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Plex Discussion Thread - Page 13

post #361 of 490
2/5/13 at 10:02am
I'm running PMS on my Readynas, and it won't update plex/web to a more current version than 9.8.2 (I brought it up on the plex forums, but no resolution). If I run PMS on my macbook, then Plex/web updates correctly to the current version. Strange.
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post #362 of 490
2/5/13 at 10:06am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by skro View Post

I'm running PMS on my Readynas, and it won't update plex/web to a more current version than 9.8.2 (I brought it up on the plex forums, but no resolution). If I run PMS on my macbook, then Plex/web updates correctly to the current version. Strange.

That is weird! Maybe try deleting the Plex web bundle?
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post #363 of 490
2/5/13 at 10:11am
thanks....i'll try that when i get home.
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post #364 of 490
2/5/13 at 7:00pm
that worked...thanks! I deleted the whole plug-in folder. No problems after that. I think someone else tried that and it worked temporarily...here's to hoping that it fixes it for good on the newer PMS.
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post #365 of 490
2/5/13 at 8:21pm
Hi ,

I am running plex on an older laptop with an external HDD 1TB drive as storage device for content. Each day I go to use plex on my TV via the Roku box, it goes as far in the menu as finding and playing the file the comes up with an error saying it can't play file . It is a different fault to not seeing the folders (where I just discover server each day to rectify) . The only remedy is to reboot the laptop. Two questions:

1. is there a way of making it more stable
2. is there an easy way of me using a different laptop as the server without having to completely re-do the whole library process; is there a way I can download plex onto the other laptop , connect the HDD drive with the content, and then transfer over from the old to new, all the folders and metadata ?

thanks
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post #366 of 490
2/5/13 at 8:27pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by skro View Post

that worked...thanks! I deleted the whole plug-in folder. No problems after that. I think someone else tried that and it worked temporarily...here's to hoping that it fixes it for good on the newer PMS.

Glad to hear!

Quote:
Originally Posted by simonoaks View Post

Hi ,

I am running plex on an older laptop with an external HDD 1TB drive as storage device for content. Each day I go to use plex on my TV via the Roku box, it goes as far in the menu as finding and playing the file the comes up with an error saying it can't play file . It is a different fault to not seeing the folders (where I just discover server each day to rectify) . The only remedy is to reboot the laptop. Two questions:

1. is there a way of making it more stable
2. is there an easy way of me using a different laptop as the server without having to completely re-do the whole library process; is there a way I can download plex onto the other laptop , connect the HDD drive with the content, and then transfer over from the old to new, all the folders and metadata ?

thanks

Does this only happen on the Roku, or are you having problems with other devices as well?

I think this explains your section question.
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post #367 of 490
2/7/13 at 4:55am
I run Plex on my PC but my RecordedTV content is on my HTPC. I added a section called Recorded TV (Who would have thought of that?) to the media in PlexWeb. It is mapped to the shared location (\\Htpc-pc\e\Recorded TV) where the *.wtv files are in my HTPC. Very little of the content is showing up in MyPlex for playback on my phone or over the internet at remote locations. What did I do wrong?
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post #368 of 490
2/7/13 at 6:17am
Had been running Xbmc but decided to try Plex as well..Familiar with it since I use it to feed content off my Whs 2011 server to Roku. Actually the media center side of it is quite nice. Most definitely can see that it was a by product of Xbmc. To me,a little easier probably to get setup and running which I'm sure will appeal to alot of people. But Xbmc is definitely more robust I would say. Many more options to customize. Which could get some into trouvle per say.. But either most definitely would make a fine frontend as a media player setup for ones content.
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post #369 of 490
2/7/13 at 7:36am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sammy2 View Post

I run Plex on my PC but my RecordedTV content is on my HTPC. I added a section called Recorded TV (Who would have thought of that?) to the media in PlexWeb. It is mapped to the shared location (\\Htpc-pc\e\Recorded TV) where the *.wtv files are in my HTPC. Very little of the content is showing up in MyPlex for playback on my phone or over the internet at remote locations. What did I do wrong?

change the library settings for movies. Yes, none of the metadata will pull, but it will just use list the files. Even under TV shows, it wouldn't pull the metadata because of the naming convention MC uses is not Plex, or XBMC, friendly. This is how mine is setup, and I'm able to play the WRT files.

