Plex on TiVo Edge, and/or good seeking

Plex Players Smart TVs
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Hi folks, I am thinking about getting a TiVo Edge with a recent promotion they’re holding, but I am not clear on the recent updates about Plex on TiVo. Right now, I use Plex on Roku, and I use an old TiVo for separate recording off the air for DVR. I have always loved TiVo’s seek abilities, which I’ve never been able to replicate in Plex Roku.

So I guess I have two questions: first, can I replicate TiVo-like seek (I mean: being able to watch the video go by at different possible speeds, and then jumping back a bit when I stop seeking) on the Roku? (I’m pretty sure I tried enabling thumbnails and it didn’t work on the Roku.) Then, if not, can I get such seek-like behavior playing my local Plex content through a TiVo Edge?

Thanks in advance!
Steve

Server Version#: 1.24.2
Player Version#: (Roku less than a couple years old?)

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We don’t currently have an app for any Tivo devices. There is not a variable speed video playback option in our app.

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Thanks for the prompt response! Does this include cases where I’m willing to allow an “insecure” local connection back to my Plex server, as this thread suggests?

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To be clear. We often leave apps available even though they are not supported so folks can try if they already have the device, but we make no guarantees the app will be available or work at all, and that app is will no longer updated.

It might work with it allowing insecure connections but again the app might become unexpectedly unavailable or just break with no work around. I highly suggest you not buy a new Tivo if you are relying on Plex being on it and working. As we make updates to server or other backend infrastructure unsupported apps are not considered when testing things.

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Ok thanks that is more clear, and good advice! One final pair of follow-up questions then I think please:

  1. Am I supposed to be able to do “seek” on the Roku Plex for a recent Roku, even if it’s not variable speed? If so, how?
  2. If not, are there any devices with such seeking capability - preferably cheap - that I can use to play content from my Plex server to a dumb TV?

Thanks again,
Steve

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The preview thumbs along scrub bar should be available (assuming you have preview thumbs enabled on server and your server has created them, which will take time to do). but is it not a live FF or RW playback a like VCR

I’ve never personally used a Tivo so not sure how they do it.

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Can you give a better example of what you mean by “seek”? Seek usually implies going directly to a specific timestamp.

Video Preview Thumbnails allow for a “scrub”-lite operation. It’s a small “seek preview”, but it’s manual and isn’t full screen.

If you want to watch at 128x FastForward, and get the TiVo user experience of “jump backwards slightly when exiting turbo playback”, no. (Ahh, TiVo nostalgia.)

Apple devices don’t offer FF at all, only scrub/seek. Roku has a FF preview, but it just jumps through the Video Preview Thumbnails 10s at a time.

I’m not sure about Android-based devices offhand, but I doubt it.

It’s hard technically to do FastForward playback with arbitrary video encoding.

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Ah okay! I guess I meant “scrub”, not “seek”, sorry. So I guess this just isn’t in the cards for now.

But it leaves me wondering: how does TiVo do it? In particular, how have they been able to do it for 20+ years, on way slower hardware etc? Is it custom-build hardware? Intellectual property of theirs ? I think they handle searching through video very well, and I wish Plex could do it too …

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