I’ve used Plex for years now and it’s getting to the point where liveTV/DVR is back to unusable. Basic features like start from beginning do not work. The DVR was broken a few times these past few releases. We had to suffer through the buffering issues for months and now the app is back to crashing regularly when watching liveTV (not just gong back to the main screen, but actually crashing). Fast forwarding or rewinding a live TV stream is asking for trouble.
LiveTV is the reason why I went to Plex and why I paid my membership. I expect to have a working basic live TV and DVR in 2021. I understand that apps have bugs but this does not pass the laugh test.
I’m looking for alternatives:
I’m using a shield TV and fire TV. Is Plex+Apple TV better for live TV?
Did some of you switch to emby and have a better experience?
any other?
If you want to keep using Plex as your player/library manager, use another DVR software and record into a Plex library folder. I use NextPVR myself. You can watch the ts file while it is recording and it will default to playing from the start – after all, it’s just a normal library file as far as Plex is concerned. If you stop playback, it will remember where you were – something Plex doesn’t do with live recordings. This all works very reliably.
One caveat – the Plex player will think the length of the program is whatever it was when you started playback. Since the file keeps getting longer as it records, Plex can think that it’s reached the end when there’s still lots of show left. I solve that by stopping/restarting periodically so that Plex gets the latest length. I just get in the habit of stopping/restarting whenever a commercial starts.
I don’t pretend that this is an ideal work around. But it gives me a heck of a lot better experience that using Plex DVR does.
Emby’s DVR is rock solid and actually works as advertised, so that’s what I use for a DVR. My only real complaint is it can take about 10 seconds to tune a channel when watching live TV.
Channels DVR is probably the best, but a bit pricy in comparison ($8/month I think) with no option for a lifetime license. I do like the live TV interface a little better than Emby though and it doesn’t have the same 10~ sec delay when tuning channels, so I bought just the live TV app (no DVR) for $25 and can’t say I have any complaints.
Also have never had a consistently good experience with the Live TV & DVR feature.
It even fails to work properly on the PC/web, let alone on any streaming device.
I too purchased plexpass lifetime just for the Live TV & DVR feature, yet this continues to never work when needed.
@elan any chance you can actually comment on ANYTHING related to Live TV & DVR development? From our perspective, Plex as a company is pushing away the people that keep giving you chances.
If you’re looking for Live TV/DVR integrated into your media library manager, I’m pretty impressed with NextPVR as the DVR. It has its own TV/DVR player. But there is also a NextPVR plugin for Jellyfin so that Live TV/DVR stuff appears right on your home screen with the rest of your Jellyfin media library. I believe there is also a NextPVR plugin for Kodi. I haven’t used Kodi but I hear good things about the NextPVR plugin for it. It’s all free.
I agree, unusable at this point and it’s the reason I purchased the Plex-Pass. Soured my whole view of the Plex DVR and it’s time for an alternative. Does NextPVR have a firestick app?
Yes, the AndroidTV/FireTV app seems to be their major focus at the moment. They’re just did their 2nd bug fix release yesterday after a huge update 24 days ago. It’s working great for me on my FireStick Lite (2020) – everything direct plays and DTS/AC3/EAC3 all passthrough perfectly to my receiver (over HDMI). The app is also working perfectly on my two generic android TV boxes.
Jellyfin is currently the perfect media manager solution for my home. But I don’t use clients from outside the home. If you want https connections from outside your home, it looks like it is up to you to configure the security/certificates to make that happen.
Oh, clarification – It’s Jellyfin that has the AndroidTV/FireTV app. The NextPVR stuff appears on the home screen due to the NextPVR plugin for Jellyfin (on the server).
Side question: Is Jellyfin able to play multichannel audio (not the audio in movies but standalone 5.1 FLAC audio files) on android TV? This is another of my pet peeves with Plex.
