Moving from Plex and TiVo?

#21

This is exactly my use case, while having a Tivo Roamio still hooked up that has sat unused for a few years.

Plex and Channels Plus both installed on my Synology DS1019+

Channel Plus handles my recording needs for anything I simply want to time shift, while Plex houses my permanent commercial free content that I acquire through other means.

Plex shines brightly in it's ability to house and display my permanent collection, while Channels Plus is both phenomenal and heads and shoulders above Plex in the DVR department.

While I don't point Channels Plus to my Plex library, I do have an extra Plex TV Show library pointed at my TV Show recordings in Channels, so that my friends and family can also enjoy that temporary collection too.

From a functionality & reliability point of view, Plex can't compete in the DVR & Live TV areas with Channels Plus.

TV Everywhere and playlist source integration in Channels Plus are two extra cherries sitting right on top of an excellent DVR engine.

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#22

I use both Channels DVR for daily recording and Plex DVR using XTEVE with M3U from channels DVR to record old series that I want to keep including those from TVE Pluto etc.... I like the actor information etc ... that Plex downloads.plus use of Profiles is a must when you have a large household.

Channels DVR is my goto also to record movies ..

#23

@Michael_Parks I too have a couple Tivo Bolts one 3TB and one 1TB that sit and collect dust. I also had two Mini's but sold them this year. Once I found Channels DVR, I did a little further research to see how I could use Channels with my Plex system. As another person stated, you can point both apps to the same directories or do as I do and set up a DVR folder in Plex one for movies and one for TV shows. Have the Channels folder you create when setting it up scanned by MCEBuddy, the same program that Plex uses to strip commercials, but you'll have to make a contribution in order to get the stand-alone version. I think it was $30 bucks if I remember. I have mine set to convert the files to 720p HVEC h.265 for ultimate compression for movies, and 576p for TV shows. The settings in MCEBuddy are to create folders by Show with subfolders for seasons. I use the following string for renaming the shows so it works for Plex. %showname%\Season %season%##%showname% - S%season%##E%episode%## - %episodename%. This gives you as an example, Yellowstone - S04E07 - Keep the Wolves Close. MCEBuddy has lots of examples on how to rename your files if you don't like that setting. Once a season ends, I move them over to a permanent folder on Plex if I want to keep them. Before that, I have Plex look at my DVR folder if I want to watch something as soon as it records I just prefer to move them once the season ends and shows I don't want to keep, I simply delete using the delete function within Plex. I do that with shows like the evening news or The Tonight Show, something I don't want to keep. Best of both worlds and yes, I too bought a lifetime pass but was unhappy with the DVR capabilities of Plex.

#24

Is the Roamio OTA for sale? Best box Tivo ever made

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#25

Dude you have some good ideas there. I actually already have MCE buddy. I think I paid for it way back when I used WMC in Win7. I never really used it for much other than breaking the mpeg files down to h.264 and now I pull stuff off the TiVo and use it to stamp out the commercials and convert to h.265.

I like your file naming trick. I've not taken time to mess with that kind of stuff. I will now.
I am still messing with the HDhomerun flex4k. I just got it yesterday. So far I connected it to Plex. It's working ok but I can see how it needs a bit more polished. I was watching live tv at the gym doing my cardio thing. I know channels can do that too.

I'm surprised it worked with the experimental ATSC 3.0 broadcast we have here. But they were using AAC audio.

I'm going to get channels on the PC soon and give it a try over my time off for the holidays.

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#26

The TiVo might be for sale soon. Agreed it is the best model the edge for antenna sucks. Only two tuners.
I have an a9200 mini also. Both with slide pro remotes. I'd sell it all together if I sell.

#27

I still run plex for users outside my network but I’ve switched to channels internally, I grew tired of plex attention being given to them adding sources and stuff I didn’t want. I love how channels lets me program my own content with virtual channels. The only thing I would like to see added is allow setup for users outside the network

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#28

Got it installed yesterday. So far so good. Live tv runs a bit smoother that plex did. Got StiRR channels added in. it's very nice. I keep learning more that it can do. Pretty happy so far.

