Mostly I would tend to agree, but what is interesting is I really like the current going workaround and so does my non-techie wife. Setting a regular video library on the .grab folder is working great and my wife likes it because she doesn’t have to go find the show in the lineup to watch it, it is nice and easy to find on the new sidebar deal. Sometimes workarounds are a better “feature” and in this case it is with me.
I have moved on from Plex Live TV and DVR. I am not sorry that I paid for a Lifetime Plex Pass because at the time I signed up, more than eight years now, it was actually worth it for me. It’s only now that the YouTube videos by paid sponsors and the Plex Social Media outlets are suckering people in with the promise of an easy Live TV and DVR experience only to end up with mostly frustrated customers and a bad reputation. I still use Plex Media Server and it works fine. The Plex forums are a disorganized wasteland and I am doubtful that things will change. I am glad that I got to use Plex when it was at its best and I am excited to see what other options are working now that Plex is what it is now.
I am getting ready to get an Emby Lifetime now that my month is about to expire. Emby is doing a fantastic job with Live TV and DVR.
I hate it when people pull the “as a developer” card because they never know exactly what goes into making a thing… but I’m going to do it anyway. As a developer it worries me a lot that an outstanding bug of this size can hang around for a year and Plex developers be unable to replicate and fix it. It raises lots of questions for me about how Plex is structured internally and what level of integration testing it has.
I’ve stuck with Plex for years but timeshifting is a DVR 101 feature. My annual pass is up for renewal in a few months so I’m going to try Emby and Channels DVR. Both cost more than Plex (Channels twice as much) but I’ll suck it up and pay if I can get better results out of them.
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Why use Channels? Emby does an amazing job of live TV without the need for Channels
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Well, I intend to find that out. At first look the Channels apps look more polished, plus it has integrated ad skipping… everything I can find for Emby involves setting up custom scripts etc. to do it. But to be clear, I’ll be using Emby or Channels, so the question is really whether Channels is worth the extra $$.
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We’ve been using Emby for Live TV and DVR and signed up for a single month just to check it out. We will be getting a Lifetime Subscription at the end of the month. We are so happy with Emby.
Good for you. But, I am still hope that Plex will fix this issue. I don’t want to change Plex. Then, I imagine that I need to be patience.
I have very little faith that Plex will get this fixed, so looking at what my other options are
I have tonight’s NFL preseason game set to record. I know for a fact that I cant use normal watch from start. I will start 1 hr in playing from grab folder and see how it goes. Ive tinkered with this but havent done a real use case test yet. If this doesnt work, next test will be using Kodi with Next PVR.
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I use it every day to watch the news. But, it is only 1h long.
Sez you.
Emby works, yes. I maintain an Emby Subscription 'cause I have hope.
They need about 5 more years development on the UI 'cause it blows.
Goats.
Channels DVR---->MCEBuddy---->Plex
Is far and away, hands down the best option - if you don’t need to watch Live Advertising and if you do, enjoy Emby.
I fully understand. I just couldn’t wait any longer. We were only using Plex Live TV and DVR for all of our TV viewing and it just was too much to deal with. The household is much happier since the change to Emby. Everyone has different experiences and priorities. I keep checking to see if it’s been fixed by Plex since we still use the Media Server and it would be nice to have it all working under one system.
In my case the workaround works. Then, it gives me more time to wait. Besides, I have couple friends who use my plex server. Then, I cannot change neither.
I wanted to try Channels but it is too expensive. $80.00 a year versus $119 Lifetime. I’ll get a Lifetime License with Emby after my one month trial ends.
It’s funny, I send my Emby DVR recordings to Plex Media Server after MCEBuddy finishes with them. 
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It is interesting, but I think the discussion is getting out of the topic. But, thank you for the feedback
just started using channels DVR - Plex had too many issues - the biggest bug is not being able to watch a show while recording
the interface differences are maddening also - the new “uno” interface on the roku is not the same as the uno interface on the shield TV
transport ( fast forward, rewind) also are different and do not operate reliably
I was hoping that Plex would be my DVR - but not really
This isnt new tech guys - the last cable box I had ( Cisco 7150U) did these things and worked flawlessly - a 7 year old set top box with a low end mediatek processor
did the plex team even look at TIVO, Channels DVR or various set top boxes before they put out this dvr functionality
but we do get the opportunity to purchase “TIDAL” , so we have that going for us.
Into the first week of channels DVR free trial and have already make the switch
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So tonight I did a more thorough test of using the .grab folder. I recorded a preseason NFL game and started watching from the grab folder after about 1 hr. It started ok. I was able to FF by commercial breaks no problem. I never tried REW. I was watching the progress bar and it seemed as if I was catching up faster than I should have, When I couldnt FF any longer and had to go to live TV, the game was 3 min into 2nd qtr which I knew was wrong. I went to live TV and there was only 5 sec left in 2nd quarter. I lost basically most of Q2
I started playback over again, FF to where I left off with ~ 12 min left in Q2 and I was then able to FF again with what looked like the correct amount of game time left. I didnt finish the game, but it seems the grab folder method isnt perfect but is usable.
Next time I will test with Kodi with the NextPVR plugin…
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This has become a forum for Emby!
This is disgraceful. @elan is supposed to be the CTO! He has absolutely no credibility left.
THIS USED TO WORK!! Go back and see what you changed. Don’t you guys use source code revision/change control system?
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The issue I had with the .grab workaround is that if I paused my viewing, left the room, then came back after the show was done recording, it was never saved. It was also iffy that I could continue watching from pause.
Long story short: Plex doesn’t actually save the recording to your library when it is open in any player, plex and VLC included.
