Cross Platform Clients - maybe DVR files read by Plex or similar?

Channels DVR Server
#1

Hey folks

I have a weird mish-mash of clients. The “primary” box that sits under the TV is an Apple TV. In the sunroom there’s a Nexus Player, in the bonus room there’s a Shield TV, in the garage there’s a Chromecast, then there’s Samsung TVs, some Raspberry PIs running Kodi… none if this bothers me in the slightest however the wife is a different story. She wants easy, and so do the in-laws who can’t even figure out how to turn half of the stuff on just to watch cable right now.

So what I’d like to be able to do is have Channels be my DVR and access the files from some other application so that I can watch my recorded shows on other clients. Haven’t quite figured out where they’ll be stored yet… maybe a Pi 3 (yes, I know, performance), possibly an oDroid. Anyhow, whatever the storage is they’ll be shared via NFS or SMB (yes, again, I know, performance).

So is there a solution ? I would imagine if the files and metadata are in a compatible format I could use Plex Media Server or something like that. Any suggestions ?

Thanks

Pete

#2

I am interested in hearing other solutions, but a simple one is something you mentioned…Plex Media Server. When testing Channels DVR, I pointed a Plex library to the folder on my NAS containing Channels recordings, and Plex picked them up.

I don’t recall how well they displayed (i.e. - whether the file names were recognized and were able to be matched with artwork and descriptions).

But in terms of playback, it is doable.

#3

i have a similar setup:

bedroom - ATV4
Living room - Mi Box Android TV
Family room - ATV4 + QNAP TS-453A
other bedrooms - windows PC

now all my recordings are saved on the QNAP NAS. the beauty with the Channels DVR is that the video files saved can be accessed anywhere and with media apps like Plex and windows media player. so right now, i can just do the recording on the ATV4 [or browser] and just play it anywhere, tablets, PC, ATV4, Android TV, and Smart TVs. as discussed before, you can also have other NAS, or mac or linux boxes to do the storage and processing.

Plex can see them and put some thumbnails to them. you can also view them as folders. each series can have its own folder.

This is exactly i was hoping for in terms of accessing those recordings everywhere and not tied to a single location in the house like the Fios DVR i have right now. i plan on replacing that with this system :slight_smile:

i thing i hope gets improved is the file name structure. i’d rather have the name of the show first before the date.

#4

"i thing i hope gets improved is the file name structure. i’d rather have the name of the show first before the date."

Ooh. That’s bad.

#6

minor as they are still indexed properly. hopefully the team can improve on it.

#7

The filenames should be plex compatible. There are some known issues with MCEBuddy not liking our filenames, but hopefully that can be fixed with custom MCEBuddy configuration.

Our filename structure at the moment is:

TV/ShowName/RecordDate ShowName AirDate SeasonEpisode Title.mpg

Movies/MovieName AirDate.mpg

If you point Plex at your TV directory, it should figure everything out.

#8

Example Show:

2017-01-05-0300 Law & Order 1992-04-14 S02E20 Intolerance

Example Movie:

Big Mommas Like Father, Like Son (2011) 2017-01-05-1130

#9

I would be interested in any custom configurations for MCEBuddy.

#10

@mavsfan815 are these displaying properly in Plex for you? If so, when we try applying MCEBuddy to skip commercials/transcode, we can use the same naming convention.

Need to know for next week’s tests if you are wanting to skip commercials or transcode (mkv4?) or both?

#11

No they are not displaying properly in plex & MCEBuddy does not recognize them either[quote=“DebbieFL, post:10, topic:756”]
Need to know for next week’s tests if you are wanting to skip commercials or transcode (mkv4?) or both?
[/quote]

I am trying to remove commercials, convert to .mkv & place in folder that plex scans that will recognize the show/movie correctly

The following is an example of what mcebuddy is finding

2017-01-04T20:12:08 MCEBuddy.MetaData.VideoMetaData --> Trying to match nPVR/SiliconDust series showname -> 2017-01-04-1900 Blindspot 2017-01-04 S02E10 Nor I Nigel AKA Leg in Iron
2017-01-04T20:12:08 MCEBuddy.MetaData.VideoMetaData --> Looking for Season/Episode information in text
2017-01-04T20:12:08 MCEBuddy.MetaData.VideoMetaData --> Found Season/Episode information in text, Season:2, Episode:10
2017-01-04T20:12:08 MCEBuddy.MetaData.VideoMetaData --> Successfully extracted nPVR/SiliconDust series filename metadata
2017-01-04T20:12:08 MCEBuddy.MetaData.VideoMetaData --> Video Tags extracted from file/name metadata ->
Title: 2017-01-04-1900 Blindspot 2017-01-04
SubTitle: Nor I Nigel AKA Leg in Iron
Description:
Network:
Network Affiliate:
Parental Rating:
Media Credits:
Genres:
Season: 2
Episode: 10
Banner:
Banner URL:
IMDB Id:
MovieDB Id:
TVDB Id:
Is Show Movie: False
Is Show Sports: False
OriginalBroadcastDateTime: 1899-12-31T18:00:00
RecordedDateTime: 1899-12-31T18:00:00
SeriesPremiereDate: 1899-12-31T18:00:00
CopyProtected: False
SageTV FileID:
SageTV MediaFileID: