Problem with Playback of DVR recordings with Plex apps on both LG & Vizo TV

[hahniv]

I just don’t understand how this works. I got spoiled with the Dish Hopper skipping commercials but it only works on NBC & ABC. I’ve had a Plex server running on my network for several years now. It has successfully fed video to the Hopper home media player and the media player built into my LG OLED TV. I got the Plex pass and have just installed a HDHomeRun Extended tuner with the hopes of recording shows on CBS & Fox with the commercial skip function off my OTA antenna to match the hopping on NBC & CBS. If successful maybe get rid of locals on Dish since they are now screwing people by charging extra for local channels. That’s kind of like Directv charging extra for HD. (which is one of several reasons why I left) May have been unique a decade ago but should be considered standard now. Guess you’re lucky they don’t charge extra for color or stereo :-).

My system: Plex server is running on a MacMini OS 10.12.6 (Sierra) Plex server just updated to 1.13.5.5291 so it is the latest. I have the Plex app on a Vizo 4K and a LG OLED 4K TV. The Vizo doesn’t have a native player so it only access the Plex server from the Hopper home media app outside of the Plex app. LG has a built in player. Home network is a wired gig, I ran wires throughout the house, only use Wifi for iPads and iPhones.

Prior to the Plex Pass all movies that I put on server would be processed as .mkv files. Both Hopper and LG players have no problem with that format. Plays with no buffering or hesitation. Same with 4K files on the LG. Hopper didn’t play 4K files but I just recently (last week) upgraded from the Hopper 2 to 3, haven’t tried a 4K file on the 3 yet. In my first day with the HDHomerun tuner the recordings come out in the .ts format which neither player recognized. That’s when I loaded in the Plex apps on both the Vizo and LG TV’s. The app recognized the file format but both TV’s play the file the same way. There is picture and synced sound for about 5 seconds then the picture speeds up and slows down with the sound dropping in and out, out of sync. I optimized the file which turned it into a .mp4 file with the same results. Most testing has been on the LG TV. On the LG TV there are no setting to adjust within the app. Not sure about on the Vizo TV. Going through the app on an iPad and iPhone everything plays back fine which is good but not where I want to watch these files. It’s going to the TV’s that everything is screwed up.

From within the Plex Server in settings I’ve got the HDHomeRun set at High quality (30fps limit) set. I’ve played around with Transcoder quality settings and have it set to Make my CPU hurt. I’ve logged into the HDHomeRun on the network and it’s Default Transcode Profile is set to mobile. I’ve played with that, I move it up to heavy which produces lots of buffering on the live tv which by the way plays fine within the Plex app except when I put the tuner to heavy.

I can take the .ts file and convert it to .mkv which makes all apps and native players happy campers and maybe that’s the only solution. The problem is, I have to convert all the files to .mkv which would rule out kissing local channels good bye on dish because that would be too much work. It would seem that this should work from within the server to the apps. Does anyone have any suggestions as to what I should be doing to get this going?

Thanks, JDC

[hahniv]

Got something working here if anyone is looking for a solution to a similar problem. Turns out that LG can read .ts files but still not a solution because I need both the Hopper and the LG to see files directly and Hopper does not see .ts. Plex doesn’t follow it’s own naming rules for TV shows that it puts in the TV library after a DVR record. When optimized it buries the .mp4 file in multiple layers of folders with incorrect name which if dragged out to the root level will not show up because it is not independently named. Also seems like a no brainer that you should be able to automatically have Plex optimize files, maybe in the future??

Here’s my solution that is working well so far. The program/preference Plane Hazel is watching the MyTV folder. When a .ts file shows up it moves the file to a transcoder folder and deletes the 50 zillion folders it is buried in. The program Smart Converter Pro is watching the transcoder folder, when a file shows up it grabs it, converts to .mkv and deposits it into the library folder MyHopper. Since Plex doesn’t name the DVR recording correctly, if it were put back in the MyTV folder it wouldn’t show up. So I created a video library folder, MyHooper where it will show up without having to be manually renamed.

My only problem with Smart Converter Pro is it doesn’t give you much control over the encoder settings. I’m also playing around with Dropfolder a Adobe Air app that watches a folder to be processed by Handbrake. It would give me more control but you have to setup Arguments which controls the encoding parameters. It’s figuring out what those Arguments are . . . It was abandoned in 2011 and it’s a challenge to install because of certificate problems. I got it installed and am playing around with it. If anyone is working with this please share your knowledge of setting up of arguments with me.

Everything I do is for viewing locally, I don’t need the remote features of the Plex app. There was a time when I was a road warrior that it would have been useful but not now. I need everything to be seen by the built in Hopper media app because the Hopper is distributed to all TVs in the house. Particularly in the morning when several TVs are on watching the same program throughout the house.