Live TV is horrible to watch through Plex on Roku TV

[TheClaus]

Server Version#: 1.20.1.3252
Player Version#: Latest from Roku
Tuner Make/Model/FW: HDHomeRun CONNECT DUO/HDHR5-2US/20200907
Guide/Lineup name: Unsure/OTA
Using XMLTV?: No
Channel number/Name: OTA(NBC)

I was trying to watch Thursday Night Football on my TCL 65in 65S525 Roku TV through Plex and it was so bad with the buffering and Plex saying playback issues. When I checked Tautulli it shows it is transcoding the stream. I am not sure if that is the issue but wanted to mention it.

I exited out of Plex and go into the HDHomeRun Channel on Roku and load up that channel and viola it plays flawlessly. No buffering or anything. Just loads the channel up and I am watching the game.

It isn’t just Live TV it is also anything I DVR. If I leave it as the raw TS file it transcodes and buffers endlessly. I run it through MCEBuddy and remove the commercials and works great. Though I know MCEBuddy is taking the MPEG2 and converting it to H.264 which Plex plays great without issues.

Is there anything I can do with Plex to make the experience of watching live tv any better. I don’t understand why the HDHomeRun Channel works so much better than Plex.

[Noah0504]

Under the settings for the Plex Roku channel, did you make sure that MPEG2 is allowed? If not, it will transcode the stream.

[TheClaus]

LOL. Of course I forgot about that. Thanks I tested this on my 32in Roku TV and it seems to be a lot better. It is running wifi and after I made that change along with telling Plex to use Original Quality on Local and Remote I am getting the following when watching it.

Plex for Roku
Original
Direct Stream
Transcode (MPEGTS MPEGTS)
Direct Stream (MPEG2VIDEO 1080p)
Direct Stream (AC3 5.1)

[Noah0504]

Looks good now!

You won’t get it to direct play because of the container, so that’s why you see it direct streaming instead.