@colinoice said:
The IceTV one is now available. Go to PLEX Setup - IceTV set up as a user and try a free 1 month. The need to cut and paste and so forth will improve as will incremental guide updates to pick up the multiple late changes that our Australian Networks frustratingly continue to do on a daily basis, and sometimes not until late in the day.
I’m trialling IceTV Guide atm but it is galling paying for a Plex Pass and Ice Guide as well. While Ice Guide is light years better, I still have issues with Australian TV shows not having correct matches in TVDB - Heck I couldnt even get American Football (listed as NFL) to match up! :o
PS. there’s no good reason Gracenote cant supply quality EPG data to Plex, they’ve been doing it for TiVo in Aus/Nz for 10 freakin years! (About to end in 6 months tho)
I have an HD Homerun connect and thought I would give the DVR functionality a go but I cannot get any EPG thats worth anything. If I use Freeview I don’t get any of the HD channels - is that by intent? I am in Sydney. Also, I don’t see Gracenote as an option.
@Dafod said:
I have an HD Homerun connect and thought I would give the DVR functionality a go but I cannot get any EPG thats worth anything. If I use Freeview I don’t get any of the HD channels - is that by intent? I am in Sydney. Also, I don’t see Gracenote as an option.
Gracenote supplied EPG is the built-in option. To get anything other than gracenote you have to manually add it via pointint Plex at an XML file.
What you’re experiencing is correct - the HD channels don’t get assigned to any channel, which is quite frustrating. Even though they’re largely mirrors of standard channels, they do vary often enough for me not to want to just select the HD version as the main channel. I’ll confirm tonight if that’s replicated in other apps using Gracenote (I need to be at home to do so).
The other EPG option Plex should consider if it is serious about having Australian DVR customers, is ice TV guide, they already support Plex and the data quality is excellent!
I’m sure Plex could do a business direct deal with them.
@djos1475 TiVo haven’t always got their data from Gracenote, they’ve traditionally got it from HWW (who were acquired by Gracenote a little while back). From my understanding Gracenote are treating the HWW data differently, and keeping it separate from the rest of their EPG stuff. It also works differently from a technical point of view from my understanding, so it would be additional cost, development work and so on to bring in the higher quality HWW data. Now, I can’t speak as to what Plex, Inc. will, or won’t, do, however they are all factors that need to be considered. It’s not a simple flick of the switch or anything like that. I can also assure you that Plex has spoken to Gracenote about the quality of the Australian data, and that’s something that’s still ongoing.
I’ve personally switched over to using IceTV, which I’ve found to be a lot better (and IceTV have discussed having a reduced rate for Plex users, so it’s not $7.99 a month, but something less). There is still some work ongoing with that to improve the posters and other metadata when using that, but it’s available to try if you’re curious (feel free to DM me for details).
@djos1475 Having personally seen the data, and worked with the Gracenote APIs to pull data out before, I can assure you that they are different, and are in different products from Gracenote. Gracenote pull data from people like Foxtel, Fetch TV, Optus, and directly from Freeview (I know HWW supplies data to some of these, however, they also augment it). The data used in HWW is indeed different, and formatted differently too.
Dave, the Freeview guide is also a HWW product, they are the aggregator for all the TV stations. The formatting is irrelevant, all the stations provide their data to HWW and they then disseminate it to everyone else including Foxtel etc.
@djos1475 I don’t disagree with you on how things work in Australia. However, what I’m trying to explain is that Gracenote has two distinct products they offer. There’s a raw HWW feed, and there’s the data they get from Foxtel, Freeview, etc., which has been sourced from HWW, then given back to Gracenote. The HWW feed is marketed completely differently to the “normal” onConnect/eyeq feeds (whether it’s onConnect or eyeq depends on the region). They’re owned by the same company but marketed and sold differently.
I don’t know how much clearer I can be on this. I’ve seen data from both the eyeq and hww feeds, and I can vouch for them being different, and sold and marketed separately.
So what you are saying is, Gracenote are knowingly selling one product which is fit for purpose and one that is useless and not fit for purpose.
Still doesn’t nullify my point that Plex need to tell Gracenote to give them useful and accurate guide data. After all they are paying for a product that should be fit for purpose.
@djos1475 There are two different products, and Plex certainly have been telling Gracenote to give them better data, but they need to wait on Gracenote making changes and providing that data.
@colinoice I remember seeing that article when it came out last year. I used to either use IceTV, or write a script to cycle through every channel at about 4am. I prefer IceTV for the simplicity
With the demise of my beloved TiVo here in Australia by October I decide to jump ship and prepare for the future.
Instead of buying a Fetch TV set top box, with its free lifetime EPG and very high WAF I went down the HDHOMERUN , Plex DVR , channels App on ATV4 route. Sadly it seems that was a poor decision.
While the channels app is FANTASTIC for live TV viewing, Plex DVR is very much still a work in progress (hence beta). No live Tv, no recording via the client interfaces (this is BIG! You can’t expect other members of the household to figure out how to do it via Web interface…it MUST come to the clients), fairly poor quality EPG and my first recording was a glitchy mess (audio playing but frozen picture for the first 5+ seconds.
Hopefully progress will be made quickly but compare it to the Channels ATV app development and they’re light years different. The devs there are SUPER responsive and have made massive progress in less than 12mths…from nothing to a superb app and now DVR in beta.
@jayz78 I’d urge you to give the IceTV guide a shot, and work with us on this.
Live TV is something that’s definitely of interest to Plex, so it’s not been forgotten about. As for clients, I’d imagine that some kind of DVR support will roll out, but I don’t know any specifics or timelines (I’m just guessing here, I don’t have any insight on this beyond a typical user).
As for your recording not working, if you could provide logs, or any kind of information about your location and setup, what you were trying to record, etc. it would be very useful.
@jayz78 said:
my first recording was a glitchy mess (audio playing but frozen picture for the first 5+ seconds.
Personally I’ve found turning transcoding on cleans up the video a lot in regards to smoothing the interlacing. The only times I’ve had issues with video quality and it being glitchy is when these issues with my antenna signal, in which cases those channels see the exact same problems in other apps such as the Channels app at about the same time.
The transcoding is experimental though. If it encounters any odd things in the transmission that the transcoder can’t handle, it might abort. Just something to be aware of
Is there any point us pointing out shows that never showed up in the guide?
I’ve got two shows that definitely aired today, were recorded last week and the two weeks prior, but didn’t get recorded today as they never appeared in the guide nor do they appear any time in the future. Scheduled recording is enabled for them, searching the guide doesn’t find them. I’ve refreshed it, no sign of them.
The main thing I love about PlexDVR is I don’t have to go to the dodgy catch-up apps and go searching for the programs. They just appear once recorded. But now the guide seems to be dropping things it previously listed?
In case there is a point, one show was “InCycle” which was on SBS at 4:30pm (will probably be in the catchup app), the other was the Super Rugby match at 8am on One (won’t be in the catchup app).