I haven't tried playing any in the web player, but I have success with desktop and roku clients. I even used it once to watch a show while five hundred miles away from home.
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post #370 of 490
2/7/13 at 7:48am
Quote:
Originally Posted by lovekeiiy View Post

change the library settings for movies. Yes, none of the metadata will pull, but it will just use list the files. Even under TV shows, it wouldn't pull the metadata because of the naming convention MC uses is not Plex, or XBMC, friendly. This is how mine is setup, and I'm able to play the WRT files.

I haven't tried playing any in the web player, but I have success with desktop and roku clients. I even used it once to watch a show while five hundred miles away from home.

Can you elaborate a bit more? I have several libraries in Plex (Movies, TV Shows, Bond and Recorded TV). All of them except the Recorded TV are set up in file structures for MediaBrowser and work well in Plex. I am not sure what you mean by "change the library settings for movies." Thanks.
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post #371 of 490
2/7/13 at 8:25am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sammy2 View Post

I run Plex on my PC but my RecordedTV content is on my HTPC. I added a section called Recorded TV (Who would have thought of that?) to the media in PlexWeb. It is mapped to the shared location (\\Htpc-pc\e\Recorded TV) where the *.wtv files are in my HTPC. Very little of the content is showing up in MyPlex for playback on my phone or over the internet at remote locations. What did I do wrong?

Plex will only add media that it can understand. I'm guessing you told plex these were TV shows? The problem is wmc doesn't name the files a way that plex (and probably any media scrapper) can understand, so plex won't find any of these files. What you can do is add them as home movies instead of TV shows, and they should appear in PMS.
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post #372 of 490
2/7/13 at 8:36am
I'm getting an error saying "There was a problem with media playback" when trying to play music from my Plex sever from my HTC Inspire. If I close the error window the song will start playing after a few seonds. The problem is that I get this error between almost every song.
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post #373 of 490
2/7/13 at 8:38am
Have you seen this thread about Live TV/PVR support in Plex?
http://forums.plexapp.com/index.php/topic/57893-live-tv-pvr-in-plex-home-theater/

Basically, Plex won't be officially supporting PVR functionality, but several users and plex devs (i think) have got it up and running.
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post #374 of 490
2/7/13 at 8:41am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sammy2 View Post

I run Plex on my PC but my RecordedTV content is on my HTPC. I added a section called Recorded TV (Who would have thought of that?) to the media in PlexWeb. It is mapped to the shared location (\\Htpc-pc\e\Recorded TV) where the *.wtv files are in my HTPC. Very little of the content is showing up in MyPlex for playback on my phone or over the internet at remote locations. What did I do wrong?

Quote:
Originally Posted by lovekeiiy View Post

change the library settings for movies. Yes, none of the metadata will pull, but it will just use list the files. Even under TV shows, it wouldn't pull the metadata because of the naming convention MC uses is not Plex, or XBMC, friendly. This is how mine is setup, and I'm able to play the WRT files.

I haven't tried playing any in the web player, but I have success with desktop and roku clients. I even used it once to watch a show while five hundred miles away from home.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Sammy2 View Post

Can you elaborate a bit more? I have several libraries in Plex (Movies, TV Shows, Bond and Recorded TV). All of them except the Recorded TV are set up in file structures for MediaBrowser and work well in Plex. I am not sure what you mean by "change the library settings for movies." Thanks.

Quote:
Originally Posted by lockdown571 View Post

Plex will only add media that it can understand. I'm guessing you told plex these were TV shows? The problem is wmc doesn't name the files a way that plex (and probably any media scrapper) can understand, so plex won't find any of these files. What you can do is add them as home movies instead of TV shows, and they should appear in PMS.

OK. Now I understand. I need to tell it that these are home movies and not movies or tv shows. Where do I enter this? I guess there won't be any pretty cover art but I just want to watch them. The thing is that some (very small amount) of my RecordedTV is showing up with cover art..

