We need the ability to prioritize our tuners. I have a Prime (Cable Card) and Extend (QAM) setup. I can assign all the channels on the Extend to the appropriate channel for my Cable, but Plex always defaults to using the Prime first. The Prime has over 200 channels and the Extend only has 39. I’d much rather it use the Extend first. Not only does this leave me with more available channel options to prevent conflicts, I also get the extends trans-coding. Baring the ability to manually prioritize these, there should at least be logic in place to always use the tuner with the least channels and/or best trans-coding.
I did some more digging and actually came up with a work around. It appears it just picks the tuner in the order it was added to the DVR. Since I have to add the Prime first to map all the Cable Card channels, the Prime is always selected first. Here’s how I got around that.
- Setup the DVR as usual and map everything the way you want.
- Shutdown Plex and make a backup of the database.
- Use an SQLite utility to open the com.plexapp.plugins.library.db file.
- Find the media_provider_resources table
- In this table you should find entries for all of your tuners. Check the uri field to see the IP if you have trouble figuring out which is which.
- In my case my first tuner was record ID 2 and my second was record ID 8. I changed them so that 8 became 2 and 2 became 8. Now when you view them in Plex the Extend is first and appears to be taking priority over the Prime.
Beware, you’re messing around with the main database for Plex so you may screw it up if you don’t know what you’re doing. It’s also handy to read the instructions on database recover for Plex if you have trouble.
Let me make sure I understand this as I’m this week looking to move to Plex DVR/Live TV from another product.
Right now I’ve been using a WinTV DualHD as I’ve been testing Plex DVR/Live TV to make sure it will meet our needs. I’ve been pretty impressed so last week I ordered a re-furbished Extend to get us back up to 4 tuners total. As you indicated, I’d rather the Extend be the “default” recording device so that most stuff can be automatically transcoded and only have the WinTV tuners used in the relatively rare for us conflict or 3 tuners needed for 3 shows starting/ending scenarios.
Although I’m very familiar with SQL it sounds like the easier solution since I’m just starting the transition would be once I receive my Extend to just remove both tuners from Plex and add them back in adding the Extend first, correct?
Then I can just re-add the few shows I had series recording right now and theoretically the Extend should be the primary/default tuner and used unless 3 tuners are needed?
You can try that although I would suggest you delete the DVR and set it back up adding the Extend as the first device added. I used this tool to make the changes to the table:
@Nilex1 said:
@TheSupremeMonkeyAlthough I’m very familiar with SQL it sounds like the easier solution since I’m just starting the transition would be once I receive my Extend to just remove both tuners from Plex and add them back in adding the Extend first, correct?
Then I can just re-add the few shows I had series recording right now and theoretically the Extend should be the primary/default tuner and used unless 3 tuners are needed?
That is exactly what I tried first. In my case it didn’t work only because I have a cable card in my Prime. I have to add the Prime first to have it map all the channels for my cable provider. Then I have to add the Extend and re-map the Extend channels to the same channels as the Prime. Because of this the Extend was always second. I bet if you remove your tuner and DVR and start from scratch in the order you want, you’ll be fine. Also, when I removed my DVR it didn’t loose any of my scheduled recordings, so it shouldn’t be a big deal to just re-set everything up.
Thanks for the additional information!
Well, got the Extend, removed both tuners and added back the Extend first then the USB tuner. Unfortunately looks like that didn’t work.
My only concern with the SQL method is my PMS is running on a Shield TV. Not sure if I can get access to that DB file.
On an ubuntu system I used sqlitebrowser on /usr/lib/plexmediaserver/Resources/com.plexapp.plugins.library.db
Could not find media_resources in the database. Has this changed?
My main tuner is a HDHR Extend. I added an HDHR Connect and now it is the main tuner. wtf?
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@“Richardg1952@gmail.com” said:
On an ubuntu system I used sqlitebrowser on /usr/lib/plexmediaserver/Resources/com.plexapp.plugins.library.db
Could not find media_resources in the database. Has this changed?My main tuner is a HDHR Extend. I added an HDHR Connect and now it is the main tuner. wtf?
I made this manual modification tonight on Ubuntu.
If found the file here:
/var/lib/plexmediaserver/Library/Application Support/Plex Media Server/Plug-in Support/Databases/com.plexapp.plugins.library.db
I had originally added my HDHomeRun DUAL to the DVR. We have been using it for months.
In order to record more shows at once, I purchased an HDHomeRun Connect QUATRO.
The QUATRO is so much faster than the DUAL that I wanted it to be priority. I deleted all the DVR and tuners (as recommended elsewhere) and this did not work.
I finally bumped into this post and it did work. Hopefully it survives upgrades.
We receive 142 channels OTA and it is a pain when we have to re-setup the channel list with just the channels we want each time the DVR is deleted.
This is great. Thanks for the post!
Hi, is there a more solid/simpler way of doing this yet?
I found this post and gave it look. I cant find the tuners listed in the file.
Location for Synology for reference:
Plex\Library\Application Support\Plex Media Server\Plug-in Support\Databases.
This sounded harder than it was.
It does not appear to respect my settings even though the Extend tuner sits on top in the list. It still records from the other tuner first.
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I just noticed that I’m having the same issue now too. My order still looks the way I want it to, but it’s defaulting to my Prime over my Extend everytime. I went in and disabled most of my local channels on the Prime and that forces them to use the Extend, but now if I run into a situation where I want to record three prime time shows on the major networks at the same time, that I will not be able to use the Prime for the third recording. In my case I doubt that will come up often so I’m going to see how it goes. It would be nice if they would let us define a priority for this.
Is there any way to get some traction on this from Plex? Like perhaps converting this discussion into a feature request or something? My Plex server can start to lag (on playback) if it starts recording and transcoding from both of my Connect tuners at the same time, even though there’s two perfectly good tuners on my Extend, just sitting there never getting used. I still want the option to record from the Connect, but I would love for the Extend to take priority first.
Okay, I found the feature request, but it doesn’t have any votes, and maybe could use some more support.
FYI my plex installation seems to prefer the tuner with the higher ID. Not sure what the deal is.
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