Plex DVR - Need More Control

Just setup Live TV and was looking for a way to disable the DVR functionality. I don’t have a lot of space and I am running on a NAS so don’t want to spend much CPU transcoding if I can avoid it. Basically I would like to be able to;

  • Disable DVR capabilities for users
  • Disable DVR functionality all up
  • Control where the DVR Files are stored
  • Control how much space is going to be used for DVR

If some of those features are available, great, please help me find them.

Other than some GUI issues, fantastic product.

Users cannot schedule recordings. Only you as the server admin can do that.

You can and should create a separate library for recording.
This allows you then to disable access of users to it, so they cannot even see and play back the recordings.
With it comes the ability to control where the recordings are stored, since you decide, which folder(s) get connected to the DVR-library.

Only missing feature from your wish-list is the storage quota for recordings.

can you point me to some instructions to set this up? Took a look at the web interface and couldn’t figure it out…

Create a separate library
Point it to a separate folder, which is not included in any other plex library.
You need to keep a few GBs available for the ‘pause live tv’ feature.
https://support.plex.tv/articles/200288926-creating-libraries/

Set up the DVR feature
https://support.plex.tv/articles/225877347-live-tv-dvr/

Setting up recordings. Here is where you decide which library and which folder is used to store the recordings:
https://support.plex.tv/articles/226074728-setting-up-recordings/

Disable access to live TV
https://support.plex.tv/articles/204232573-restricting-the-shares/

Restrict access of users to a particular library

https://support.plex.tv/articles/204234313-example-plex-home-setup/

1 Like

I believe this is related to the thread subject, so hopefully I’m not hi-jacking this thread.

I actually want the opposite…
I only want the DVR function and want to disable Live TV.

Is this possible? I haven’t looked into the settings yet, as I would like to know that this is possible before purchasing the necessary hardware for setting this up.

I have my main admin user, two “Managed Users” on my local network and one “Friend” via remote access.
With the correct library setup as suggested above, can all of these users have access to the playback of the DVR and have the Live TV disabled?

Thanks.

  • ‘Friend’ users don’t have access to live TV in general.
  • Plex Home/Managed users must explicitly be granted the privilege of Live TV. See above.
  • the admin/server owner always has access to all and everything. It cannot be restricted.
  • watching live tv requires transcoding on the server. You can only use it if your server is able to do that fast enough.
1 Like

Thanks for the clear answers OttoKerner!
I had started to reply before you posted those above links.

Thank you very much, will take a look and get it setup.

This topic was automatically closed 90 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.