EDIT: I figured this out. Any way to get cover art for files stored in the *wtv convention and file structure?
Edited by Sammy2 - 2/7/13 at 10:26am
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post #375 of 490
2/7/13 at 2:05pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sammy2 View Post




OK. Now I understand. I need to tell it that these are home movies and not movies or tv shows. Where do I enter this? I guess there won't be any pretty cover art but I just want to watch them. The thing is that some (very small amount) of my RecordedTV is showing up with cover art..

EDIT: I figured this out. Any way to get cover art for files stored in the *wtv convention and file structure?

You can always change the art manually by clicking on the current artwork in Plex web.
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post #376 of 490
2/7/13 at 3:09pm
Okay. How does one do the meta data? That'll take some time I have nearly 1TB of recordedTV content.
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post #377 of 490
2/7/13 at 4:32pm
sammy2,

That PVR thread I linked to a few posts above won't work for you? I don't fully understand PVR on HTPCs, so maybe you're using a different setup?
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post #378 of 490
2/7/13 at 8:55pm
That's a broken link but I need to use WMC for copy protected content and don't want to keep track of multiple PVR's. That said, can you fix the link as I would like to take a look at that information anyhow.
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post #379 of 490
2/7/13 at 10:26pm
Oh, sorry. I know the problem.... You need to be a plex pass member to download the new plex home theater beta builds and access that area of the forum. Link works, but I suppose you aren't a member. From what I can tell, it lets users who have a pvr working in xbmc access all the same content and live tv in plex.

Anyone here that has tried it and can chime in?
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post #380 of 490
2/8/13 at 5:42am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sammy2 View Post

I run Plex on my PC but my RecordedTV content is on my HTPC. I added a section called Recorded TV (Who would have thought of that?) to the media in PlexWeb. It is mapped to the shared location (\\Htpc-pc\e\Recorded TV) where the *.wtv files are in my HTPC. Very little of the content is showing up in MyPlex for playback on my phone or over the internet at remote locations. What did I do wrong?
Quote:
Originally Posted by lovekeiiy View Post

change the library settings for movies. Yes, none of the metadata will pull, but it will just use list the files. Even under TV shows, it wouldn't pull the metadata because of the naming convention MC uses is not Plex, or XBMC, friendly.
Quote:
Originally Posted by lockdown571 View Post

Plex will only add media that it can understand. I'm guessing you told plex these were TV shows? The problem is wmc doesn't name the files a way that plex (and probably any media scrapper) can understand, so plex won't find any of these files. What you can do is add them as home movies instead of TV shows, and they should appear in PMS.
Everyone, do yourselves a favor and download/set-up WTV-MetaRenamer. This script/app will rename your .WTV files into a format that Plex is willing to work with. I believe that it parses the metadata contained within the .WTV files but also retrieves info from TVDB. It is not 100% reliable, but seems to be 90%+ for me, and for shows it gets confused by, there seems to be an ability for you to create a "helper" text file to clarify those confusions (I haven't gotten around to trying that yet). When I recommended this in the Plex forums, one (or more?) people may have commented about it not working well for people outside of the USA because of its use of TheTVDB.com. I'm not an expert on the foreign implications, so I'll just say YMMV. In any case, setting up WTV-MetaRenamer is super, super simple, but I'd be happy to post the contents of the .xml (config) file for it, if anyone runs into any difficulty.

I've also made some attempts to get pseudo-live TV working, but there are some limitations that the Plex devs would need to implement to maximize the potential here. I've posted about this (in a few places) on the Plex forums and hopefully they'll take notice.

So, a few more specifics to get you started (these are off the top of my head, so I might be missing something)...

1) Download/install WTV-MetaRenamer and configure the .xml file. Most of the detault settings are fine. I have mine looking at my C:\Users\Public\Recorded TV\ folder (or whatever the exact location is) and I have it configured to move my TV shows *outside* of that folder (to C:\Users\Public\Recorded TV Archive\) and to store TV series in series/season subfolders (you don't have to do this). If you want to keep things super-simple, you can have it rename the files right in the original folder and not move them at all, but I figured the series/season organization to ease in further archival later if I want to, or if I want to use a non-metadata-based file browser to locate/play these. The reasons for moving them *outside* of the folder that WMC writes new recordings is to ease in my pseudo Live TV support (explained below).

