I’ve got an aunt that wants to disconnect from her cable provider. She hears all the time about my current setup, in which I have a Plex server, HDHomeRun, and clients all over the house. She wants to get a DVR setup as well, and might want to be able to view these recordings (possibly on multiple clients). So now I’m trying to think of the lowest-cost highest efficiency setup.
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Doing what the current cable box she has does, is get a stand-alone DVR box. Think a TIVO, but without researching any I think it would be unlikely to have support for multiple TV’s.
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A DVR on the network. HDHomeRun has this capability, recording from the OTA antenna and also serving as a media provider to clients in the house or on TVs. I think I recall reading however that they have a monthly fee for using their device and their players. I am looking for a solution which has no more monthly recurring charges, and I doubt she needs too many other features, like remote view of recordings.
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Plex Lifetime Pass + HDHomeRun DVR. The Plex interface will work nicely (no 3 PM phone calls on how to do such-and-such), and the guide metadata for OTA channels works out of the box without tweaking or costs. A one-time Plex lifetime pass will enable DVR and even remote viewing, if she feels up for it (and internet speed supports it). This is what I got, but since she has no other media, this feels a bit like overkill.
So far, price has not been discussed, but since this doesn’t need to be an aggressively capable setup, I’m looking to avoid more than $500 for everything,.
I’d like input on others here. Am I missing a very effective freeware DVR service (installed on an available 5 year+ old comp she has) that has nice-looking interface, and has clients available for most major TV’s and/or FireTV sticks?
Edit: I’m looking at Jellyfin. Sounds like it might be a great option. Tiny server somewhere (maybe a Synology NAS I got spare), an HDHomeRun, done.
