Several questions on Plex DVR.

General Discussions Plex Features
1

A lot of questions and i did a bit of googling before asking these and checked FAQ as sticky said. If you need more details (screen shots/settings/sample recordings) please let me know and i can add them.

A)I have xfinity Preferred+ cable. The quality seems lower than DTV for some reason (higher compression aka lowwe bit rate?). I can post a dropbox link to some recorded college football games for an example if needed. I check the same station I.E. ESPN college football and Fox News. Both are 720p on DTV and xfinity but in plex it seems lower quality. Is there a reason like some setting in the recording process I can change?

I did google a bit and supposedly cable and directTV should be same quality.

Also from what I have seen on homerunHD forums from googling, pretty much all TV is 720p vs 1080?

B)What settings should I do to max out quality of recorded TV? Quality matters most to me. I have ATM 6TB dedicated to this and I can always add more.

C)I have transcoding enabled while it records.
1)Should I do that?
2)If my CPU maxes out when its transcoding while recording, does it just buffer and finish transcoding once show is over and plays catch up or does it reduce transcoding quality on the fly?
-My CPU even at 4.2 GHz 6 core maxes when 3 shows records and I care more about quality than anything else.
-I do eventually plan on getting a 16 core thread ripper in the upcoming refresh.

D)Does plex player not support deinterlacing? My mom watches a ton of old shows (perry mason, matlock, murder she wrote, ect) and the lack of deinterlacing is awful looking. I can’t expect to teach her how to watch videos on MPC 64 bit and that defeats the purpose of plex :confused:

E) I have several episodes of Diagnosis Murder that says transcoding error. What does that mean and where can i find more details on what went wrong?

F)I have selected record new and repeat airings. What exactly happens with that?
-Does it record the same episode over and over?
-how does that work with old shows like the ones above…everything is a rerun.

Fb) Should i trust the replace lower res videos with higher res? Or am I playing with fire? I can manually do it but…I am lazy after all lol.

G)Why does live play option vanish and only record option shows?
-is that do to it recording already 3 shows? I don’t think thats the reason because it has happened before when it seemed like nothing was recording. I’ll keep looking into this but wasn’t sure if someone already knew why.

H)How can I just flip channels?
If i want to just live watch or see whats coming up in the next 24 hours on channel 666…how do I do that in plex player?

I)If i delete a show in a folder through windows explorer…how does Plex react? Does it glitch out and show an error? Does it think a show still exists? Or does it just assume it was deleted and deletes all meta?
-Where does plex store show meta data? In video file? Plex master file? Just gathers it from online program guide?
-What happens If i move a folder/library via windows and or plex? I might need to reorganize my library and folder options.
–If I want to change where I have shows being recorded and saved to a different HDD and/or folder how do I do that? Can I simply move the folders and change the info in my library and will plex understand?

J)Is 2x3TB 7200RPM hardrives fast enough for 3-6 DVR recordings?

K)If i add 1 or 3 more DVRs (2-3 DVRs) How does plex manage that? Does it properly load balance recordings over all the DVRs so there is not a conflict or do I have to manually control plex recording between 2-3 boxes?

DVR
HomeRunHD Prime

System specs:
-4.2GHz 1650v3
-64GB of ECC DDR4 RAM
-480GB Sandisk Extreme Pro for OS
-SnapRAID
All HDD 7200RPM
5x6TB Parity
7x(2x3TB RAID0) data
2x6TB data drives
-Plex is on a 2x3TB RAID 0
-10GbE Intel NIC (WIP still on 1GbE)
-980TI (will be switched to 750TI once desktop is fixed)
-Win7 64 OS
-Norco 4224 case
-EK Predator 360 cooler
-LG BD drive
-EVGA 850P2
-Tripplite 240v UPS

2

@HopelesslyFaithful said:
A lot of questions and i did a bit of googling before asking these and checked FAQ as sticky said. If you need more details (screen shots/settings/sample recordings) please let me know and i can add them.

