@fluharty13 said:
I don’t think I have the intestinal fortitude to go dredge up an old Windows machine just for that purpose. I’ll have to think about that…
And i would feel bad if i caused you to spend a bunch of money and it does not work out.
I appreciate that, especially since I think I’m about to return an HDHomeRun DVR.
@fluharty13 said:
I appreciate that, especially since I think I’m about to return an HDHomeRun DVR.
Now i know they are expensive but the Tivo devices are good and have good support. You will get full DRM support for your channels too. Also the newer Tivo devices can install the Plex app so you would have a central location for DVR, Live TV plus the Plex app.
The only hope is the HDHomerun software which at least offers being able to watch DRM on windows 10 PC’s and XBOX… Hopefully recording will follow in the future.
The Problem is that PLEX does not play nice with other APPS using tuners … so watching DRM channels using the HDHomeRun APP will cause PLEX to crap out if it tries to use a tuner that is being use by the HDHomeRun APP.
The HDhomerun app does work properly. Could Plex not license HDHomerun’s DRM capabilities and integrate them into their own app? This way the Plex app would have the same rights to DRM as the poorly put together HDHomerun app.
Could Plex not license HDHomerun’s DRM capabilities and integrate them into their own app?
No. That’s not how licensing for CableCARD works; additionally, there is still the end-to-end encryption that would have to be resolved. And believe, if there were a simple answer, Plex would have figured it out by now. It’s just not that simple.
Please read through the explanation linked to previously in this thread. It really describes the problem in a nutshell along with the follow-up posts made by Plex in this thread.
@arcanexvi said:
The HDhomerun app does work properly. Could Plex not license HDHomerun’s DRM capabilities and integrate them into their own app? This way the Plex app would have the same rights to DRM as the poorly put together HDHomerun app.
Not possible. Every piece of software that touches the DRM and hardware need to be certified including the codecs. Even if it were possible you wouldn’t be able to transcode since since the heart of this is the open source ffmpeg which could never be certified.
DRM in Plex or any similar software is a pipe dream and won’t happen. You are far better off pursuing other methods to record the channels that use DRM if you must which can include different methods such as using your STB box with either an HDMI capture device or component tuner. You can’t use either of these methods with Plex but you can with other PVR software packages such as SageTV (free open source).
Effectively these methods work around DRM but require a STB per capture card plus possibly an IR Blaster.
Carlo
@cayars said:
@arcanexvi said:
The HDhomerun app does work properly. Could Plex not license HDHomerun’s DRM capabilities and integrate them into their own app? This way the Plex app would have the same rights to DRM as the poorly put together HDHomerun app.Not possible. Every piece of software that touches the DRM and hardware need to be certified including the codecs. Even if it were possible you wouldn’t be able to transcode since since the heart of this is the open source ffmpeg which could never be certified.
DRM in Plex or any similar software is a pipe dream and won’t happen. You are far better off pursuing other methods to record the channels that use DRM if you must which can include different methods such as using your STB box with either an HDMI capture device or component tuner. You can’t use either of these methods with Plex but you can with other PVR software packages such as SageTV (free open source).
Effectively these methods work around DRM but require a STB per capture card plus possibly an IR Blaster.
Carlo
Whoa, hold up Carlo. Are you saying I could plug an HDMI capture card into my TiVo to unDRM my DRMd shows!? That would be awesome if I understood that right. 
I want to try and walk the line on this one so I’ll just say a very popular way to record HBO and other pay channels for your own personal use (just like the old VHS days) has always been to record these types of stations right from the STB itself using a capture card with composite/component connections. These are analog and as such do not carry DRM or HDCP.
HDCP can also be quite problematic for some older TVs or monitors that had HDMI before HDCP was added to the protocol. There’s an article here: https://www.howtogeek.com/208917/htg-explains-how-hdcp-breaks-your-hdtv-and-how-to-fix-it/ that shows a simple/cheap solution to fix that problem.
Hey btw, did you know a capture card can often times be hooked right up to your roku, androidTV, PS4, Xbox, etc and you can record anything from them as well? Some people do this for game capture.
That’s as much as I’d prefer to say.
Carlo
No need to be coy, it’s well-documented and there’s nothing illegal in recording content for your own personal use.
If you want HD, be sure to use component out from your cable company’s set top box (assuming they even provide it); composite will only get SD-like quality. I’ve used SageTV combined with an HDPVR from Hauppage, worked great but the tricky part was getting it to change the channels (external IR controller) for scheduled recordings.
These recordings will not have encryption/DRM and can be transcoded into other formats.
@darcilicious said:
No need to be coy, it’s well-documented and there’s nothing illegal in recording content for your own personal use.If you want HD, be sure to use component out from your cable company’s set top box (assuming they even provide it); composite will only get SD-like quality. I’ve used SageTV combined with an HDPVR from Hauppage, worked great but the tricky part was getting it to change the channels (external IR controller) for scheduled recordings.
These recordings will not have encryption/DRM and can be transcoded into other formats.
Ah, ok. Thanks @cayars and @darcilicious good to know. Definitely want to only use techniques deemed legal.
Alright…
Seems like the answer to the original post is NO.
This, of course, makes the Plex DVR worthless for cable cards.
At least on Spectrum Cable as most decent channels are DRMed including CNN, Fox… etc
@jjrjr1 said:
Alright… > Seems like the answer to the original post is NO.
Correct.
This, of course, makes the Plex DVR worthless for cable cards.
Correct.
At least on Spectrum Cable as most decent channels are DRMed including CNN, Fox… etc
Yup!
Spectrum is really the problem here, not Plex or cable cards.
Do you have any other cable providers you can use in your area?
Have you checked out the line up you can get OTA?
