

cable TV subscription in order to operate, and that's also one of the downsides to anyone outside the United States. The HDHomeRun Prime requires a CableCARD and a valid U.S. Add another one and watch on up to six different devices, for example. You can also stack multiple Primes to increase the number of available tuners. It allows up to three different devices to watch HDTV at the same time over your home wired or wireless network, as well as being able to stream directly to DLNA-enabled devices. This one box allows you to distribute your TV channels throughout your home without the need to buy or rent additional boxes from your TV provider, for $129. Unless Plex adds its own live and time-shifted TV support, the whole situation is going to be a mess for the average consumer.If you're a "cord shaver" rather than a cutter and you want to keep your cable TV but do more with it, then the HDHomeRun Prime is for you. The official HDHomeRun apps for live TV only run on Windows, Android, Android TV, and Xbox One.Īnd no matter what solution you go with, you won’t be able to start a recording and watch while the program is still in progress. PC users can also install third-party Plex plug-ins for live and time-shifted TV-with the added benefit of Roku support-but these are cumbersome to navigate and have longer channel load times than HDHomeRun’s native apps. Apple TV and iOS users can download the third-party Channels app, which does support time-shifting, but these apps cost $15 extra. On Windows, Android, Android TV, Fire TV, and Xbox One, you can use HDHomeRun’s own apps, but those don’t support time-shifting for live broadcasts. Recordings appear within the existing TV and movie sections in Plex’s client apps.īut for live TV, you must use a completely separate set of apps, because Plex doesn’t support live viewing on its own. Plex also remembers what you’ve watched, so you can quickly pick up where you left off. The Plex app has separate sections for TV Shows and Movies, and automatically pulls in thumbnail artwork and descriptions. Recordings funnel into the same system Plex already uses for other video sources, such as ripped DVDs and downloads. You don’t need to be inside the house either, as Plex supports remote access to your server.

For recorded TV, you must use Plex’s client apps, which are available on iOS, Android, Windows, Mac, web browsers, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, Android TV, Chromecast, Roku, Xbox consoles, PlayStation consoles, and even some smart TV platforms.