2) Since you'll be moving your recordings outside of the normal directory, you'll want to go into WMC and tell it about this other folder as well (under Tasks > Settings > Media Libraries). That way it should still be able to automatically delete older shows when space is needed. At this point, I should note that it's really cool that even though WTV-MetaRenamer moves and renames these files. When you bring up WMC and the Recorded TV section, all of these shows will still be there and you'll still be able to play them, delete them, etc.

3) On Windows (I'm on Windows 7, FWIW), set up a schedule to run the WTV-MetaRenamer .bat file on a periodic basis (I think I have mine set for every 15 minutes). Note: WTV-MetaRenamer will only attempt to move/rename a TV recording that has completed recording.

4) In Plex, set up a new section for "TV Shows" and point it to the archival directory that WTV-MetaRenamer has moved your shows to. I've also configured Plex to auto-scan every 15 minutes (this is the fastest that it seems to currently support. frown.gif It will find all (hopefully) of your already-recorded/moved/renamed TV shows along with the metadata!

Bonus - Pseudo-Live TV (significant caveats below):

5) You will want/need access to an EPG (electronic program guide) app on your handheld device. My house is iOS-centric and I'm using Ceton's My Media Center app on my iPhone, which costs a few bucks but works great. Note: I have a SiliconDust HDHomeRun Prime - you do not need Ceton's tuner in order to use this app. They also make versions for Android and Windows Phone. There's a server component to this app you will need to install/configure (not hard).

6) In Plex, set up another section called "Live TV" and (using the "Home Videos" category) and point it to the directory that WMC uses to record new shows to. Plex will not get metadata/coverart for these shows, but you'll be able to see shows that are in-progress of being recorded and can play them.

So, in theory, you now use your smartphone to find a show you want to watch, set it to record, then locate the show in your new "Live TV" section of your Plex client. Big caveats:
A) Because Plex only auto-scans the folder every 15 minutes, you may need to wait up to 15 minutes before a show you've just triggered to record shows up here.
B) When you select an in-progress show to play, Plex will check the runtime. If you've just started recording the show 5 minutes ago, Plex will think the show only runs for 5 minutes. You can start playing it, but the timeline in Plex will end at 5 minutes. If you don't fast-forward, etc., after watching 5 minutes worth of the show, that .wtv file on your hard drive will actually now contain 10 minutes of recorded data, but the Plex client doesn't know that, and it will stop playing after the first 5 minutes. At that point, you can then select the show again to play, and the timeline will now indicate a runtime of 10 minutes.

If you're looking to play these shows on an iPhone, you could improve upon issue (A), and complicate things further, by installing something like AirVideo, which will let you get a more realtime view of the in-progress recordings. Once you set a show to record, it should appear as eligibile to view in the AirVideo iOS app within moments, but you'll still be hobbled by issue (B).

As I mentioned previously, I've posted in the Plex forums requesting that they make some easy (IMO) coding improvements to resolve both of these issues (and eliminate the need for WTV-MetaRenamer altogether). Please participate in that thread and voice your support so that we can hopefully get their attention.
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post #381 of 490
2/8/13 at 5:57am
I just upgraded my HTPC and have some old equipment that I was thinking of using as a Plex server:

CPU: Intel E5400 Wofdale - it's a Dual Core rather than a Core 2 Duo, but from what I read, the only difference between the two CPU lines is the level of cache. (Core2Duo is listed as a minimum requirement on the Plex Wiki)
RAM: 4GB DDR2-800
Hard Drive: 180 2.5" Samsung notebook drive
Motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-E7AUM-DS2H LGA 775 NVIDIA GeForce 9400
Also have an Nvidea 520GT card, but my understanding is that the video card doesn't make any difference for Plex Server.

So, I'm sure that setup would work for straight streaming, but how about transcoding? I'm looking to use Plex primariy for three devices:

1) My wife's Kindle Fire HD, so inside the house via Wifi
2) My brother has a Roku, so I'd like to be able to stream to him over the internet (I have a fairly robust upload spead, I think 5-8mbs)
3) Potentially a hard wired Roku in the house or something similar

My understanding is that there will have to be some transcoding for each of those above. I doubt more than one user will use it at a time. So, is that system going to be able to handle it, or am I looking at long load times?

