We can agree to disagree on Plex
I’m Pretty experienced in this area - Ran a Windows Media Center PC using a cablecard for TV for almost 6 years till a opportunity to switch to Fiber Internet and dump comcast presented itself
I ran my tests using a intel based qnap NAS using a Nvidia Shield Client - then installed the plex media server on my I7-6700K desktop and tested again - no improvement.
Your results are pretty atypical but if you are happy - good for you
I’m sorry if I was not clear in my statement. No, I mean before the recording is finished. I can schedule recordings and then start watching them before they finish recording.
I agree that my results are atypical. I was having this issue for a while and now I am not.
Plex has much work to do to get this working for everyone, on all platforms.
But can you reliably and repeatedly time shift within that program once you begin to watch it?
It was “agreed” quite a number of posts back that all the problems with watching liveTV would remain under this narrowly titled thread.
Right wrong or indifferent, that’s what’s been happening.
Time shifting live TV (and it doesn’t have to be an actively recorded show) fails miserably on platforms that supposedly are modeled on the “unified UI” such as the ROKU. It apparently works better on some low volume platforms with differing software like the PC and Shield but I have observed it eventually failing on all platforms, including the PC and others have reported failures on the Shield platform.
There are other issues you can find listed in the 18 months of post preceding this but time shifting is an easy one to test and probably the most agreed as a function of DVR101.
Absolutely! Every single time, with every recording that is in progress. Is it because of my hardware/platforms? My Network? My Router? All of these? Probably so. I really don’t know why it works for me in my environment. I just know that it does work.
And before you say it, no, I am not an employee of Plex. I don’t get paid by them for saying so. This is my real, legitimate experience with the product in my environment. I am probably that proverbial “one in a million”.
It is evident by the continuing posts (albeit most of the negative ones are from you), that other platforms are still broken and Plex need to do more to get it working for everyone.
I totally agree with you. If you can’t do these things, then it’s crap. I just happen to be one of the lucky ones that the DVR works for me.
Plex, if you are listening and care about your customers, you still have much work to do to resolve the DVR issues that are discussed in this thread!
I’m a Plex Pass customer and have been watching this discussion for some time. Here’s my setup:
I’m a sports fan and will record a lot of games with the need to start watching after the game has started. As reported by many in this discussion, it has never worked. Not once. I always set the game to record approximately an hour over to cover potential overtime, etc.
I can start the game from the beginning, but as I begin to fast forward through commercials or intermissions, the timeline reports an incorrect time and then will jump to a random point in the game.
For example, a hockey game that starts at 7:05 will typically have the first period end at about 7:45. During the first commercial break of the game, I will try to fast forward through it and the timeline will read 7:45. I’m still only about 10 minutes into the game with half of the first period still remaining, so It’s not close to being 7:45… If I ignore it and continue to try to fast forward, it will jump me to a point that is much further into the game. Bummer if you’re like me and don’t want to know what happens before you can watch it…
The only way I’ve found to get back on track is to exit out of the game, restart from the beginning and fast forward to where I left off. Then as I watch, if I want to fast forward again, I will again have to exit the game and start over. The trick with this is, if I get to a point in time where the guide would say the game is over, but I’m still recording extra time, I cannot exit the game and start over as I would then have to wait for the recording to finish. Again, bummer…
All that being said, I don’t much care about the personal battles in this discussion, but like many who have reported this functionality to be broken, I can attest that in my experience it is most definitely broken. It’s a little frustrating that whomever is working behind the Plex machine has been silent to this issue.
In my opinion, this type of TV/DVR service should use Windows Media Center as a baseline standard. If Plex can’t provide at least that level of functionality then Plex shouldn’t be in the live TV/DVR arena. Plex is essentially providing it’s paying customers with a buggy, non-functional product.
I too am a sports fan, pretty much I just watch the NFL. Today is the Probowl, which started at 2:00 pm central time. The game is not over yet and I just went into my living room to start watching the game. (Normally I would go to the basement and watch in the home theater and watch with my nVidia Shield.)
