A question about Live TV & DVR which I recently added to my Plex Server using a HDHomeRun.
Any device that is connected to my server can see “Live TV & DVR” which makes sense, but my kids each have their own servers and I put them in my “Users & Sharing” list.
Is there a way that they can get to my Live TV & DVR?
Thanks,
Jed
Disclaimer: Sorry for all the “shoulds”. I’ve only done this with Live TV & DVR for managed users that I have created in my Home under my single Plex account, and it works for them. I have read it is SUPPOSED to work the same when you invite another Plex account into your Home, but I have no direct experience with that scenario.
Since they have their own servers, I’m assuming that they have their own Plex accounts? (As opposed to being a managed user under your Plex account.) If so then you SHOULD be able to let them watch your Live TV & DVR by going to Plex Web, then click on your account icon in the upper right, then “Users and Sharing”, and “Invite Home User” and put in their Plex account email. My understanding is that this generates an email to them and there is an accept process.
Once they are in your Home then you should be able to grant them access to your Live TV & DVR by selecting their user, click the “Restrictions” tab, and make sure “Allow Live TV & DVR access” is selected.
Note that when inviting other Plex accounts into your Home, as a security measure Plex recommends that you only do this if they live in the same home and share devices.
OK, thanks.
They both do have their own servers.
I wonder what the security issue is? Neither of them are living with us right now. (school, etc).
That’s the whole point of sharing with them, they’re both away from home and this is an easy way for them to continue watching their shows.
I used to have them both on my server, but my server kept crapping out when they were connected, so I did it this way with the sharing thing and it seems to work better.
I’ll take a lot again at my own Plex server.
I don’t remember seeing “Invite Home User”, so i"ll look for that.
Thanks again,
Jed K
I believe only the owner can access LiveTV as it’s not an option to share to your normal users. The workaround is to add them to your home account which also would grant them access to admin privileges. Keep in mind that sharing live TV streams over the internet is not ideal because:
The combined challenges will result with a combination of long delays or pauses in playback, dropped connections, or stuttering.
There may be an external solution (non Plex) for live tv.
That being said, I have not tried Channels but have heard good things about it for LiveTV and TV Everywhere. I have also read in the forums of users working around Locast2Plex to access content out of their region using Plex. As a clutch solution that requires some knowledge, you might be able to set up an instance of XTeve that is setup to allow for external access to share across the internet. EPG set up could use something like zap2xml to build an EPG.
Please keep updates to your progress in this thread. Thanks.
That’s good information.
I am renting this cable card just for them. Seems like a waste now.
I do have a Slingbox, but that’s not that great either.
I have 1GB FIOS, so bandwidth is pretty good.
I still have my cable boxes. They’re way better than HDHomerun or Plex DVR via my Roku. That was also a bit of a disappointment.
Thanks again for the info,
Jed
If you access the HDHR directly, I bet you’d be happier with the results on your local network. One of the easiest tests would be to use VLC > UPnP to access the stream from your HDHR. It is rendering the direct stream from the device while viewing in Plex will do a transcode.
Keep in mind it’s the challenge of converting an MPEG2 stream to something more internet stream friendly.
If you can capture the stream, convert to SD, you theoretically should be able to stream with less of a performance issue. This is where I believe Xteve shines, but requires a lot of knowledge based upon your configuration to set up. For example to get the best performance, setting up ram disk as transcode space. It’s a bit of work because its complex, Then figuring out your hardware set up to build a FFMpeg command that optimizes performance. If you are on a Mac, it’s different.
It’s possible, but not easy. I have a OTA setup running an HDHR with 3 (sometimes 4) virtual tuners with a custom EPG. It works, but took weeks to set up and experiment. Also had a lot of time on my hands because of lock down. There is a solution, it’s just not easy and may not be HQ to your external users.
OK, that’s a bit too much work 
Going VLC > UPnP is fine if I want to watch TV on a computer.
My TV does have DLNA built in, so maybe I can access the HDHR from there?
But, again, the point of this was to give my kids access to my cable system.
(Less those protect channels 
like HBO)
Thanks again,
Jed
Doesn’t hurt to experiment. You could do port forwarding from your device and have your kids test.
This topic was automatically closed 90 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.