I may upgrade desktop soon, which has a Core2Duo 8400, so I could use that, but I'm not 100% sure I'm going to do that. I suppose I could just swap them (I do play some games, but they are all 5-10 years old, so I imagine the E5400 would be fine), but again, rather not mess with it.
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post #382 of 490
2/8/13 at 6:06am
Thread Starter 
Thank you very much for the write up srauly. I had actually just started testing this the other day. I was worried that it would mess up WMC, but it sounds like it will all work fine. Thanks!
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post #383 of 490
2/8/13 at 6:09am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by ncarty97 View Post

I just upgraded my HTPC and have some old equipment that I was thinking of using as a Plex server:

CPU: Intel E5400 Wofdale - it's a Dual Core rather than a Core 2 Duo, but from what I read, the only difference between the two CPU lines is the level of cache. (Core2Duo is listed as a minimum requirement on the Plex Wiki)
RAM: 4GB DDR2-800
Hard Drive: 180 2.5" Samsung notebook drive
Motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-E7AUM-DS2H LGA 775 NVIDIA GeForce 9400
Also have an Nvidea 520GT card, but my understanding is that the video card doesn't make any difference for Plex Server.

So, I'm sure that setup would work for straight streaming, but how about transcoding? I'm looking to use Plex primariy for three devices:

1) My wife's Kindle Fire HD, so inside the house via Wifi
2) My brother has a Roku, so I'd like to be able to stream to him over the internet (I have a fairly robust upload spead, I think 5-8mbs)
3) Potentially a hard wired Roku in the house or something similar

My understanding is that there will have to be some transcoding for each of those above. I doubt more than one user will use it at a time. So, is that system going to be able to handle it, or am I looking at long load times?

I may upgrade desktop soon, which has a Core2Duo 8400, so I could use that, but I'm not 100% sure I'm going to do that. I suppose I could just swap them (I do play some games, but they are all 5-10 years old, so I imagine the E5400 would be fine), but again, rather not mess with it.

The E5400 will be very weak for transcoding. I'm sure it depends on your files, but even my Q8400 struggled at times. It will be especially difficult if you plan on transcoding multiple files at once (watching something on the Roku and the Kindle at the same time). If you plan on using Plex extensively, I think it's worth investing in a quad core i5. It can be done fairly cheaply if you build the computer yourself (~$400).
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post #384 of 490
2/8/13 at 2:02pm
question about headless pc's....i understand plex has trouble with them.

but what about pc's on a kvm switch? when you are actively using one pc, are the other pc's on the switch considered headless for the purposes of plex?

thanks!
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post #385 of 490
2/8/13 at 2:10pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by agnathra View Post

question about headless pc's....i understand plex has trouble with them.

but what about pc's on a kvm switch? when you are actively using one pc, are the other pc's on the switch considered headless for the purposes of plex?

thanks!

The main problem I think is the computer needs to be logged in for PMS to start. I'm guessing that only affects WHS and other server solutions that don't log in automatically at boot up.

There's a separate problem with the way a lot of the Plex channels work. Many require silver light and flash, and I think there are issues when no display or speakers are connected. I'm not entirely sure about this, but I did have trouble getting most of the Plex Channels to work on my WHS 2011 machine. This shouldn't affect personal media though.
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post #386 of 490
2/8/13 at 3:17pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by lockdown571 View Post

The E5400 will be very weak for transcoding. I'm sure it depends on your files, but even my Q8400 struggled at times. It will be especially difficult if you plan on transcoding multiple files at once (watching something on the Roku and the Kindle at the same time). If you plan on using Plex extensively, I think it's worth investing in a quad core i5. It can be done fairly cheaply if you build the computer yourself (~$400).

That's kind of what I was thinking. I have a server (also an E5400) running WHS2011 that I have been thinking of upgrading. I was thinking about visualizing the WHS2011 installation and then running a couple other VMs (I try to keep my WHS2011 doing nothing besides that), so I guess if I got an i5 or i7, I could just setup a VM machine for it.

