Plex brings Live TV features to fourth-generation Apple TV

AppleInsider

Two recent features of Plex's media streaming app -- Live TV and DVR -- have emerged from beta, with the former appearing on the Apple TV for the first time.

To use Live TV, Apple TV owners must have a Plex Pass subscription and a compatible digital antenna and tuner connected to a Plex Media Server. The feature supports non-encrypted broadcasts in over 70 countries, and includes a program guide with artwork, episode details, and search functions.

Apple TV users may need to restart Plex to get Live TV to appear. With the feature emerging out of beta however they will also get access to Time Shifting, letting them pause and scrub through live shows much like they would saved DVR files.

Live TV is otherwise limited to Android and iOS devices. Support for Roku, Amazon Fire TV, and various smart TVs is said to be "coming soon."

Plex is mainly intended to stream media hosted on a nearby Mac, Windows, or Linux PC, though Media Server can also run on some Wi-Fi routers and network-attached storage, or even through cloud services like OneDrive and Google Drive.

SpamSandwich

Would be great if an over-the-air digital antenna could connect to the Apple TV so the entire TV viewing experience could remain in their UI.

rob53

SpamSandwich said:

Would be great if an over-the-air digital antenna could connect to the Apple TV so the entire TV viewing experience could remain in their UI.

Yes it would, however, unless they expand the number of transmitting antennas to more rural areas in the PNW, the only stations I get are from Canada. Seattle is the closest TV broadcasting location and it's 90 miles away. It's tough getting cellular antennas in my area so broadcast antennas would be just as difficult.

stompy

SpamSandwich said:

Would be great if an over-the-air digital antenna could connect to the Apple TV so the entire TV viewing experience could remain in their UI.

That ship sailed before the first Apple TV shipped.

eightzero

Options are good. But this requires a subscription (plexpass) and that's a deal breaker for me. YYMV.

I see Mohu is releasing a OTA antenna with a wifi connection, the Mohu Airwave. Looks to be about $150, but maybe is tenable..

SpamSandwich said:

Would be great if an over-the-air digital antenna could connect to the Apple TV so the entire TV viewing experience could remain in their UI.

It seems almost trivial to add a tuner or two to the box, and a coax connection on the back.

jbdragon

eightzero said:

Options are good. But this requires a subscription (plexpass) and that's a deal breaker for me. YYMV.

I see Mohu is releasing a OTA antenna with a wifi connection, the Mohu Airwave. Looks to be about $150, but maybe is tenable..

SpamSandwich said:

Would be great if an over-the-air digital antenna could connect to the Apple TV so the entire TV viewing experience could remain in their UI.

It seems almost trivial to add a tuner or two to the box, and a coax connection on the back.

Buy Lifetime and then you never have to worry about it! I got Lifetime many years ago and it's been well worth it. If anything, it was a steal. I use PLEX pretty much every day. It runs on my Upgraded ReadyNAS 516. Unlike most of the other DVR solutions using the HDHomerun, where you need one of the newer ones to make it work. PLEX will work with the older hardware like mine which I used to use with Windows Media Center before I switched to TIVO. I keep all my TV, Movies, Pictures and Music on PLEX. I can stream my music from home onto my iPhone as I'm driving around in my truck. I watch PLEX at work on my launch break.

Right now there's a 20% off sale For Lifetime PLEXPASS service!!! Instead of $149.00, it's now $119.99. That's a great price. That's a great deal. Plex is always being worked on. There's new updates all the time. All the many features added over the years has been great. Plex is supported on so many devices these days. I use PLEX on my AppleTV 4's all the time. It does so much, and works so well. I like to think of it as my own Private Netflix type service. Each person in your house can have their own account. you can have a password if you want on it. You can even have friends accounts and you friends can log in and watch your stuff. I limit the bandwidth for the stream to them to 720P 3Mbps. You can control that and lower or are it up higher. That looks pretty good for them. Plex is on the fly transcoding the 1080P much higher stream down to the lower quality stream.

This is why you really need good hardware. Direct Play, do nothing is fine, for some things, but most of the time Plex is transcoding. It might not be for video, but for Audio as you may have a number of audio tracks to pick from. So my NAS has a Intel XEON 4 core processor in it. It used to have a slower 2 core XEON in it. ARM processors are really can't cut it yet. So a Cheap NAS, while you may be able to install PLEX on it, it won't be able to do any transcoding. A lot of people buy a Mac Mini because they have some power. They're small, and are not power hungry. So one of them, with a cheaper NAS for the storage and that works well. You can access the Mac Mini Remotely from another Mac or Windows PC. Or course you can just use the computer and HDD you have and nothing else, but not as convenient. Wouldn't work well for a DVR solution.

polymnia

SpamSandwich said:

Would be great if an over-the-air digital antenna could connect to the Apple TV so the entire TV viewing experience could remain in their UI.

the Plex-based solution described in the article is even better in some ways. You use one TV receiver device with multiple AppleTV's/Plex devices. This way you can get away with a single Antenna coax cable drop that can feed any device in (or outside) your home. 

I use an HDHomeRun device plugged into my aerial antenna to feed both AppleTVs in my home as well as my iPad and Plex for DVR. 

I havent had to switch my TV from HDMI 1 since setting up this system. 

Sure, you need the antenna receiver, which is an extra box, but this scales up better if you have more rendering devices. 

jabohn

MrMC, a variant of Kodi, brought Live TV features to AppleTV a long time ago and there is no subscription fee to use it after you buy the app, yet it gets no notice from tech media.

MrMC is constantly being worked on as well, with new features being added and bugs being fixed constantly.

SpamSandwich

polymnia said:

SpamSandwich said:

Would be great if an over-the-air digital antenna could connect to the Apple TV so the entire TV viewing experience could remain in their UI.

the Plex-based solution described in the article is even better in some ways. You use one TV receiver device with multiple AppleTV's/Plex devices. This way you can get away with a single Antenna coax cable drop that can feed any device in (or outside) your home. 

I use an HDHomeRun device plugged into my aerial antenna to feed both AppleTVs in my home as well as my iPad and Plex for DVR. 

I havent had to switch my TV from HDMI 1 since setting up this system. 

Sure, you need the antenna receiver, which is an extra box, but this scales up better if you have more rendering devices. 

I'm not sure how that's supposed to be better? Ideally, the next gen AppleTV would have built-in OTA tuner connection port, a built-in SSD for DVR function and 4K video capability. Why Apple evidently has no interest in being the one-size-fits-all device for the TV is beyond me. They should own the entire experience.

polymnia

SpamSandwich said:

polymnia said:

SpamSandwich said:

Would be great if an over-the-air digital antenna could connect to the Apple TV so the entire TV viewing experience could remain in their UI.

the Plex-based solution described in the article is even better in some ways. You use one TV receiver device with multiple AppleTV's/Plex devices. This way you can get away with a single Antenna coax cable drop that can feed any device in (or outside) your home. 

I use an HDHomeRun device plugged into my aerial antenna to feed both AppleTVs in my home as well as my iPad and Plex for DVR. 

I havent had to switch my TV from HDMI 1 since setting up this system. 

Sure, you need the antenna receiver, which is an extra box, but this scales up better if you have more rendering devices. 

I'm not sure how that's supposed to be better? Ideally, the next gen AppleTV would have built-in OTA tuner connection port, a built-in SSD for DVR function and 4K video capability. Why Apple evidently has no interest in being the one-size-fits-all device for the TV is beyond me. They should own the entire experience.

It's better because you only need one tuner device for an entire residence and it doesn't need to be anywhere near you AppleTV. 

I understand Apple not wanting to own the OTA experience. It's not an Apple experience. It's nice that they have permitted an App Store and talented developers like the ones behind Plex have taken that and run with it. 

Further, I like AppleTV's relatively low price. Adding more SSD & tuners would certainly raise its price. 

I also suspect any tuners built-into AppleTV would be more locked down. Would you be able to stream to Macs or iPads? Plex allows all this, even (eww) android & Windows devices. 

Anyway, I'm not going to try to convince you further that the Plex & External tuner solution is better.

I might suggest you give it a try. It's all available now. I use it everyday. 

MacPro

jbdragon said:

eightzero said:

Options are good. But this requires a subscription (plexpass) and that's a deal breaker for me. YYMV.

I see Mohu is releasing a OTA antenna with a wifi connection, the Mohu Airwave. Looks to be about $150, but maybe is tenable..

SpamSandwich said:

Would be great if an over-the-air digital antenna could connect to the Apple TV so the entire TV viewing experience could remain in their UI.

It seems almost trivial to add a tuner or two to the box, and a coax connection on the back.

Buy Lifetime and then you never have to worry about it! I got Lifetime many years ago and it's been well worth it. If anything, it was a steal. I use PLEX pretty much every day. It runs on my Upgraded ReadyNAS 516. Unlike most of the other DVR solutions using the HDHomerun, where you need one of the newer ones to make it work. PLEX will work with the older hardware like mine which I used to use with Windows Media Center before I switched to TIVO. I keep all my TV, Movies, Pictures and Music on PLEX. I can stream my music from home onto my iPhone as I'm driving around in my truck. I watch PLEX at work on my launch break.

Right now there's a 20% off sale For Lifetime PLEXPASS service!!! Instead of $149.00, it's now $119.99. That's a great price. That's a great deal. Plex is always being worked on. There's new updates all the time. All the many features added over the years has been great. Plex is supported on so many devices these days. I use PLEX on my AppleTV 4's all the time. It does so much, and works so well. I like to think of it as my own Private Netflix type service. Each person in your house can have their own account. you can have a password if you want on it. You can even have friends accounts and you friends can log in and watch your stuff. I limit the bandwidth for the stream to them to 720P 3Mbps. You can control that and lower or are it up higher. That looks pretty good for them. Plex is on the fly transcoding the 1080P much higher stream down to the lower quality stream.

This is why you really need good hardware. Direct Play, do nothing is fine, for some things, but most of the time Plex is transcoding. It might not be for video, but for Audio as you may have a number of audio tracks to pick from. So my NAS has a Intel XEON 4 core processor in it. It used to have a slower 2 core XEON in it. ARM processors are really can't cut it yet. So a Cheap NAS, while you may be able to install PLEX on it, it won't be able to do any transcoding. A lot of people buy a Mac Mini because they have some power. They're small, and are not power hungry. So one of them, with a cheaper NAS for the storage and that works well. You can access the Mac Mini Remotely from another Mac or Windows PC. Or course you can just use the computer and HDD you have and nothing else, but not as convenient. Wouldn't work well for a DVR solution.

This is all true, Plex is amazing and I use a Mac mini as a Plex sever for my LAN and have a lot of movies I ripped back the old days of DVD Bluray. James Bond, Tomb Raiders, Disney kids stuff for grandchildren visits  and so on.  My only disagreement with you that there simply are not enough hours in the day to make it worth the effort any more with so much streaming available. Music for us is all from Apple's iTunes Match.  I have  a bunch of Apple TVs around the house, a Netflix subscription and an Amazon Prime via a doodah (FireStick is it?) and AP is coming the Apple TV as an app soon I read. With Netflix alone there are so many TV series with years of episodes my wife and I watch a couple of shows each evening but that's it.  Hey, I have to leave some time for Story Mode GTA V and experimenting with all the mods available