@cayars said:
Spectrum is really the problem here, not Plex or cable cards.Do you have any other cable providers you can use in your area?
Have you checked out the line up you can get OTA?
Until you fix allowing other APPs to share tuners Plex is useless if you use other Apps to watch DRM… all it does is crap out if it tries to use a tuner in use even though there are 2 more tuners free … I have posted about this over and over with no response. I would like to record none DRM channels in plex and still use the HDHomeRun app to watch the DRM ones. If fixing this is not in the plans let me know.
Spectrum is really the problem here, not Plex or cable cards.
Expect many if not most cable companies in the US have already moved in this direction. It comes down to this: if you want encrypted cable channels and 3rd party DVR solution, Plex isn’t going to do the job.
@nyplayer said:
@cayars said:
Spectrum is really the problem here, not Plex or cable cards.Do you have any other cable providers you can use in your area?
Have you checked out the line up you can get OTA?Until you fix allowing other APPs to share tuners Plex is useless if you use other Apps to watch DRM… all it does is crap out if it tries to use a tuner in use even though there are 2 more tuners free … I have posted about this over and over with no response. I would like to record none DRM channels in plex and still use the HDHomeRun app to watch the DRM ones. If fixing this is not in the plans let me know.
Plex expects all tuners you assign to it to be for it’s exclusive use. As far as Plex is concerned no other apps should be using the tuner.
I’m not a personal fan of this at all and have voiced my opinion on the matter that anything “network” is not exclusive to any program hence the “network”. It can be especially hard to not share a HDHomeRun since it’s a DNLA device as well. 
I’ve semi-solved this by adding a 2nd Prime to my environment. I found out which set of tuners get used by first by LiveChannels, HDHomeRun (2 I use) and set this up 2nd in Plex. This way the first tuner Plex uses is not the one everything else uses by default.
Not ideal but the best workaround I’ve found thus far considering Plex won’t check the status and roll over to a different tuner if it’s not available.
Of course if you only have 1 device then it doesn’t really matter how you set it up since if you use it with any other apps Plex still functions just fine up to the total # of tuners in use. It’s only a problem if you don’t set it up correctly and have multiple devices.
@cayars said:
@nyplayer said:
@cayars said:
Spectrum is really the problem here, not Plex or cable cards.Do you have any other cable providers you can use in your area?
Have you checked out the line up you can get OTA?Until you fix allowing other APPs to share tuners Plex is useless if you use other Apps to watch DRM… all it does is crap out if it tries to use a tuner in use even though there are 2 more tuners free … I have posted about this over and over with no response. I would like to record none DRM channels in plex and still use the HDHomeRun app to watch the DRM ones. If fixing this is not in the plans let me know.
Plex expects all tuners you assign to it to be for it’s exclusive use. As far as Plex is concerned no other apps should be using the tuner.
I’m not a personal fan of this at all and have voiced my opinion on the matter that anything “network” is not exclusive to any program hence the “network”. It can be especially hard to not share a HDHomeRun since it’s a DNLA device as well.
I’ve semi-solved this by adding a 2nd Prime to my environment. I found out which set of tuners get used by first by LiveChannels, HDHomeRun (2 I use) and set this up 2nd in Plex. This way the first tuner Plex uses is not the one everything else uses by default.
Not ideal but the best workaround I’ve found thus far considering Plex won’t check the status and roll over to a different tuner if it’s not available.
Of course if you only have 1 device then it doesn’t really matter how you set it up since if you use it with any other apps Plex still functions just fine up to the total # of tuners in use. It’s only a problem if you don’t set it up correctly and have multiple devices.
Thanks that answers my question … I will move onto EMBY full time because it is able to share tuners effectively with other APPS. if this ever changes I will revisit.
Can anyone elaborate for me on how a capture card works? Or point at a good explanation?
@nyplayer said:
Until you fix allowing other APPs to share tuners Plex is useless if you use other Apps to watch DRM… all it does is crap out if it tries to use a tuner in use even though there are 2 more tuners free … I have posted about this over and over with no response. I would like to record none DRM channels in plex and still use the HDHomeRun app to watch the DRM ones. If fixing this is not in the plans let me know.
@nyplayer said:
Thanks that answers my question … I will move onto EMBY full time because it is able to share tuners effectively with other APPS. if this ever changes I will revisit.
How many devices do you own?
If you only own one HDHomeRun there is absolutely no difference in using Plex vs Emby when other apps are using your tuners.
As an example if you have a HDHomeRun Prime with 3 tuners and are watching something in another app you would have 2 tuners available. Both Plex and Emby can only use 2 tuners from this device and BOTH WILL. One is not going to do something magic the other doesn’t.
Just to elaborate, Plex tells the device to tune to channel X but it doesn’t specify which tuner to use (0,1,2). The device itself chooses which tuner to use and Plex doesn’t care.
If you have 2 or more HDHomeRun units, fire up one of the other apps and see which tuner it uses as the default. Which ever Device the other apps use by default will be the last tuner you want to add to Plex. If needed remove the tuners from plex then add them back in the proper order.
That’s exactly what I did but I first used DHCP to assign a manual IPs to the devices then added them back into Plex adding the one tuner the other apps used by default last.
Just to CLARIFY what the issue is that some people including myself don’t care for is when you have multiple devices. Plex determines which tuner it’s going to record from and will use all three tuners from the first device then use the 2nd device, etc. So if a 3rd party app grabs a tuner on the first device (instead of the last device) plex will get a failure as a tuner isn’t available and doesn’t try to record using the next tuner. ← that’s the issue at hand. So this causes no issue for anyone with only 1 tuner and there is a pretty easy workaround if using 2 or more.
