plex media server hardware requirements for dvr

Using the site’s reception calculator, you can enter your address and see a mapped look at the location and distance of your local broadcasting towers. Due to factors such as elevation, natural and artificial obstacles, and building materials, you won’t know for sure if a particular antenna will work for you until you try it, but a good place to start is AntennaWeb. You’ll need one tuner for every simultaneous live or recorded stream, so take that into account when choosing a device.Īs for antennas, Plex and your TV tuner will work with any digital antenna, it’s simply a matter of choosing one that is powerful enough to receive your desired local channels. Prices for TV tuners range from around $50 to $150 for the higher-end quad-tuner options. In our testing, we’re using an HDHomeRun, specifically the HDHomeRun Connect Duo, which is a two-tuner model.

Plex maintains a list of compatible TV tuners, with options from several companies including HDHomeRun, AVerMedia, and Hauppauge. Note, however, that Plex is not compatible with the encrypted cable TV signals that are increasingly common in the United States, so you may not receive all of your channels if you go this route. In addition to a Plex Pass, you’ll also need some hardware in order to use Plex Live TV and DVR, specifically a TV tuner and antenna (for over-the-air broadcasts) or a cable-compatible tuner and active feed for cable signals. As a paid Plex Pass subscriber for many years, I find the benefits to be well worth the cost, but you’ll need to weigh your own planned uses for Plex against the Plex Pass subscription price, as it’s unlikely that a feature like Live TV will escape the paywall anytime soon. There’s also a “Lifetime” option currently priced at $119.99, and Plex occasionally advertises special discounts for Lifetime memberships with prices as low as $74.99. Plex Pass prices range from $14.99 for three months to $39.99 for a year. While the Plex Media Server and many of its playback clients are free, the company restricts certain features and functionality to paid Plex Pass subscribers, and Live TV is one of these restricted features. Read on for our look at Plex Live TV and why we think it should be part of any cord cutter’s setup. But after testing the feature extensively over the past several months, we feel that the benefits of Plex Live TV outweigh its few issues for many users looking to cut the cord.

Plex media server hardware requirements for dvr