I was wondering if I can start a recording of a program and watch it at the same time?
Yes, once the program is recording, you have to find it in the guide and use the play icon. You then get asked if you want to watch from the beginning or watch live.
Yeah, I know, not even remotely intuitive. Users have been telling plex for years that you should be able to start playback for a live recording from the DVR Schedule screen.
Beware, though, playback for a live recording has traditionally been the most glitchy part of Plex. There have been a parade of revolving problems on pretty much all of the clients – from playback not starting, “start from beginning” goes live instead (which can definitely ruin a sports event that you’ve been looking forward to) to the player freaking out and freezing if you try to skip through a commercial.
So, good luck. I hope you only paid for one month. My guess is that you’re going to be pretty disgusted by the end of that month. I gave up on plex long ago (even though I have lifetime pass).
Well, you hit the nail on the head (almost). My wife and I are deciding if we want to drop Fubo.TV. So tonight was a test run on that one when NASCAR came on. We knew we could tape it, but when we were awake, we decided to the DVR and look for it; it wasn’t on the HHD. Then we found and the little message box came up as you described. We clicked on “live” to avoid messing up the recording. We got through the whole thing without any problems. So mind if I ask what you’re using now? Maybe keep that in the back of my mind.
Thanks
I use NextPVR as my DVR/Scheduler and Jellyfin as my library server/manager on my PC and for playback on various devices. I have NextPVR record into my Jellyfin libraries. NextPVR runs on Windows and I have Hauppauge QuadHD tuner card (PCIe) in my PC. NextPVR is also supposed to work well with HDHomeRun tuners. NextPVR and Jellyfin are both completely free. You do need to get an EPG for the DVR and the best solution is Schedules Direct for $25 a year.
Jellyfin doesn’t support as many different types of devices. But most of the common ones are covered (Android, AndroidTV, FireTV, Roku, Windows, etc). Even covers some smart TVs.
Jellyfin is maintained by volunteers. So they have limited time. On the other hand, they’re very motivated to keep things working properly because they use it themselves. On the whole, their releases are far more solid than Plex’s releases and they address major bugs incredibly faster than Plex ever has.
Also, NextPVR has all the scheduling features that Plex lacks. You can record by time/channel when that’s most convenient. You can record duplicates when you need/want to – that’s a cardinal sin in plex and is absolutely forbidden. It has keyword recording - say you want to record all programs with nascar, “track and field”, “speedskating” in the title.
You can also have multiple recording rules for a tv series. You can, for example have a series rule to record all new episodes and then also record individual episodes (old or new) that you want for some reason. You can cancel an individual episode without having to cancel the whole series – one of the more idiotic things in Plex.
NextPVR is also maintained by a single guy as a hobby. He’s appears very motivated and competent and addresses problems incredibly quickly (sometimes within hours).
Anyway, I think you probably get it now … I like NextPVR and Jellyfin and I’ve been thoroughly disgusted by Plex. You can’t even report bugs to them. This forum is the only way and it’s a incredibly useless method of reporting bugs because you can never get their attention.
Okay, I got the NextPVR up and running. Took a little time to find the program. Now the real headache is the EPG guide. Where do I find that?
Thanks
Dan
Alternatively, if you have a source for an xmltv epg file, you can use that instead. I used a tool called zap2xml to generate my xmltv epg for about 2 years. But the tool wasn’t maintained anymore and it was starting to have issues with changes that the zap2it site was making. In the end, I decided that $25 a year for schedules direct was worth it because NextPVR supports its use directly. Schedules Direct has a 7 day free trial if want to try it out in NextPVR. SchedulesDirect.org
Edit: Just noticed that the SchedulesDirect price will be going up to $35. The price has been $25 for 12 years.