4 Likes
#29

Did you move away from Plex or have you integrated Plex and ChannelsDVR?
I have been messing with MCEBuddy in an attempt to integrate, to ultimately have the best of both worlds. Daily shows like the news, gets ignored by MCEBuddy and I watch that stuff in Channels. TV Show series and movies gets sent to my Plex libraries via MCEBuddy. The setup is simple although I'm always looking for some tweaks here an there without making it overly complicated.

#30

Personally I haven’t found a reason to continue using Plex for anything other than music. I know Plex has a broad set of features but Channels easily takes care of my family’s TV viewing habits. And it’s one less platform to support. There’s a bit of polish I’d like to see going forward from Channels but I can wait.

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#31

Plex is far better for managing Movies, TV and Music. I also like the ability to browse Plex and fling any file (movie, tv, music) to another device. Kodi with the Channels add-on + Plex Kodi Connect is working very well. I have a feeling you could be waiting a long time. We all have different needs, but life is too short to wait.

#32

Yeah. I used Plex for years before moving to Channels and am fully aware that it is better at certain things than Channels. But keeping my unenthusiastic users in mind, it is better to keep things simple with as few apps as possible. For me, Channels wins with TV and Movies because it has the best DVR out there and does a competent job of playing movies. Plex remains my go-to music player and does just fine. I haven't spent much time with Kodi but I know there are a lot of fans out there but being banned from the Apple app store makes it more trouble to play with than I care to endure.

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#33

Being that I started the thread it's cool to see so many opinions.
I did fully become a Channels user. It surely works well for live and recorded tv with the new HDhomerun flex4k.
I'm still using Plex. I noticed that Plex seems more forgiving with file and folder names for the digital media collection I have in place than Channels DVR does. Channels can't get cover art or everything correct. Channels seems to be a little more picky than Plex. I have a music collection too and Plex isn't perfect for that either. All those old mp3 from way back in the Napster and MIRC days don't always have good meta data and some files are unknown song, unknown artist and you can only find it by the file names what it is.

I see channels found most of my movies and tv shows.
I'm very happy with channels. And ok with Plex and since my Plex pass is a lifetime one long ago paid for I'll still use it. It's not really costing me to do so.
Both programs seem to have strong points.

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#34

I have zero issues with Plex at the moment for Movies, Music and TV Shows. Music tags are a must and the combination of Mp3Tag and MusicBrainz works very well.

All the stuff I record with Channels, show up automatically in my Plex TV Show library or my Plex Movie library thanks to MCE Buddy. All are perfectly named too which is great.

I have MCE Buddy ignore stuff like the News and sports which have a short shelf life, unlike TV series and such. For those I watch with the ChannelsDVR Kodi add-on. I use Kodi to connect to my Plex library using the PlexKodiConnect add-on.

This method makes setting up Kodi a snap. Once Kodi is installed, all I do is add the Channels add-on and the PlexKodiConnect add-on and all my media is at my fingertips. No tweaking needed. The tweaking is done in Plex and sent as is to Kodi. Takes about 10 minutes to set up Kodi.

#35

I prefer EMBY for movies because of the automatic Collections and the actor Bios ...

#36

I use a Windows 10 PC with Kodi loaded on a NVME SSD and a Logitech Harmony Hub remote over bluetooth. Low power and silent and absolutely flies. The speed is especially noticeable when it scans for Plex media files loading all the thumbnail's and stuff. Compared to sticks and other streaming devices it isn't even close.

#38

I tried EMBY and went back to Plex a few years ago. I don't remember why. Plex does Collections great now.

#39

Emby ,,,

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#40

I got very frustrated with music in Plex. They are trying to do too many things and this is not their core competency. I eventually moved my networked music library and streaming to LMS/Squeezebox and have been very happy with that. It's all free software from end to end now.

#41

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