A)I have xfinity Preferred+ cable. The quality seems lower than DTV for some reason (higher compression aka lowwe bit rate?). I can post a dropbox link to some recorded college football games for an example if needed. I check the same station I.E. ESPN college football and Fox News. Both are 720p on DTV and xfinity but in plex it seems lower quality. Is there a reason like some setting in the recording process I can change?

I did google a bit and supposedly cable and directTV should be same quality.

Video from cable is in an uncompressed poorly compressed format usually. Since this format is so large, Plex is forced to transcode to play the video over a network reliably. I’m doubtful this will change because it would have to expect that the tuner is on the same computer as the player.

B)What settings should I do to max out quality of recorded TV? Quality matters most to me. I have ATM 6TB dedicated to this and I can always add more.

Choose the highest bandwidth that you can support. Plex will transcode at a lower amount and the quality will be better

C)I have transcoding enabled while it records.
1)Should I do that?

I do. The quality loss really isn’t that bad in my opinion, and the original format it’s in is really large (I think this is because cable networks haven’t been updated in a while because it would require changing a bunch of TVs)

-My CPU even at 4.2 GHz 6 core maxes when 3 shows records and I care more about quality than anything else.

If you care more about quality, then don’t transcode. But you could always try transcoding and see if the difference is big enough for you to care. (since the space savings will be large)

E) I have several episodes of Diagnosis Murder that says transcoding error. What does that mean and where can i find more details on what went wrong?

The logs should include information on that. You can either find them in your appdata folder, or you can download them directly from the Plex server.

F)I have selected record new and repeat airings. What exactly happens with that?

It records all episodes for this series. It doesn’t record the same episode multiple times. If it’s set on new airings only, it will only record new releases (but not older episodes)

Fb) Should i trust the replace lower res videos with higher res? Or am I playing with fire? I can manually do it but…I am lazy after all lol.

I haven’t tried using this

H)How can I just flip channels?
If i want to just live watch or see whats coming up in the next 24 hours on channel 666…how do I do that in plex player?

I)If i delete a show in a folder through windows explorer…how does Plex react? Does it glitch out and show an error? Does it think a show still exists? Or does it just assume it was deleted and deletes all meta?

If you click scan, it’ll fix it and delete it from Plex correctly.

-Where does plex store show meta data? In video file? Plex master file? Just gathers it from online program guide?

In the database, located in your appdata if you’re on Windows

-What happens If i move a folder/library via windows and or plex? I might need to reorganize my library and folder options.

Just rescan and it’ll fix it.

–If I want to change where I have shows being recorded and saved to a different HDD and/or folder how do I do that? Can I simply move the folders and change the info in my library and will plex understand?

Plex gives you the options to specify multiple folders/drives for each category you make. You should be fine to organize your files however you want.

J)Is 2x3TB 7200RPM hardrives fast enough for 3-6 DVR recordings?

That’s a good question… I would think so.

Let’s say that 1 of those writes at 50 MB/s. So using both of them would write at 100 MB/s. A 1080p show’s bitrate is 10 Mbps, so 6 of them would be 60 Mbps. 60 / 8 = 7.5 MB/s. Looks like you’ll be perfectly fine with a single one. But I do wonder if the poorly compressed cable video will be much larger?

K)If i add 1 or 3 more DVRs (2-3 DVRs) How does plex manage that? Does it properly load balance recordings over all the DVRs so there is not a conflict or do I have to manually control plex recording between 2-3 boxes?

I think Plex can handle this, but I’m not sure.

3

@World177 said:

thanks for the great info!

ah awesome I see how you select stations!!! Thanks

BTW The RAID0 is ~350MBps for sequential but with 3 recordings if it doesnt obviously prevent it from writing in a random state its pretty slow :disappointed: I would assume its smart enough to keep 3 recordings in a sequential fashion.

How do I force it to record raw video? I dont see such an option. I dont mind post encoding it with a very slow but high quality encode.
Thoughts? According to below the background transcoder setting has nothing to do with live streaming or recording.


