# Plex on TiVo - laggy interface?



## JeffW907 (Sep 2, 2013)

While I'm pretty pleased with finally having Plex on TiVo I'm less than impressed with the speed of the interface. It's rather slow to load art and general navigation is laggy as compared with Plex on Roku. My assumption is that this is due to the Opera interface and will not improve until Plex/TiVo develop a native application.

Do others share the same experience?


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## garion911 (Dec 12, 2007)

Yes, I've definitely found it slow.. I was playing around with the music streaming, and its frustratingly bad when an entire song can play while I'm trying to select the next one by a different artist..


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## bradleys (Oct 31, 2007)

I agree..

Where is this bad rumor coming from that TiVo / Plex are working on a native aplication?

They are not...


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## confinoj (Apr 2, 2003)

With a slow interface, limited plex features, and rather limited resolution/bitrate I don't think it's ready for prime time. I will not be using it regularly. If it stays as an Opera based app, which I'm assuming it will, I don't see how it will get much faster. I'll stick with my ios app and airplay to my ATV. It would be nice to have the interface on the big screen but otherwise it works very well. With my harmony remote switching to ATV is just one button push so not too bad.


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## bradleys (Oct 31, 2007)

If the implemented the ability to "cast" from the iOS app to the TiVo Plex app, it wouldn't really matter if the implementation were a little slow.

Hopefully that is on the development map.


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## confinoj (Apr 2, 2003)

bradleys said:


> If the implemented the ability to "cast" from the iOS app to the TiVo Plex app, it wouldn't really matter if the implementation were a little slow.
> 
> Hopefully that is on the development map.


That would help if they also fixed the resolution/bitrate limitation. Shouldn't be too hard to implement as we know TiVo supports the DIAL protocol (used for youtube and netflix apps) and plex can cast to chromecast which is based on DIAL protocol.


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## wizwor (Dec 18, 2013)

I disagree. While I would like to have the Simple app, I am very happy to be able to watch my media on a TiVo. One box, one remote. My family is very happy. 


confinoj said:


> With a slow interface, limited plex features, and rather limited resolution/bitrate I don't think it's ready for prime time. I will not be using it regularly. If it stays as an Opera based app, which I'm assuming it will, I don't see how it will get much faster. I'll stick with my ios app and airplay to my ATV. It would be nice to have the interface on the big screen but otherwise it works very well. With my harmony remote switching to ATV is just one button push so not too bad.


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## foghorn2 (May 4, 2004)

Not only that, it simply does not work. No videos will stream to the Tivo, MKV's, MP4's , Sony camcorder files, nothing. All settings were correct when I tested it.

On the other hand my WDTV and FireTV with Kodi plays everything including ISO's with no midlleware on the server. Just shared directories.


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## dlambermont (Feb 5, 2003)

I've found it to be slow and buggy. I haven't had it play through an entire video yet without crashing back to the Tivo menu at some point.


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## bradleys (Oct 31, 2007)

dlambermont said:


> I've found it to be slow and buggy. I haven't had it play through an entire video yet without crashing back to the Tivo menu at some point.


I have had it longer then anyone, and I have not experienced that at all.

Once, I had a reboot, but found out it was based on delivery of an updated version. Watching shows has been rock solid.

You need to look at your setup buddy


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## JBDragon (Jan 4, 2004)

I have a ton of Movies and TV shows on my NAS I've ripped from my Discs. Most all are in MKV format. The ROKU plays them all great, but my Amazon Fire Stick had some issues!!! I've only used that thing a couple times. But then I got it for $19. I havn't had a chance to use PLEX on the TIVO much yet, it played fine for a couple that I tried, but it's just not as fast as on the ROKU!!! not by a long shot and with it's limitations. I just have so many different streaming options I can use, I think TIVO is low on the list right now!!!

On the other hand, Yahoo Screen is cool. I don't have any other devices that can do that, that I know of. So watching the new Season of Community on my Tivo easily is great. Even better no Ads, which is surprising. It's FREE and Ad free. How is Yahoo making any money from that?