Any thoughts on recommend OS for a stand alone Plex server? I'm only going to be streaming my own media, so I don't think the Flash/Silverlight thing comes into play. I have a copy of Vista64 I could use. Any downside to using a Linux distro?
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post #387 of 490
2/8/13 at 3:23pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by srauly View Post



Everyone, do yourselves a favor and download/set-up WTV-MetaRenamer. This script/app will rename your .WTV files into a format that Plex is willing to work with. I believe that it parses the metadata contained within the .WTV files but also retrieves info from TVDB. It is not 100% reliable, but seems to be 90%+ for me, and for shows it gets confused by, there seems to be an ability for you to create a "helper" text file to clarify those confusions (I haven't gotten around to trying that yet). When I recommended this in the Plex forums, one (or more?) people may have commented about it not working well for people outside of the USA because of its use of TheTVDB.com. I'm not an expert on the foreign implications, so I'll just say YMMV. In any case, setting up WTV-MetaRenamer is super, super simple, but I'd be happy to post the contents of the .xml (config) file for it, if anyone runs into any difficulty.

I've also made some attempts to get pseudo-live TV working, but there are some limitations that the Plex devs would need to implement to maximize the potential here. I've posted about this (in a few places) on the Plex forums and hopefully they'll take notice.

So, a few more specifics to get you started (these are off the top of my head, so I might be missing something)...

1) Download/install WTV-MetaRenamer and configure the .xml file. Most of the detault settings are fine. I have mine looking at my C:\Users\Public\Recorded TV\ folder (or whatever the exact location is) and I have it configured to move my TV shows *outside* of that folder (to C:\Users\Public\Recorded TV Archive\) and to store TV series in series/season subfolders (you don't have to do this). If you want to keep things super-simple, you can have it rename the files right in the original folder and not move them at all, but I figured the series/season organization to ease in further archival later if I want to, or if I want to use a non-metadata-based file browser to locate/play these. The reasons for moving them *outside* of the folder that WMC writes new recordings is to ease in my pseudo Live TV support (explained below).

2) Since you'll be moving your recordings outside of the normal directory, you'll want to go into WMC and tell it about this other folder as well (under Tasks > Settings > Media Libraries). That way it should still be able to automatically delete older shows when space is needed. At this point, I should note that it's really cool that even though WTV-MetaRenamer moves and renames these files. When you bring up WMC and the Recorded TV section, all of these shows will still be there and you'll still be able to play them, delete them, etc.

3) On Windows (I'm on Windows 7, FWIW), set up a schedule to run the WTV-MetaRenamer .bat file on a periodic basis (I think I have mine set for every 15 minutes). Note: WTV-MetaRenamer will only attempt to move/rename a TV recording that has completed recording.

4) In Plex, set up a new section for "TV Shows" and point it to the archival directory that WTV-MetaRenamer has moved your shows to. I've also configured Plex to auto-scan every 15 minutes (this is the fastest that it seems to currently support. frown.gif It will find all (hopefully) of your already-recorded/moved/renamed TV shows along with the metadata!

Bonus - Pseudo-Live TV (significant caveats below):

5) You will want/need access to an EPG (electronic program guide) app on your handheld device. My house is iOS-centric and I'm using Ceton's My Media Center app on my iPhone, which costs a few bucks but works great. Note: I have a SiliconDust HDHomeRun Prime - you do not need Ceton's tuner in order to use this app. They also make versions for Android and Windows Phone. There's a server component to this app you will need to install/configure (not hard).

6) In Plex, set up another section called "Live TV" and (using the "Home Videos" category) and point it to the directory that WMC uses to record new shows to. Plex will not get metadata/coverart for these shows, but you'll be able to see shows that are in-progress of being recorded and can play them.

