I decided to give the PLEX TV/DVR a try after recent announcements of Live TV so I picked up the HDHomerun Extend yesterday. I’ve been running PLEX on my QNAP TS-453 Pro for a couple years now and it’s been solid. I’m running the latest Firmware 4.3.3.0262 (2017/0727) on the QNAP and updated the PLEX Server App to Version 1.8.0.4109. When I go into the Server settings in the PLEX Web App it shows Live TV & DVR (Beta). Also in the MANAGE sidebar it is not showing Recording Schedule or Program Guide as shown in the PLEX setup guide screenshot. When I run the Set Up PLEX DVR wizard it finds my HDhomerun Extend, and finds 63 Channels. Next I leave the default Program Guide at Local Over the Air Broadcast and click Continue. That’s as far as it goes. The Next button just spins continuous for hours and never completes. I’ve tried reinstalling the PLEX Server App to no avail. Anyone have any ideas?
I’ve only got 17 channels selected out of 23 found and it took over an hour to download on my Seagate Personal Cloud NAS. I think part of it is that it downloads the graphics at the same time as the text rather than downloading the text and then populating the posters later. Try deselecting all but 10 channels when you’re setting it up and see if it completes. Then go back in and add 10 more. If you can use that method to get all the channels you want, I’d time the last EPG update and make sure your Scheduled Tasks timeframe is long enough to accommodate it. You could also try deselecting the “Enhanced EPG” in the DVR Settings.
@ChrisAWallace said:
" Try deselecting all but 10 channels "
That helps. I deselected all but 1 channel. That took about 10 minutes and that was from the OTA Guide that looks only partially complete. I might try and pull down the Comcast Guide for this area and see what that gives me. I tried launching Live TV on that one channel on my IPAD while it was still downloading the guide and it completely locked. Had to Stop/Start the PLEX Server app on the QNAP again. After the Guide finished downloading I launched the Live TV again on the IPAD. LOTS of buffering and when I monitor the vitals on the QNAP CPU is running at 96-98% so basically it’s killing the QNAP. Surprising too because I’ve streamed multiple connections regularly from my library before with no problem but then their transcoded rips too.
I’m not sure what I can change to help keep it from choking the CPU
I’m not sure what I can change to help keep it from choking the CPU
Search the forum. I know I’ve seen threads that talk about reducing the quality you’re streaming to help with the Live TV Buffering. I have no use for Live TV so I’m not really up on the tweaks that help it.
@ChrisAWallace said:
I’m not sure what I can change to help keep it from choking the CPU
Search the forum. I know I’ve seen threads that talk about reducing the quality you’re streaming to help with the Live TV Buffering. I have no use for Live TV so I’m not really up on the tweaks that help it.
Thanks Chris. I think I’ve already seen a couple last night as well. You have to ability to reduce the quality on the client app. I guess that’s something I could try but that would start to defeat the purpose of using this, at least for me. I was looking to benefit from having the ability to watch TV in some of the other rooms that just have a Roku stick on them (eventually when those devices are supported). As it stands now I was thinking if the Live/DVR worked out on iOS device I could then just Cast it to the bigger screen with Chromecast. As for the Live TV, I hear that a lot. I don’t like watching Sports after I’ve already read the outcome or someone told me, especially if they lost so yeah, I watch a fair amount of Live TV. Since I share my PLEX out to Family they would probably get a charge out of watching our Sports Teams since they’ve moved away too.
I forgot to link to this:
It’s a Plex Channel that will give you Live TV. Even on the Roku. Check it out.
@foxvalleyal said:
@ChrisAWallace said:
" Try deselecting all but 10 channels "That helps. I deselected all but 1 channel. That took about 10 minutes and that was from the OTA Guide that looks only partially complete. I might try and pull down the Comcast Guide for this area and see what that gives me. I tried launching Live TV on that one channel on my IPAD while it was still downloading the guide and it completely locked. Had to Stop/Start the PLEX Server app on the QNAP again. After the Guide finished downloading I launched the Live TV again on the IPAD. LOTS of buffering and when I monitor the vitals on the QNAP CPU is running at 96-98% so basically it’s killing the QNAP. Surprising too because I’ve streamed multiple connections regularly from my library before with no problem but then their transcoded rips too.
I’m not sure what I can change to help keep it from choking the CPU
Since you have Plex Pass, I would try installing the HW Transcoding 4 beta that was released this week. That is based on the 1.8x codebase, so has the LiveTV & DVR support baked in, but should also enable HW transcoding on your 453Pro to cut CPU by about half.
I haven’t tested beta4 with my 453Pro yet, but beta3 worked with fine with it.
Also make sure on your HDHomeRun Extend, that you have h.264 transcoding enabled, and that you have “Convert Video while Recording” set to OFF under DVR in Plex.
@ChrisAWallace said:
I forgot to link to this:
Wow! You certainly gave me something to work with. Interesting, runs as a Plug-In just like TABLO (yeah, I had one of those for about 8 months too). After messing with the settings a few times it’s streaming to my IPAD flawless! Of course I’ll have to watch a movie or something for a couple hours to confirm it goes the distance. I’ll see how well it works in ROKU. Many thanks for that. Might save me from returning the HDHomerun.
@mwc_trexx said:
@foxvalleyal said:
@ChrisAWallace said:
" Try deselecting all but 10 channels "Also make sure on your HDHomeRun Extend, that you have h.264 transcoding enabled, and that you have “Convert Video while Recording” set to OFF under DVR in Plex.
Ok, installed the latest Transcoding build 1.8.1.4140 Beta. Where is this “Convert Video while Recording” set to OFF under DVR in Plex? The only DVR settings I see in Live TV & DVR are for the Program Guide and minutes before Start/Stop Recordings. The other setting is for the HDRomerun Transcoder Quality which you can select from Original Format down to Low Qyality (240p). I did see a considerable drop in CPU usage when I drop the HDHomerun Transcode Quality to Medium (540p) in PLEX DVR Settings. Results vary. Choppy (freeze start, freeze start) to buffering (freeze load). End result is the same though, unacceptable. I don’t know. I don’t think this is quite there yet. I thought about installing PMS on my PC which has an i5 just to see if I could stream Live TV without it cutting out. Not really where I want to be with this but I would just like to see it work on something. How does it run on your QNAP? I think your TVS has a little better CPU than mine.
