Watch program before the recording has finished recording

Live TV & DVR
1

Hello,
I am new to Plex and would like to know if when you are recording a TV program can you start watch the program before the recording has finished recording.

2

Can you, yes.
Should you, no. Fee free to try since it depends on the server, client and network. Best case it works, worst case it crashes the recording and you loose all or some of it. Known issue and it is being worked on but may be a while before there is a fix.

3

Honestly, if you just got the plex pass and this is important to you, my recommendation would be to ask for your money back and try a DVR software provider (free or otherwise) that has more commitment to the product.

I have more than 3 years experience with it now and I haven’t used the Plex DVR in over 18 months other than to test it periodically to confirm that it still sucks and is littered with soul crushing bugs.

And if you have a windows server, most users can’t even watch live tv in the browser right now.

2 Likes
4

There are differing use cases for Plex’s Live TV & DVR feature.

  • Using it to play Live TV.
  • Using it to record programs and play them back later.
  • Using it to record programs and play them back during recording.

The first two use cases generally work very well. There are issues which arise from time to time, but they mostly work. I think sometimes folks forget that this is a support forum and what we see here are the failure cases the majority of the time. It’s easy to think that since all we hear about on these forums are the failures that most people are experiencing them. People don’t usually take the time to stop by the support forums to just say “Hey, everything’s working well, great job!” There are certainly exceptions and folks do do that from time to time.

Having said that, the third use case has been problematic for many people for a long time. As @pl_5309 alluded to, the client used in large part determines what your experience will be. Playback of a recording in-progress using the Android TV client, for example, is problematic in a couple of ways; in particular, “Start from beginning” does not work reliably (at all?) on this client. However, it works quite well on the Apple TV client, in my experience.

So, what is your primary client for playback?

And for what it’s worth, I’m watching Farscape being streamed from a Windows Plex Media Server via browser right now.

1 Like
5

I have a Windows platform and HDHomeun tuner. I record multiple programs every night, sometimes watch while programming and record on one channel while watching on another. It all works all the time. The only thing I wish it had was real time thumbnail generation, but I can easily fast forward thru the estimated commercial periods and enjoy the show.

6

Thank you all for your help,
My server is a Window 8.1 with WMC.
My clients are Window 10 and Shield TV PO.
Now I can play old WMC recording through Plex and I can record with WMC and play back in Plex at any time it is recording, I don’t have to wait for the recording to complete.
When I record through Plex I have to wait for the recording to complete before I can watch the recording.

I have a HDHomerun Prime with Specrum.

9

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