Live TV/DVR Included With Plex Pass -- How is this not a scam?

Live TV & DVR
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After getting a Plex Pass 16 months ago primarily for Live TV/DVR, I have been treated to a constant parade of soul crushing regressions in the server and Android app. Each regression usually takes weeks to months to resolve, assuming Plex even responds to the posts about the constant problems. The result is a DVR system that never works. Not even the most basic of functionality.

It took months to fix the problem with Live TV stopping when the current EPG program ended. Live TV can’t even be used in the web client for more than 3 minutes and god help you if you are crazy enough to press the “back 10 seconds button”.

For months, when recording, the android client goes live when you ask it to play from the start, which spoils live sports events that you’ve looked forward to watching.

And for 3 years, if you record extra time for a program (like I always do for live sports), you can’t even begin playback during the extra time. It’s just not allowed. You have to wait for the recording to finish. I know, it sounds idiotic to even say that out loud. But it’s true.

These are all active current problems. I don’t have time to recite a history of the past 16 months and all of the horrible releases of the Android app.

The bottom line, after 16 months (got pass in June 2020), I’ve never had a viable DVR system using Plex. I gave you 9 months to get your act together because of covid without complaining a lot. But by March 2021, I started complaining. My reward was to be banned for 3 months after trying to get you to stop one of the various HORRID 8.15.xx Android app releases (the one that reduced On Deck to 10 items). And just as I predicted, Live TV/DVR users suddenly couldn’t find their on deck items due to the 10 item limit.

Anyway, a few weeks ago I finally asked for my money back. But that was denied. So Plex, after failing to provide a viable DVR solution for 16 months and refusing to return the money, how is “Live TV/DVR Included With A Plex Pass” not a scam?

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I just wish I had tested out the live TV/DVR stuff a bit more before I bought a lifetime license. At least then I could have still filed a chargeback before the time limit was up.

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Yeah, it’s not an accident that there’s no free trial for the Plex Pass. If people could actually see how bad the DVR is and how it lacks basic features included in free alternatives, no one would pay for a Plex Pass to gain access to Live TV/DVR.

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You could have just gotten a monthly subscription to try it out. I have been using the Live/DVR for over a year and for the most part it works for what I need. Yes it has some bugs here and there but it has been stable for me for most basic functions.

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Yes, it really depends on the hardware you use and what you need. If you use Plex through the browser, it doesn’t even work right now. You can’t even play Live TV for more than 3 minutes before the server kicks you off and the seek bar and seek buttons are completely nonfunctional. I mean, how did the server even get released that way.

If you want live sports, it sucks really bad for a whole lot of reasons.

If you use android clients, a lot of people can’t watch from the start.

Also, the parade of constant regressions had been so bad, especially on Android, that buying a one-month trial would have done no good. Even if I had been willing to live with whatever problems existed at that time, there would have been no way to predict that Plex development would abandon the Live TV/DVR module for months at a time in favour of new development that would introduce even more regressions. And this is really on the top management that sets the priorities. It’s absolutely clear the Live TV/DVR users are just not a priority and we are constantly left with severe functional problems for months a time.

It’s great for you that the limitations don’t get in your way too much. But the forums make it clear that the product’s quality has deteriorated to an unacceptable level for a lot of users.

What does it say about Plex DVR when I can only get a decent timeshifting experience for live sports in a Plex player by using another DVR and record to a Plex library folder?

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Sadly, things have not improved very much, especially for Android users. The android client continues to be a bad joke and the web client has not been a viable backup client for at least a couple of months now. The only thing that has changed is that it is now clear that upper management (@elan) seems to think this is a humorous situation worthy of glib comments. Come on sir, you should apologize in the thread that you know I’m talking about and provide a real update.

In the mean time, I continue to ask, how is advertising Live TV/DVR as part of a Plex Pass not a scam?

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Does support actually address any of this? I just got Plex Pass and a tv tuner for my server and I’m already regretting it.

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Plex does not provide support.

If you bought a lifetime pass then you may still be able to request a refund, or you can always dispute the charge with your credit card company since the software does not work as advertised.

Then if you want a DVR that actually works, I’d recommend Channels DVR or Emby.

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I’m considering it. Do the developers not talk in these channels at all? How do bugs get reported/resolved?

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Do the developers not talk in these channels at all?

Occasionally, but it’s usually not easy to get their attention.

How do bugs get reported/resolved?

Over the course of several months or years, if you’re lucky, and if enough people raise enough hell.

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Well you don’t give and details about you hardware so seem your not here to correct the issues.