The living room has my LG OLED 65" curved TV with WebOS 3 and Plex for LG. I turned on the TV, launched the Plex for LG and started watching the game. I was prompted to watch from the start, which worked. Then when the first commercial came on, I pressed the button on the remote to fast forward. Right away, the “grey box” with the word “buffering” appeared. I waited a bit and the play back resumed, but there were more commercials, so I hit FF again, and again “buffering”. I thought, I can’t watch the game like this.
So…
I exited the Plex app on the LG and switched to my Fire TV 4K dongle. Found the guide, went to the game that is being recorded and pressed Play. Again, I was prompted to watch from the beginning and I clicked that. The game started in the same place that it did on the Plex for LG app.
Now, I didn’t want to watch the first series all over again, so I FF until I got back to where I was in the Plex LG app. Each FF was quick and jumped ahead 30 seconds. No stuttering, no buffering. I have now paused the game to write this post.
4:51PM - Hang on, while I go back into the Living room and see if I can resume playback without any issues…
4:55 PM - Wow, Lamar Jackson picked off in the end zone. Needless to say, I was able to resume watching the game. Note that the first time I pressed play, the screen saver disappeared but playback did not resume. Its like that first press, just woke things up, but the 2nd time I pressed play, the game resumed, right where I left off.
I have not used the Amazon Fire TV 4K dongle for Plex in a long time, but for me the DVR and time shifting on that device is working too.
Oh, and I also set NFL games to record 60 minutes over, just in case the game is tied and goes into over time. I hate that if you stop watching the game and it goes beyond the end time, there is no way to restart watching until the recording is over.
I have paused the game since 4:55 pm. It’s now 5:09 PM and time to get another beer and back to watching the game.
I am truly sorry that this issue remains for all the ROKU users out there.
I needed a good joke! Thanks, you never disappoint!
What is it about the ROKU devices you like so much?
It’s more than just ROKU devices that this doesn’t work on. ROKU is just one of several it does not.
EXACTLY!!! if it’s not better than wmc, then it should not be released!!
That doesn’t answer my question, but it was directed at @Smokindog anyway.
The reason for my question is that my son has a TV with ROKU built in and I personally dislike the interface, I find it clunky and hard to navigate. I have a co-worker that has had ROKU for years and he just raves about it. I was just trying to get an idea of what people find so appealing about the ROKU. Is it the price point? Is the the available content and apps? What exactly it with the ROKU?
And I am aware that it also does not work on other devices, like the ATV4K. Would you like to add any others?
the roku tv interface is horrible compared to the stand-alone devices. My mom-in-law has one, and I about threw the remote at the screen because of the lag between switching apps or just browsing the interface! but the roku price point is pretty good for what you get. My family has roku expresses and a couple have the premiere’s, and they all play everything great for them… Well other than the crappy bugs in plex such as this longstanding issue, and some other dvr issues.
I get the same behavior in the Plex web app as I do in my Roku Ultra.
And the shield will behave the same. They’re ALL broken. Well broken implies they once functioned and that’s just not true 
yep. but the shield gives me better audio support 
Not ALL broken, I just guess I have a special version then. Either that or I’m just an exception to the rule.
Will we ever get resume watching in-progress recordings from where we left off? Currently we can only watch in-progress recording from the Guide and only have option to Watch from Start or Live. Like to know if this ever will be an option in Plex.
I don’t even get this any longer. I used to be able to start watching a recording that had started, and I’d be presented with a “Start from beginning” or “Watch Live” option on my Roku. Seems that has completely gone away now. I’ve tried from all of my Rokus, with none of them working, and the same result on the Web interface and iOS via my iPhone. Not a single one of them bother to ask if I’d like to start watching a recording that had already been started.
I’ve cut the cord with my cable company, thinking that Plex and its DVR functionality would be sufficient for over the air shows, but the inconsistency of behavior is putting me at the end of my rope. I’m seriously considering using something else for my DVR, as the fact this doesn’t work shows a complete lack of interest in the feature from Plex itself. You don’t introduce a feature and not make it work.
Please, give some much needed love to the DVR functionality, playback and ability to actually fast forward/pause/rewind shows in progress. I know this will likely fall on deaf ears, as this thread has been complaining about the same things for a long time now, with virtually no progress (or at least not any that provides customer value and functionality).
