Stream LiveTV to my Roku

[Smokin-Gunn]

Server name is IP address of the PC where Nextpvr is on. You can also use the name of the PC. I prefer the IP

Port should be 8886 the default.

Make sure you have enable webserver checked under clients in Nextpvr settings and the port number is 8886.

With this setup I can watch Live TV on my Roku or Android devices through Plex (listed under channels) anywhere I go with my phone or tablet.

[SickBoy]

Which Roku models work with the Plex streaming? I'd like to try one of these out. The $49.99 HDMI Stick model certainly looks interesting.

[SickBoy]

My Roku stick showed up - I tried the NextPVR Roku channel and was kind of less than impressed, aside from not doing live streaming it also seemed to require adding a lengthy transcode to my postprocessing script, which already does a VideoRedo stream fix and comskip.

I got Plex media server running on my NPVR server, but for some reason I can't get the NextPVR channel for Plex to show up. I have the NextPVR.bundle directory unzipped and copied to:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Plex\Plex Media Server\Resources\Plug-ins

but it's not showing up. Any ideas?

EDIT: answered my own question. Looks like it needs to go in the user's plugins folder (i.e. C:\Users\Username\AppData\Local\Plex Media Server\Plug-ins) not the plugin folder in Program Files.

[dgeezer]

I believe that to do a manual plugin install you need to copy the extracted plugin to : C:\users\yourusername\AppData\Local\Plex Media Server\Plug-ins\
At least that's how mine is on windows 8.1

Also, sometimes when you unzip the plugin it will be named something like: nextpvr.bundle.master
you will need to remove the .master part of the folder name.

[SickBoy]

Yep, got it.

Next issue: I can get live TV streaming to work, but my recordings won't play. I've been running my ts files recorded by the HDHR through VideoRedo Quick stream fix (the resulting file is a .mpg ext), does Plex not support playback on these files? I just get a "Video Unavailable" message....

Edit: I've modified my postproc to use VideoRedo TVSuite 4 and kick out x264-encoded mp4 files, and upgraded to the "donator" version of comskip for the x264/h.264 compatibility. I hope this works...

[SickBoy]

Well, I didn't get real far down this path before I realized that the transcoding time to x264 was going to end up falling outside my parameters of acceptability (20 mins to transcode a 30 min program... not acceptable)

What I can't figure out, is that Plex seems to be able to hot-transcode the live TV TS stream with acceptable performance - but just will not play a recorded mpeg TS (from my HDHR) at all, no matter what settings I try in the Plex playback.

In summary - I'm not overly happy with the Roku as a NPVR frontend - I'm going to keep looking for other solutions. Its certainly a useful little gadget, though without the Plex integration, it's no doubt a revenue driving device - to sell content.

[SickBoy]

My next brilliant idea is to switch out my ancient HDHR (which uses mpeg2) for the HDHR Plus, so that the streams are native H.264. We'll see if this gets approved by the family treasurer.

[Smokin-Gunn]

I use the HDHomerun Prime with Charter Cable and HDHomerun Dual for OTA ATSC and everything is on a gigabit wired network with a Roku 3 and XBMC SPMC Build on a rooted Amazon Fire TV. I would have to say I prefer using HDHRFling on the Roku with my setup.

http://hdhrfling.com/

[SickBoy]

HDHR Plus just showed up. After doing a quick swap for the original HDHR and a test with the setup program/VLC, it definitely seems like this unit is slightly more tolerable of marginal signal reception.

I'll get it fully configured and report back.

[SickBoy]

OK, got the Roku configured and working.

LiveTV seemed to work with either my original HDHR (presumably using Plex's transcoding, I didn't fuss much with it) or the HDHR Plus, through the Plex channel. No issues there.

I don't know exactly why, but Plex's transcoding couldn't/wouldn't work with recorded TV in straight mpeg2 ts files. Given the transcoding time needed to do that in software on my machine (it was around 20 mins for a 30 min program, which is kind of silly), I upgraded to the HDHR Plus - and once I finally got it recording in H.264 **AND** running VideoRedoTVSuite's Quick Stream Fix, and saving the file to a mkv - the Roku now plays the recordings acceptably through the Plex channel as well.

Seeking around in the video file is not recommended. The amount of rebuffering time is significant. So... start your program, feel free to pause it, but don't try to fast forward or rewind.

Overall - I'm pretty happy with the Roku/Plex combination. I'm looking forward to repurposing one of my old LCD monitors with the Roku.

As an added bonus, the mkv files play great with the Playstation 3 and I can stream live on the PS3 through the HDHR's built in DLNA capability.