I am streaming live TV (MTVHD twlight as a test right now) to my phone (S8) with these settings and its super weird ATM. It plays normally and than pauses and sounds like chipmunks and then plays normal and then chipmunks again :confused:

My CPU is only like 0-25% (for plex transcoder) so what is the issue? I am on wireless AC 468Mbps connection. R7000 router too.

Cell phone is set to original quality.

Cell phone network reader is showing 0-1.5MBps

Testing 720p 4Mbps

CPU is 0-25% (for plex transcoder)

Cellphone shows 300KBps-1.8MBps

and it plays smoothly.

Maybe cellphone can’t handle full quality?

4

How do I record raw video?

If you turn off the transcode option, it should be doing that.

Cell phone network reader is showing 0-1.5MBps

MBps = 8 Mbps.
1.5 * 8 = 12 Mbps

Testing 720p 4Mbps

12 is still more than 4

CPU is 0-25% (for plex transcoder)

Cellphone shows 300KBps-1.8MBps

1.8 MB * 8 = 2.4-14 Mbps.

If you up the quality on the phone, the quality might increase some more. It might be that the network reader isn’t very accurate or something

Edit:I looked up the average bit rate for 720p MPEG-2 and it shows 2-9 Mbps

Edit 2: Yeah, if it’s pausing a lot, then it would seem that it can’t transfer the data fast enough

5

I just did some tests on my phone. The channel that I played is considered HD

4 Mbps

20 Mbps

Edit: I can’t really tell a difference. But my quality generally is better whenever I set the data limits higher on the client. Plex doesn’t seem to be auto increasing the quality on live tv.

It might also be that the quality isn’t as good as another tuner because the client being used can’t direct play MPEG-2, so it transcodes to H264 anyway

6

@World177 said:

How do I record raw video?

If you turn off the transcode option, it should be doing that.

Cell phone network reader is showing 0-1.5MBps

MBps = 8 Mbps.
1.5 * 8 = 12 Mbps

Testing 720p 4Mbps

12 is still more than 4

CPU is 0-25% (for plex transcoder)

Cellphone shows 300KBps-1.8MBps

1.8 MB * 8 = 2.4-14 Mbps.

If you up the quality on the phone, the quality might increase some more. It might be that the network reader isn’t very accurate or something

Edit:I looked up the average bit rate for 720p MPEG-2 and it shows 2-9 Mbps

Edit 2: Yeah, if it’s pausing a lot, then it would seem that it can’t transfer the data fast enough

i know the difference from Mbps and MBps It obviously is burst traffic. The point was overall more data was coming across on the 4Mbps stream because it wasnt freezing. Not sure why it was freezing though.

It shouldn’t be a transferring issue. I pull full 180Mbps/25Mbps on wifi through the internet on my cellphone let alone LAN transfers. I have seen 14MBps + download speeds on my cell on wifi.

Not sure why streaming original is stalling. I have streamed recorded media at max settings without issue but live streaming is freezing and playing chipmunk audio (fast forwarded audio)

Also the original and 720p 4Mbps was via phone settings not server side.

7

@World177 said:
I just did some tests on my phone. The channel that I played is considered HD

It might also be that the quality isn’t as good as another tuner because the client being used can’t direct play MPEG-2, so it transcodes to H264 anyway

not sure what client cant run mpeg-2 lol That is an old codec so everything should support it.

Also i can tell the last one has slightly less compression artifacts around the logo but not a major difference. I am unsure though your setting change had anything to do with that though (see below about 20mbps setting). It could just be a single frame that was cleaner.

When i streamed twilight movie there was a notable difference in quality between original and 4Mbps stream. But the better quality isn’t useful if it doesnt play right ahha.

But i am mainly concerned about recording and those being full quality.

So in the DVR menu if i leave the transcoding off it records raw? Want to make sure you mean that transcoding option and not one in some other menu.

Also the 20Mbps refers to internet according to the description so that shouldn’t affect network streaming right?

Is there a network vs internet streaming option? or is the internet option also covers network streaming?