I have HDHR connect tuners and Plex server on windows 8.1.
I have been recording all my daytime and prime time shows with the Plex DVR and it has worked great for years with the last one and a half being with android clients.
Its been a while but i have watched a show while it is being recorded in the past and it would ask if i want live or from the start and that worked.

I seem to not do that much every since i found and set as default to remove ads in almost all my DVR’ed shows and Movies. I hate ads so much i wait until the show is over to watch. I don’t record sports where that would be much more of a issue. Of course you could always watch it live on a different tuner while it records on the first tuner.

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I’m also very stable with recordings and am happy with that use case. The biggest challenge for me is not being able to time shift sports. I want to be able to start a game one hour in, fast forward commercials, and not worry about if I catch up to real time before the end of the scheduled broadcast. My experience is that time shifting works until the end of the scheduled broadcast. If I haven’t caught up with real time by that point then Plex is going to do something bad.

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Yes, I think that is everyone’s experience for sports with extra recording time. And the super annoying thing is that once it craps out and the extra recording time is still in progress, there’s absolutely no UI to start playback again. You have to wait for the recording to finish. Rather embarrassing if I’m with friends and have to admit that I paid money for this crap.

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Watching live isn’t at all what I want most of the time. Like hokierulz, I pretty much always timeshift for live events (not just sports - awards shows would be another example). I’ll start watching (from the beginning) maybe 45 minutes after the program started and gradually catch up to live. Lots and lots of people use DVRs this way. And Plex is just completely clueless to the whole use case. It’s like they’ve never talked to a real user.

Also, it appears that you are not aware that there is a very significant segment of the android users for which “Play From Start” doesn’t work. You select “Play From Start” and it just goes live – which is terrible for sports since you will almost certainly see the score and have the game spoiled. This has gone on for many months. There have just been so many problems over the past 3 years. And when you factor in the incredible lack of scheduling options (e.g. no manual recording by time/channel and no keyword recording) that free alternatives like NextPVR have, Plex Live TV/DVR really starts to look like a scam.

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I’m sure this is another attempt to get some developer attention, so listing hardware is pointless.

The DVR is a pile of rotting garbage and Plex has NO interest in fixing it, nor do they give a ■■■■ about their users to care enough to even post a “we are looking into it” comment anywhere or the slightest acknowldgement to the dozens of posts WITH the hardware info, version numbers in it that there are some of us with issues.

We are all tired of screaming into the void, getting nothing back.

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MovieWiz has posted details, I’ve posted details, we’ve all posted details before. I’ve done more than enough in the past to try and help resolve bugs, but Plex has made it obvious that they couldn’t care less about the stability of their product.

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If you have posted details I apologize. I did not look into it. With that said what you’re trying to do requires a very strong system.

That is just doing half hour or 1 hour TV shows you have to have it at least a USB 3 write speed hard drive. Depending on the resolution which sports is usually very high resolution. Each half hour recording will create between 2500 to 5000 little TS files. So at the end of a 4-hour game you could have somewhere around 20,000 to 40,000 little TS files that have to all be combined together after being scanned for commercials if you’re doing that.

Even just the time shift with all those files being written sometimes the hard drive system gets lagging. Not to mention real big hard drives don’t do small files real well there’s a lot of wasted space so you get a lot of fragmenting over that 4-hour period. So you definitely need a server quality hardware and read write speeds to even do what you’re trying to do.

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While all this is true with the Android client it is NOT true with the Roku client. So, to say “The DVR is a pile of rotting garbage and Plex has NO interest in fixing it” is a little extreme considering I have like zero issues with it on the Roku platform.

Blame the Android devs for not fixing YOUR platform but don’t throw everyone under the bus because some of us have it working, in more ways than one.

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Yeah the Live TV stuff isn’t reliable on Plex, it only works ok on Android TV and Android, apart from that it’s not a viable way to watch TV.
It’s flawless on Jellyfin apart that you need to wait a bit longer for the channel to load …

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Not exactly sure how I’m throwing anyone under the bus. I’m just sharing my experience with Plex over the past 3 years and that experience is very consistent with a lot of Plex Live TV/DVR users. Many of us feel like we have been defrauded. For the past 3 months, most users couldn’t even watch Live TV in the browser for more than 3 minutes at a time. That’s not the behaviour of a company where customer service/satisfaction is job 1.

And this “mine works better than yours does … na na na na na” stuff is getting old. Why would I go out and buy 3 roku boxes when I have 3 perfectly working FireSticks that run the Jellyfin app fabulously?

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