So, in theory, you now use your smartphone to find a show you want to watch, set it to record, then locate the show in your new "Live TV" section of your Plex client. Big caveats:
A) Because Plex only auto-scans the folder every 15 minutes, you may need to wait up to 15 minutes before a show you've just triggered to record shows up here.
B) When you select an in-progress show to play, Plex will check the runtime. If you've just started recording the show 5 minutes ago, Plex will think the show only runs for 5 minutes. You can start playing it, but the timeline in Plex will end at 5 minutes. If you don't fast-forward, etc., after watching 5 minutes worth of the show, that .wtv file on your hard drive will actually now contain 10 minutes of recorded data, but the Plex client doesn't know that, and it will stop playing after the first 5 minutes. At that point, you can then select the show again to play, and the timeline will now indicate a runtime of 10 minutes.

If you're looking to play these shows on an iPhone, you could improve upon issue (A), and complicate things further, by installing something like AirVideo, which will let you get a more realtime view of the in-progress recordings. Once you set a show to record, it should appear as eligibile to view in the AirVideo iOS app within moments, but you'll still be hobbled by issue (B).

As I mentioned previously, I've posted in the Plex forums requesting that they make some easy (IMO) coding improvements to resolve both of these issues (and eliminate the need for WTV-MetaRenamer altogether). Please participate in that thread and voice your support so that we can hopefully get their attention.

I have a 1TB drive that is nearly full. So I need to delete 400GB of recordings before attempting this, correct? (Assuming I have no other drive to move these to which at the present time I do not)

Oh and THANKS for the information. I'm going to be investigating this this weekend.
Edited by Sammy2 - 2/8/13 at 3:52pm
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post #388 of 490
2/8/13 at 3:39pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by ncarty97 View Post

Any thoughts on recommend OS for a stand alone Plex server? I'm only going to be streaming my own media, so I don't think the Flash/Silverlight thing comes into play. I have a copy of Vista64 I could use. Any downside to using a Linux distro?

I know silverlight channels won't work, but if you don't care about channels I assume it would be fine. I haven't used PMS on linux myself though.
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post #389 of 490
2/8/13 at 8:42pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sammy2 View Post

Can you elaborate a bit more? I have several libraries in Plex (Movies, TV Shows, Bond and Recorded TV). All of them except the Recorded TV are set up in file structures for MediaBrowser and work well in Plex. I am not sure what you mean by "change the library settings for movies." Thanks.

It looks this was answered overall. Basically, I was just talking about the scrappers, which in Plex, is set by what kind of Library you choose. If you just pick movies, Plex will just use the file name of the WRT files, but there will be no metadata pulled. I literally just pointed my PVR library tot eh MC recorded TV directorty using a movie library setup. I didn't change anything else.

It's not a very good video, but it may help you see what I mean:
I haven't looked at the renamerWRT thing yet. I'll look into it.

I don't want that channel very often. It's mainly for when I want to watch something away from home that I recorded. Overall, I don't give a big hoot how it looks in plex or it will pulled metadata. Only one show I record is wanted for more than one viewing. But the setup I use is good about detecting added recordings and deletions. So the fact it works fits my needs.

On a side note, I didn't realize it was possible to setup Plex for home movies, LOL.

My thinking, if you wanted metadata and so forth, you might able to get away with setting up something that can create NFO text file, or something like that can pull the info from MC's scrapper pulls.
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post #390 of 490
2/9/13 at 6:50am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sammy2 View Post

I have a 1TB drive that is nearly full. So I need to delete 400GB of recordings before attempting this, correct? (Assuming I have no other drive to move these to which at the present time I do not).
I'm not clear on what you're asking. In my case I'm just using my internal C: drive for all TV recording and WTV-MetaRenamer moves/renames these files to another directory still on the C: drive. You don't need any additional space to move a file.

BTW, I did some more testing yesterday. Someone in the Plex forums told me that he was able to play in-progress TV recordings in an older version of XBMC (Eden), where it would keep playing the file and not stop playing it prematurely (based on whatever it thought the runtime was when it first started playing the file). So, I downloaded/installed Eden on my MacBook and confirmed that it was true. I ran into problems, though, when I attempted to load XBMC Eden on my WMC server and use it and Ceton My Media Center simultaneously to record a live TV show in the background. The Ceton app would lose connection to the server, and XBMC would refuse to play the file I had just started recording. I may do more testing of this later. I'm hopeful, though, that I can leverage this to convince the XBMC and Plex devs into seeing the current behavior as a bug, rather than seeing my request as a feature enhancement.
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