A Roku TV does but straight from RokuDale: MPEG2 is not supported on external STBs.
Yes, not officially, but they do decode it.
And thatâs a fair point on not asking for it as itâs not official. Maybe Iâll try my luck with Roku directly instead. 
As long as its officially unsupported, there is no point in telling Plex and people that it works. YMMV and that causes confusion for other people.
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Ya, that was my understand about MPEG2 support as well but above others were suggesting that is not true. I see youâre a moderator but are you also speaking for the PLEX development staff on this?
Beyond that, YoutubTV obviously has to transcode the MPEG2 to stream it to me so it tells me the problem is in the process. They both use the same ROKU.
I did a lot of digging and there are many indicators that the transcoding process implemented by PLEX is far less than optimal with a lot of room for improvement. Iâd like someone from PLEX to chime in. AND I donât want to hear the YoutubeTV has bigger servers and thatâs why itâs better. My Haswell is not working at 100% so there is still resource available and a single MPEG2 stream ought to be able to be properly transcoded on an i7-4770. If it canât tell me what processor/memory/whatever is needed but donât tell me if youâre not sure 
Have you tried âmaking your CPU hurt?â
YES and all data limit settings are at max.
Hmm, then I have no idea. Honestly, you may want to look into a device that can play OTA streams directly. I know thatâs a terrible answer, but it may be the only think that will make you happy.
I noted all the broadcast formats in one of my first posts in this thread. I get all that.
Youâll notice that my post tonight is about an ABC broadcast (720P) and it is noticeably worse than the ABC broadcast via YoutubeTV.
Please see posts about PQ via YoutubeTV. What will make me happy is for PLEX to improve their transcoding. It obviously can be done because YoutubeTV has to do it as well.
Just wanted to make sure you saw my response above after all the side chatter. Please review. As a moderator do you speak for the development staff or can you pull someone in? These are key questions for a paid feature that a lot of people want answers for.
You are correct. I am not a PLEX dev but rather just a forum mod. However, I work in the industry for one of the larger firms and this subject matter is one of my areas of expertise.
Yes YT needs to transcode itâbut you also assume they are getting MPEG2 feeds. They could be receiving raw feeds that they then encode to H264. Or they are simply using commercial grade equipment to transcode the feed resulting in superior results compared to what Plex can do with commodity hardware.
I donât disagree with your statement. I avoid using the Plex transcoder at all cost for my viewing pleasure.
I wouldnât say bigger; just more complex and better designed with non-commodity equipment.
I donât think you can fix this by changing HW on the server. When it comes to Plex and your specific issue, the path of least resistance is changing out the client device. The one that will Direct Play all content for you is the Shield.
Also, do we know if YouTube TV is using HEVC or not?
I believe YT TV is VP9
Oh, right! I think thatâs what they use for YouTube in general. Makes sense.
Actually the path of least resistance is for PLEX to improve their transcode. Can you get someone from the dev community into this thread?
BTW, I worked for a large multi-billion dollar silicon company in sales and marketing 
For a number of years I support the oil and gas vertical and their processing of real time data and
graphics demands are very high
I have pinged them but I have no control whether or not they will respond to this thread.
I do R&D engineering in this subject matter and what you are talking about is a different beast. You wanted to know what I think you should do and if there is any HW that you can change out on the server. Changing from a Haswell to a Kaby Lake would cost you more than the Shield ($199 on Amazon), yet would likely provide zero net gains for you.
Why not consider changing out one of your client players? It is the least aggravating solution with the least amount of time and currency invested. Thatâs why I mentioned âits the path of least resistance.â I donât have any other recommendations that will help you as you have already stated the obviousâPlexâs transcoder is deficient. Its best to step around it if you are not happy with its PQ. You are free to wait for a dev to comment here but there is no guarantee code will be updated to resolve your issue anytime soon.
Again for instant resolution, the Shield is the answer.
Ya, Iâve got a Kaby Lake build. I think the QuickSync handles H.265 where the Haswell doesnât. Sorry, been retired for more than 2 years so I donât stay current anymore Donât think H.265 is of any help with PLEX. That said, I really donât want to âpolluteâ my desktop with PLEX
And I apologize, I knew what you meant. PLEX frustrates me with all the effort they spend on very low use things like VR, ⊠and then leave the highest market penetration device like the ROKU without a basic grid guide. Had they at least advertised their release plans I would have gone another direction. NEVER in a million years when I dropped DTV last March and set up PLEX did I think theyâd ignore the ROKU. Bad call on my part I guess, too used to making sound business decisions to grow my footprint. It seems PLEX is positioning themselves feature wise in hopes of someone buying them more than independently growing to succeed. It happens all the time.
Do you know if the PLEX client for windows 10 handles a direct stream? Iâve got a couple 2nd gen core laptops around here with HDMI out ports.
PMP for Windows will only Direct Stream or Transcode LiveTVâwhich is just a remux from mpegts to mkv. It can not Direct Play LiveTV. However I experience constant buffering. YMMV.
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I tried to play the HDHR OTA channels on my Roku Streaming Stick+ and I am getting a codec error on the Roku Media Player app. It can see my channels and my favorites, but no dice on playing the channels. Is there any other config I need to do to make this work?
Add me to the list of people who have a terrible Live TV and DVR experience on a powerful computer and Roku client devices. Recordings often bail out before the show is done, and artifacts are all over the place in my recordings. Been this way since day one of using this feature (~7 months). We have 5 Rokuâs at home, so this is a big deal for me.
