Start Watching Recording in Progress from Beginning(Failing)

Live TV & DVR
492

Tested between 2 hours to 2 hours 55 minutes into a 3 hour recorded NFL game this evening, and I had much more successful testing than some others. I gave everything a really hard workout, jumping from client to client, jumping the play from start to finish, clicking around the timeline, etc. The server never flinched, though there is some variance in results across clients.

TL;DR summary
PMP on Linux and Win 10 worked fully as desired and expected for me. The new Plex Player on Win 10 also worked fully as expected. The Roku clients generally worked with some use case failures as noted. I didn’t test Android because I know that is still pending an Android Plex client update before we should expect it to work. I’m quite happy with the progress on this for my setup at this point, and am hopeful that if we submit details of our architecture a pattern will emerge for the issues.

Details of setup and results

Server: 1.16.5.1554 on Linux Mint, connected to router at 1 gigabit.
Tuner: HDHR Extend transcoding at “High Quality (30 fps limit)”, which gives h.264 in a .ts container. Firmware 20190621 on Extend. Connected wired to gigabit router, though Extend only has a 100Mbps port.

Client results:

  1. On Roku TV 7202X, 100Mbps wired (to gigabit router, but TV’s port is 100Mbps) Plex preview client 6.3.14.5837-3b3ccb8ae-Plex Preview:
  • Using Direct Stream: Watch from start works. FF/RW works. Jump to start and jump to live works. Similar to Goellnjh, Watch Live works, but I’m unable to rewind to before I started watching live and jump to start takes me to the point where I started watching live.
  • Using Direct Play: Watch from start has all the same correct behaviors as Direct Stream. Watch live behaves differently - it behaves the same way as if I had selected watch from start.
  1. Same Roku TV 7202x using current public Plex client (6.3.13.5830-82b237149-Plex) on same 7202x Roku
  • Direct Stream: Same behavior as Preview release direct stream.
  • Direct Play: Can’t test, this release crashes the Plex client when trying to direct play live TV.

  1. On a Roku 3 4200x, same versions of the Plex clients as the 7202x, strong 5Ghz wireless connection. Direct stream of video, transcode audio AC3 5.1 to AAC. Exact same results as Direct Stream as the 7202x. I can’t use Direct Play here due to audio limitations of the projector that this Roku is hooked up to, and I’m too lazy right now to hook up the converter I have to break the audio out of the HDMI before the projector to let it direct play.

  2. PMP 2.40.0 on Linux, direct stream: Watch from start and Watch Live work. Really fast, much faster than Roku! When I click on a point in the timeline it plays in 1-2 seconds. Everything just works here. Note: If I click the play arrow on the channel that is being recorded (instead of the play arrow under the show name) it takes me to live without the option to watch from start. I initially thought this was by design, but found that the new Plex Player on Win 10 prompts to allow Watch from Start if this same channel play button is used.

  3. PMP 2.40.0 on Win 10. Direct stream, exact same behavior as PMP 2.40.0 on Linux, including the behavior of the “channel play” button going directly to watch live.

  4. Plex player 1.1.0 on Win 10. Direct stream, exact same behavior as PMP 2.40 on Linux/Win, EXCEPT when I clicked on the play button for the channel that was being recorded, it did prompt me to Watch from Start or Watch Live.