Plex TV shocked the home theater PC community when they announced DVR support last year. When it was first released as beta it had many limitations. It could only be managed via the web interface. It didn’t have any support at all for live TV either. Earlier this year they brought limited management to Android TV devices, but even then it didn’t support time shifting.
Today Plex took a major leap forward. For starters, you no longer need to be running a beta version of the Plex Media Server to use Plex DVR. Anyone with a Plex Pass subscription and a supported TV tuner can utilize the functionality. They’ve also brought their live TV functionality more in line with what we expect from a DVR solution. It now supports time shifting (the ability to pause, rewind, and fast-forward live television.) While watching a show you can even see an overlay that displays a list of what’s currently showing on your other channels. It’s not quite a traditional grid guide, but it’s close. If you pop open the playlist queue overlay it will also show you the next few shows to air on that channel.
With this new Plex Media Server release also comes new versions of the client applications for Android (phones and tablets) along with Apple TV. They join Android TV and iOS (phones and tablets) as platforms which can manage the DVR and watch live television. Plex continues to work on updating their other clients, so hopefully we’ll see this functionality on Windows 10 and Xbox One soon.
Will this new, and long-awaited, functionality finally be enough to get you to switch from Windows Media Center to Plex? Are there still features that you absolutely must have before switching, or have you already moved on to a different solution? Sound off in the comments below.
Source: Plex Blog
Can PLEX do comskip?
I shouldn’t be shocked that this is the first question! I love you guys! I hadn’t even considered that yet. As far as I know, no it doesn’t support comskip yet. If there’s a way to do it, I’m sure someone will figure it out.
It looks like there is no native support for running comskip in Plex. The only workaround is to process the completed recordings on a Windows PC, the way I did with extracted TiVo recordings back in 2005.
To me it is just like when Microsoft does a re-boot. They issue something “new” without features that we have become accustom to in the prior version. If Microsoft produced automobiles, the new models wouldn’t have air conditioning and other features that prior models had.
Let me know when PLEX has “all the features” of Windows Media Center plus great new features that Windows Media Center doesn’t have. Then I’ll be interested and probably switch. Until then I’ll stick with Windows Media Center with it’s whole house set up and Cable Card support. This should be easy for PLEX to do since Microsoft isn’t adding any new features to Windows Media Center. What is taking them so long?
Best Wishes