8

Your first pic, where the 20Mbps you are referring to is under the “web tab” any changes on this tab only apply to that one instance of the web browser/player… not the server in full.
In other words if you opened that same page in another browser the settings would not transfer over nor apply to anyone else’s browser/client.
Each client has its own settings regarding quality.

yes transcoder off means it will record the raw ts stream.

Most clients these days are considered streaming devices and as so they would not need the deinterlacing as everything is formatted to h264 not mpeg2.(This was the thought at least)

9

@SiscoPlex said:
Your first pic, where the 20Mbps you are referring to is under the “web tab” any changes on this tab only apply to that one instance of the web browser/player… not the server in full.
In other words if you opened that same page in another browser the settings would not transfer over nor apply to anyone else’s browser/client.
Each client has its own settings regarding quality.

yes transcoder off means it will record the raw ts stream.

Most clients these days are considered streaming devices and as so they would not need the deinterlacing as everything is formatted to h264 not mpeg2.(This was the thought at least)

matlock recording is interlaced and plays with interlaced artifacts in plex but in MPC it is automatically deinterlaced

feel free and download it add it to your library and test it.
(Uploading and will be done in 4 mins…3:30 pm central)
https://www.dropbox.com/s/z1ye5h1e0vcqpwz/Matlock%20(1986)%20-%20S06E16%20-%20The%20Big%20Payoff.ts?dl=0

Also I turned off transcode DVR so it records raw but now live TV doesnt work. Why?
nevvermind…live TV is now working today but didn’t yesterday…???

10

Other software uses software deinterlacing… like Kodi does to compensate for the client not having a hardware deinterlacer(like TV sets do)
IIRC, The shield is the only external streamer that has hardware deinterlacing as of now.

Right now I do NOT use the plex DVR to record(I use nextPVR still… handles tuners and recordings waaay better)
I only use Plex Live TV when streaming remotely(my phone and my parents on their PC’s with PMP)
Otherwise for Live tv on my LAN I use either HDHomerun app (green one that I purchased years ago and is no longer available…still works with DRM also) or SPMC(Kodi for android fork)

PMP has software deinterlacing and will work also.

With any TV files that I actually keep instead of just deleting after I watched them, I run them through Handbrake and re-encode them to an h264 mp4 so they direct play virtually everywhere and no interlacing.

11

@SiscoPlex said:
Other software uses software deinterlacing… like Kodi does to compensate for the client not having a hardware deinterlacer(like TV sets do)
IIRC, The shield is the only external streamer that has hardware deinterlacing as of now.

Right now I do NOT use the plex DVR to record(I use nextPVR still… handles tuners and recordings waaay better)
I only use Plex Live TV when streaming remotely(my phone and my parents on their PC’s with PMP)
Otherwise for Live tv on my LAN I use either HDHomerun app (green one that I purchased years ago and is no longer available…still works with DRM also) or SPMC(Kodi for android fork)

PMP has software deinterlacing and will work also.

With any TV files that I actually keep instead of just deleting after I watched them, I run them through Handbrake and re-encode them to an h264 mp4 so they direct play virtually everywhere and no interlacing.

If i re-encoded it would be h.264 very slow or h.265 very slow for best quality and size.

Why is next PVR better than plex DVR?

12

Use h264 as h265 still has a way to go yet and most players still have issues with the codec.
The slower the setting the better the quality but the longer it takes.

nextPVR handles the tuners better…
If I am recording NFL on tuner1, I can then watch the same channel on the PC, my kodi applications on all of my firetv boxes, shield etc and still only use the one tuner.

To be clear I use nextPVR to setup my recordings and manage them which then get dumped into a folder that plex monitors.
Live TV I use SPMC(Kodi for android as they have a nextPVR addon) unless remote(Parents, work, on the road) then I use plex to view.
SPMC(Kodi for android) has the ability to schedule recordings straight to the nextPVR application and has a traditional guide.

I view all of my recordings through Plex though… kinda like a DVR.