Nvidia Shield - Live Channels and HDHomeRun Apps Work Great, Plex Live TV Not So Much

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I’ve had an Nvidia Shield with an HDHomeRun Connect box, and Plex running for a less than a month now. The Live Channels and HD Homerun apps work extremely well for viewing live TV. However, being able to DVR live TV is the last item I need to check off my list before cancelling cable. I just purchased a one month Plex Pass hoping that it would fill this missing item, but I can’t get it to work correctly. All channels constantly pixelate and freeze when viewing live, whereas the Live Channels and HDHomeRun apps both have no issues using the same channels for hours across various devices (from the Shield itself, a Fire TV, a Roku, and a Windows machine via the web app). I can’t figure out why the Plex Live functionality is failing so noticeably versus the first two apps that I have been using. I also tried using the DVR without any other activity on my network and it failed pretty spectacularly too with constant freezing and audio extremely far off (by minutes) from the video on playback.

I have searched the forums and so far no luck; lots of similar issues, but no solutions that have helped in my case:

I’d really prefer using Plex for everything versus paying for the HDHomeRun DVR yearly subscription. Please help! Thanks in advance!

UPDATE 1:
Found a thread that seems promising

I actually have the same setup with an Ultra 128GB USB set as internal storage, along with an 8TB external drive. I’m going to uninstall the USB drive and see if that fixes it. If it does I’ll try a SanDisk Extreme to see if that is fast enough; assuming that is the issue. From the thread it sounds like it could be a ‘signal to noise’ issue too or some combination of the two.

UPDATE 2:
Removed the SanDisk Ultra and Plex immediately sped up. Added a SanDisk Extreme 128GB USB drive and it slowed it a little, but the performance was way better, than with the Ultra. I have the Shield directly connected to my router and I am still getting live TV weak signal messages. My next move is to simply breakdown and buy a year of the HDHomeRun DVR service and come back to Plex in a year. IMO Plex DVR/Live TV with an NVIDIA Shield is just not a good enough combo for cord cutters at this point in time. Don’t get me wrong, I still plan on streaming already stored media using the Plex server on my Shield. This combo simply didn’t meet my needs for a Live TV and DVR solution that is reliable and easy to use.

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Sorry to hear about the weak signal thing. I can confirm that I am using the shield for live tv with no issues. Unlike you, I have an HDHR Prime so I do use cable and the signal is always 100%. Performance is similar to Channels and HDHR App except for seeking which is a little slower. Another factor here is that my cable provider (comcast/xfinity) feeds the channels to me already in H264 so the stream is much smaller so Plex can handle it with more ease. When you use an antenna everything comes down uncompressed MPEG which results in a HUGE stream. Anyway, if you want please post your long term experience with HDHR App, I am always curious. From using it just for live TV a couple of times, it seems like it is kinda basic in functionality but as long as it works for what you need it to then who cares!

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