Announcing SageTV/Phoenix Channel for Plex Media Server

[AJ Bertelson]

Originally Posted by stuckless

I think I had to turn off Direct Play and Direct Stream in the Plex Setting -> Advanced -> Network section on Android.

didn't seem to resolve still got error opening file.


I should add what do you need in order to trouble shoot?

[MrFusion]

Hi,

I'm moving to Plex for all my media, but still using SageTV for recording TV and using the awesome SageTV/Phoenix channel for Plex.

Unfortunately, having a problem with quality, and not sure where to start looking.

When I watch recorded TV (DVB-T in Oz, usually 720p50 or 1080i50) on an HD200, I get a great quality picture which looks the same as the original broadcast (eg 720p50 or 1080i50).

When I watch via Plex I see really bad interlacing artefacts, and it also looks like the frame rate is changed to 60hz. Other media via Plex is perfect (eg BluRays are 1080p24, etc).

Does anyone know the path that my original video is taking, and what might be molesting it on the way via Plex to my TV?

Is Sage transcoding? Is Plex transcoding? Are they both having a go? And where do I look for the configs and logs?

Thanks in advance for any help!!

[benjatelcom]

Greetings all,

Really enjoying the Plex connectivity with the Phoenix channel. I'm transitioning from Dish Networks Vip211 with an R5000 to OTA with Tablo. In the mean time, Plex isn't any good at playing the R5000 TS recording file format.

I was looking into an automated way to convert all of my TS recordings to MKV or MP4 containers, possibly without re-encoding the H.264 video that R5000 has captured. Most of these recordings have AC3 two or six channel audio. Is there any way to use SageTV's transcode engine to remux into new container format? Hope to retain the SageTV database metadata instead of dump these to bare files.

Am I grasping at the impossible?

[mbowe]

This is killer, wish I'd checked it out sooner! So friggin easy to gain quick access to Recordings from so many clients supported by Plex.

The news on Open Sourcing SageTV and now this plug-in/channel have me very pumped for a great eco-system.

[valnar]

I just found this myself. Wow! As a new Plex user who hates native XBMC, this is a nice add-on.

[stuckless]

Glad you guys like it. Keep in mind, this plugin is not likely to get updates. I created it as a means to test the Plex Plugin architecture, which turns out to be almost useless So the basics is there, "might" be able to watch/download some stuff, but there is no syncronization of watched statuses.

The source is up on GitHub if anyone wants to extend it.
https://github.com/stuckless/sagetv-...x-plex-channel

[reggie14]

stuckless-

I should start out by saying I know very little about Plex plugins, and pretty little about the interface to Phoenix, but I was looking through your source code for a while.

My biggest concern with the plugin is that you need to turn off direct-play on clients. I set up a OpenELEC plex box, mostly just to play with, and noticed I couldn't play videos through this plugin. Looking through the code, I didn't see anything that was obviously the source of this limitation.

When you were developing this plugin did you spend any time on that issue? If so, did it look hard to solve?

[stuckless]

Originally Posted by reggie14

stuckless-

I should start out by saying I know very little about Plex plugins, and pretty little about the interface to Phoenix, but I was looking through your source code for a while.

My biggest concern with the plugin is that you need to turn off direct-play on clients. I set up a OpenELEC plex box, mostly just to play with, and noticed I couldn't play videos through this plugin. Looking through the code, I didn't see anything that was obviously the source of this limitation.

When you were developing this plugin did you spend any time on that issue? If so, did it look hard to solve?

Direct play, if I recall is a mechanism whereby NO TRANSCODING would happen... ie, it sends the file as is. So, depending on the file type if your client doesn't support he type natively, then it doesn't play. I don't think there is any work around... some clients might work, some won't etc. This is more due to limitations on clients than plex itself.

[reggie14]

Originally Posted by stuckless

Direct play, if I recall is a mechanism whereby NO TRANSCODING would happen... ie, it sends the file as is. So, depending on the file type if your client doesn't support he type natively, then it doesn't play. I don't think there is any work around... some clients might work, some won't etc. This is more due to limitations on clients than plex itself.

That's right, but I was using a Chromebox-based OpenELEC client that (should have) supported direct playback of mpeg2-ps files. I was able to play back files in libraries brought in via the Plex scanner/BMT Agent, but it didn't work with the same files accessed through the Phoenix channel.

No worries. I'll poke around some more. I was just curious if you already investigated this issue. I saw a post from you a while back that made me think you knew about this.

The plugin still works great for mobile viewing, which is the main reason I installed it in the first place.

[stuckless]

Originally Posted by reggie14

That's right, but I was using a Chromebox-based OpenELEC client that (should have) supported direct playback of mpeg2-ps files. I was able to play back files in libraries brought in via the Plex scanner/BMT Agent, but it didn't work with the same files accessed through the Phoenix channel.

No worries. I'll poke around some more. I was just curious if you already investigated this issue. I saw a post from you a while back that made me think you knew about this.

The plugin still works great for mobile viewing, which is the main reason I installed it in the first place.

I agree... but sadly plex does thiings differently with it's own media, than what you have access to in a Channel. for example I have to stream all the media myself, even though you'd think I could just tell plex this is a local file, to handle it the way it handles files that it "knows" about... but no such luck. I've pretty much written off plex as being viable in any way. It's one of those technologies that have lots of great client features, but is severely lacking when it comes to custom plugins, channels, etc.

You might have better luck if you just use the Plex Scanner and then let Plex manage the media. The only real reason to use this plex channel is if you wanted to show custom views.

[brandypuff]

Does the Plex plugin still work? The tread is pretty old. I am using Plex and using it to point to the Sage recordings directory so my wife can watch recorded shows using plex where we don't have an extender available.

[egeller]

Originally Posted by brandypuff

Does the Plex plugin still work?

Sort of. I just checked. I have had the SageTV plugin installed in Plex for awhile.

It seems to handle movies OK. It finds them and gets the metadata, but I think Plex does its own lookup, rather than get anything from SageTV.

For TV shows, it finds them, but I found examples where the description, in Sage, is not in Plex, so it ends up blank. For something popular, like that Stanley Tucci goes to Italy series, Plex has an episode summary, but it is not the episode description from Sage. Therefore, I assume Plex does its own lookup for that too.

If all you need is for Plex to find the shows and movies, it works OK. Metadata may vary.