I run HD HomeRun Prime to pull in and distribute my cable TV service. I have been doing this with an Intel i3 desktop running Windows 7 and Windows Media Center for 3 years and plays back just fine. But because it will soon be unsupported I purchased Plex Pass subscription in hope of finding a successor to WMC.
I originally installed Plex on the Intel i3/Win7 machine but it could not keep up. Next I installed it on an older Intel 3700 i7 (4 cores) desktop with an SSD drive where it worked better but still not fast enough to prevent some stuttering and buffering. I then tried it on my new Windows 10 Intel NUC sporting the latest 8th Gen Intel Core i7-8705G plus a 1 TB SSD m.2 drive.
With 6 cores I was hoping it would scream and serve up multiple shows across the house but no. Last night I was watching a NatGeo show I recorded and while it did not buffer, the video was jerky (stuttering?). I never had this problem on WMC on the poor old i3 machine. Beginning to think Plex Pass has a way to evolve before it is ready for Prime Time. What am I paying for here - beta software? Please advise.
Do you have transcoding enabled in the DVR settings?
Could you provide some more information about the server, please? If you could provide the version, and some logs from when you’re seeing the issue, that would be really helpful. What client are you using for watching? 
@Plex654 said:
Do you have transcoding enabled in the DVR settings?
Just got a WinTV-DualHD last night. Quick question: Do we WANT to have transcode turned on in Plex DVR settings? I turned it on for the space saving benefits. But if it’s no good, I’ll switch it off.
Unless you can guarantee that all Plex clients in (and out of) the house can direct play MPEG2VIDEO (that’s the compression most likely used by your cable company), you will need a transcoding strategy to get a livable Plex setup. If you want to transcode on the fly (as it is recording) you will need to spec for a system than can transcode 3 streams as the Prime has 3 tuners. To me, it sounds like your new setup should be able to handle that.
As I have said in other threads, I am using a 5 year old core i5 laptop as my plex server and I do all the transcoding (MKV, H264) at night. The machine is usually powerful enough to transcode all of the last day’s recordings during the following night but that also means that some Plex clients can’t playback some recordings until the following day (that’s fine at our house). FYI, I don’t use the Plex transcoder, as it can’t be scheduled, I use MCEBuddy instead.
Two more optimizations: 1) for the ‘main’ TV where we usually watch live TV, I made sure it can direct play MPEG2VIDEO. The Nvidia Shield TV does a good job or you can use the Plex Media Player straight from your Plex Server (depending on proximity). 2) I use different storage to record shows from the storage I use to playback recordings. Everything records to one hard drive and then it gets immediately moved to a storage that is only for playing back content. That makes sure demand for playback does not overwhelm the recording side of the operation. In my case, the laptop’s internal storage is used for recording and a USB hard drive is used for playing back content.
Having said all that, Plex has a long way to go to match the stability of MCE (I used MCE for 5+ years, it was awesome). Live TV is mostly ok unless you want to seek back and forth (it often exits out of whatever you were watching). Also watching something already recording from the beginning is also a hit or miss (mostly miss). Those two largely depend on what Plex client you use but I don’t think there is any client that would make you think that the performance is as good as MCE. Also keep in mind that MCE did not really support place shifting (it kinda did via extenders).
I hope this helps!
This is something I am also curious about… Stability of Plex as a daily DVR (and - more importantly - TV Front-end for the whole family).
I have been “around the block” a few times, and I seem to keep coming back to wanting to use a personal computer DVR (starting with Myth, then SageTV v2). Seems something keeps happening to the companies / software that “did it right”… That mythical single box solution…
I have not yet paid for a Plex Pass. Tho, I have the hardware ready to go (HDHR), if Plex does fit my needs…
