I recently signed up for Plex Pass with the impression that this would enable me to stream live TV. Is this not the case? Or is there somewhere I should be going to do this?
I’m wondering how I can ensure that when I am connecting to my Plex Server that I am connecting only through my local LAN? Is there a way to verify this? Currently my server and computer are both on the same switch however there have been times that I’m notified that I’m not directly connected to my server which seems to imply I’m not going directly through my LAN.
I recently signed up for Plex Pass with the impression that this would enable me to stream live TV. Is this not the case? Or is there somewhere I should be going to do this?
No, you can not Stream Live TV, there is the PLEX DVR but that is something else entirely
I’m wondering how I can ensure that when I am connecting to my Plex Server that I am connecting only through my local LAN? Is there a way to verify this? Currently my server and computer are both on the same switch however there have been times that I’m notified that I’m not directly connected to my server which seems to imply I’m not going directly through my LAN.
Thanks!
If you are inside your network, then the software stack should keep you inside the LAN, otherwise, you’d be Remote.
Thanks for the quick reply. Is there a way I can confirm for sure that I am connecting directly via LAN and not Remote? How do I tell if its “remote” or not?
@qwaven said:
2. I’m wondering how I can ensure that when I am connecting to my Plex Server that I am connecting only through my local LAN? Is there a way to verify this? Currently my server and computer are both on the same switch however there have been times that I’m notified that I’m not directly connected to my server which seems to imply I’m not going directly through my LAN.
This may happen even if you are indeed in the same local network as the server. When either of these circumstances occurs:
the client is not allowed to ‘fall back’ to an unencrypted connection (Settings - Web - General - ‘Allow Fallback to Insecure Connections’ for the Plex Web client, there are /will be similar preferences on other clients)
You are requiring ‘secure connections’ (Settings - Server - Network), but your router does not allow ‘DNS rebinding’ which would be necessary in this case to make the cryptographic certificate valid in your local network. In this case you either need to tell your router to allow DNS rebinding for the domain plex.direct or to disable ‘secure connections’ altogether.
If you never want to use Plex’s remote access, you don’t need the additional encryption that ‘secure connections’ provide.
I recently signed up for Plex Pass with the impression that this would enable me to stream live TV. Is this not the case? Or is there somewhere I should be going to do this?
This feature may come sooner or later. But still only if you use one of the supported tv tuners to make your regional Over-The-Air tv signal available to Plex server.
In fact, this is already possible today by the use of 3rd party Plex channels.
Yes You can stream live TV through plex. I do this quite often, in fact I will be streaming the Arsenal vs. Everton game in 30 minutes from now remotely. This works in LAN and out. You need other equipment though.
Hey all sorry for the late reply. Thanks a lot for your replies. Seems a bit misleading that I cannot stream TV directly through Plex without additional hardware.
Re: How am I connected…
It be nice if they would put in a feature to allow the user to a) specify (hard code) how they want the device to connect back ie LAN or Internet…etc. and b) have something that can show you which path is being used for the connection. Connecting through the internet unintentionally has the potential to incur tremendous usage charges if unaware.
@qwaven said:
Hey all sorry for the late reply. Thanks a lot for your replies. Seems a bit misleading that I cannot stream TV directly through Plex without additional hardware.
How is it misleading? Plex is about YOUR media, on YOUR devices. This means it’s media you have legal rights to, either through owning the hard copy, or that you saved from broadcasts. I’ve never seen anything in Plex’s literature or marketing info about “Live” streaming media that wasn’t already saved to disk. Your hardware is a player, server (or now, with Cloud, I suppose you don’t even need that…) and on your own TV’s, mobile devices, etc.
I think what you may find misleading is your interpretations of what Plex is about. If the media is not already on disk, there is no way to stream it, unless you add an additional layer of hardware to the mix. Hardware to take that OTA broadcast and write it to disk, so it can be streamed.
Live streaming is one of the biggest requests in Plex’s history, BTW. You can find a link to that request here: https://forums.plex.tv/discussion/58741/very-popular-live-tv-support-in-plex-media-server#latest. Add your vote to this request by adding a “Like” to the first post of the thread. Only the “Like’s” are counted, so a +1 means you are wasting your time even going to the thread…
After you vote for a feature, the next step is to sit back and wait. In some cases it could mean waiting a long while. Many of the top requests in the Feature Requests forum are 2, 3 or even 4 years old and still haven’t been implemented. By getting the counts up for features, it’s supposed to let the Plex Team know what the users want. Now, whether they will develop it or not is entirely up to the Team and the Road Map ™ guiding Plex’s development.
I did mention, didn’t I, that you would have to wait?
Thanks for the reply MikeG6.5. What I find misleading is this:
If you check the features list https://www.plex.tv/features/# and scroll down to the big list and click on PVR you’ll get this:
Correct its for PVR, however it does not really make any mention that you need to first buy a completely separate piece of hardware.
And yes if you go deeper into the site it will tell you about buying the hardware and installing…etc.
I had interpreted the original statement as suggesting Plex provides “channels” or the likes that basically connect back to the already free live streams provided by the broadcaster. This is something readily available in other applications. At the time of writing this I assumed the hardware portion was just an option to record to.
In any case, not a big deal just would have been nice.
Going to emphasize something you may have missed in your highlighting…
“RECORD free broadcast TV channels” Emphasis is on RECORD. This doesn’t imply streaming live TV, but that you are going to record it for later streaming.
And in either case, it’s going to require some sort of hardware to take the OTA broadcast or cable signal and write it to your media storage. All you get with Plex is a software interface. Still a long way from a full solution, but getting closer.
I did not miss it. The ‘and’ would imply an addition of something. So another feature ie you can record tv AND you can watch live tv. My point was more that there is no mention of requiring hardware which makes it suggest that buying plexpass enables you to record which in reality it does no such thing. It just unlocks 1 portion of that feature. The main portion being the requirement of an external hardware appliance/tv tuner…etc which is completely omitted from that page. The ability to record live TV via an external TV tuner has always been possible and does not require Plex at all. The TV tuner is likely to include its own software. Simply drop your recorded files into a folder that Plex can see and viola you can share them to all your devices.
Anyway this topic has been exhausted. Thanks all for your input.
I personally like to research anything that I intend to purchase. Just saying.
Anyway, If you were to buy a network tuner be it OTA (over the air) or CC (cable card) I can tell you that you can both record and watch Live tv through plex. Not to mention that the rental costs (5-10$ per device/mo), DVR capability (often billed with HD service at 19.99/mo) cost and HD service costs are negated which decreases your cable bill a lot. OTA obvisiously free after hardware.
So great benefits and an alternative to absolute cord cutting (which implies you intend on becoming a hermit).
Curious if one did not want to “cut the cord” is it possible to hook up paid digital service (example my existing TV hooks up via ethernet to tv box) or does it have to be Free OTA? And change channels…etc.
