in one browse.

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Thanks for the feedback @NDInnovations, on your first bullet point this is exactly what BROWSE will accomplish on a channel-by-channel basis, but interesting point on being able to select multiple channels. Maybe something like the CUSTOM FILTER option that exists in movie libraries could be applied to Live TV Browse view. I’ll look into that.

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with the ability to list all known upcoming content on a particular channel, this would be incredibly useful for scheduling DVR.

because when viewing in this manner, the actual date/time of air is not really important (ie it is not on demand).

  • what I would really like to see is KEYWORD/actor scanning and scheduling of content.

For example, I want plex to ‘watch’ for any clint eastwood content and record it automatically (if it does not already exist within my plex content).

tivo has this, and it would be a pretty killer feature for plex dvr.

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Some other enhancements I would really like to see:

  • Recording rule editor. Nothing overly complex, but something. I have hundreds of rules, including a ton of strange duplicates I’m not sure if I can safely delete. Sliding a new recording to the top is next to impossible.

  • Channel recording “preference”. This would mainly affect sports. When my local NBA team game is upgraded to a national game, but still has the local airing I would like to prefer it local. Right now since the national games play on a lower numbered channel I always record them instead of the local channel.

  • Text recording rules, similar to what TeknoJunky is suggesting. I’d like to say record every episode of “American Horror Story*” and actually get all of the seasons. Right now every season has it’s own unique name. This applies to a large amount of shows.

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I would like to see some of the basics fixed

Guide data that doesnt need to constantly get manually fixed, if this means going back to the previous provider than that needs doing.
The same errors are still occurring too often.

When the above is fixed, for me i would like to see matching with online data providers returned.

Instead of workarounds, like retaining EPG data to mask the errors, lets get to the source of the issues and get the EPG fixed.

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Is this the kind of thing you wanted for your first point? :slight_smile:

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So, there’s no hope for Roku users to timeshift?

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Please allow us to disable the “picture in guide”. Some of us don’t want to watch anything until we choose to! Additionally, it is extremely annoying if you happen to be on a channel where something is part-way through recording, as you don’t wish to see spoilers. Terrible, terrible “feature” and wastes so much space that could be used for guide information.

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Not sure where to post this one, but I caught an interesting episode mismatch issue:

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TVDB favors the top entry.

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I think you misunderstand the feature. The picture-in-guide is for your Currently tuned channel. It will not show playback of another channel unless you tune to (select) that channel from the guide.
If you are opening Plex and go to the guide, there will be no playback until you select a channel, as you wanted…

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Yes, it appears I have indeed misunderstood. Thanks for the clarification.

Apologies if I appeared to fly off the handle, but my PVR does this as soon as it’s switched on and you’re just trying to browse recorded media or the guide - with the unintended consequence of many spoil programmes.

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The last I knew, there was no good way to quickly find a tv show that is currently recording other than going into the guide and clicking on it to watch. I think any show that starts to record should be moved right over to TV shows and have a indication it’s recording. There I can quickly click on it and start watching. It should be there right away and not after it’s recorded.

Sorry if I am wrong on this…

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Not only that there should be a “hub” or whatever yo call it called “recording now” with all in progress recordings.

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Huh? what about this ?

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Try and play an in progress recording from there and lemme know how far you get. All of those are finished…

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Yea ok I agree, there should be a way to play the in-progress recording from this page.

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guide

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guide mouse over

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Unfortunately that is the only way possible to access an in progress recording–and it completely fails for anything with additional time padding the recording. Those recordings are impossible to access until they have fully completed while they are in that “additional time” window.

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I wasn’t aware of the time padding problem. Adding in-progress-play to the scheduled recordings page should help alleviate that.

Personally, I almost never watch something in progress, even sports.

I’m happy to wait until its processed and commercials removed.

I do understand and acknowledge that everyone has their own preference.