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## siratfus (Oct 3, 2008)

If you like your Tivo freezing up and getting off your couch to unplug the tivo, then try rewinding or forwarding during playback. Lol.

Definitely not ready for prime time.


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## HarperVision (May 14, 2007)

siratfus said:


> If you like your Tivo freezing up and getting off your couch to unplug the tivo, then try rewinding or forwarding during playback. Lol. Definitely not ready for prime time.


I've watched several shows via Plex on my plus and minis and haven't had that issue once. There must be something else going on.


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## bradleys (Oct 31, 2007)

siratfus said:


> If you like your Tivo freezing up and getting off your couch to unplug the tivo, then try rewinding or forwarding during playback. Lol.
> 
> Definitely not ready for prime time.


Are you using a Computer or a NAS as your Plex Server?


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## tivoknucklehead (Dec 12, 2002)

its garbage compared to the Roku 3 plex interface


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## werk (Feb 24, 2005)

tivoknucklehead said:


> its garbage compared to the Roku 3 plex interface


Better get used to it because your Roku's gonna look like it soon enough.


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## siratfus (Oct 3, 2008)

bradleys said:


> Are you using a Computer or a NAS as your Plex Server?


Computer i7 processor.

I'm sure it works find if you're concious of how laggy it is and press only once for either forward or rewind and wait for it to react. But I think I pressed like three times forward, I'm guessing like watching live tv, three times would be the fastest. Nothing happened, I get those dots in the middle of the screen like it's doing something, but it didn't do anything. I press back, it wouldn't go back, I press home, it wouldn't go home.

I'm sure pressing a bunch of buttons quickly without giving it a chance has something to do with the lock-up. But then that's just the point, it's not ready for prime time. It's not zippy enough. I waited a loooooooong time too. I went to do something else, to allow all the commands to catch up. It never did, I had to unplug.


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## HarperVision (May 14, 2007)

tivoknucklehead said:


> its garbage compared to the Roku 3 plex interface


Well the Roku 3 is garbage as a DVR (Simple.TV, Tablo, etc.) because that's not it's originally designed purpose. The same as TiVo was originally designed first as a DVR.

If I HAD TO have only one device or the FCC Police would shoot me dead, I'd choose the TiVo at this point!

What's your point?


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## bradleys (Oct 31, 2007)

werk said:


> Better get used to it because your Roku's gonna look like it soon enough.


Yep, looks the same. The posters in the video were redrawing quickly - that would be my biggest complaint about Plex on TiVo.

That said - it works really well for my needs. Jus ad casting and I would be over the top!


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## herbroleknotty (Jan 2, 2015)

I can't even play a mp3 on the tivo app. I'm having trouble figuring out why they released this if it doesn't work. I can stream Plex to every other device in my house just fine.


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## Henryr (Nov 22, 2003)

bradleys said:


> Are you using a Computer or a NAS as your Plex Server?


I think this is going to be the biggest variable. Some folks are running Plex on a NAS (underpowered, designed to be JUST a NAS!) and others are running it on i7 hardware. Even i7 "hardware" doesn't mean you have a good set up. Not knowing how many other process are running on ANY system its hard to knock Plex without any context.

I just bought the lifetime pass for Plex. It's evolving and I think its going to be a viable replacement to my Media Center set-up that has been in place for year.
BTW, just got back into TiVo. Other than Roamio, doesn't look like I missed much. :|


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## herbroleknotty (Jan 2, 2015)

Henryr said:


> I think this is going to be the biggest variable. Some folks are running Plex on a NAS (underpowered, designed to be JUST a NAS!) and others are running it on i7 hardware. Even i7 "hardware" doesn't mean you have a good set up. Not knowing how many other process are running on ANY system its hard to knock Plex without any context.


I don't think context matters all that much. If a user can stream plex to every other device, and only has trouble with tivo, then it's pretty clear where the problem lies. If it's a configuration issue, then it would be nice if tivo or plex gave us some support documentation. Instead we're kind of left hanging, wondering if the tivo box just can't handle the task. 
By the way, I'm running plex server on an older desktop dual core 3 gigs of ram etc.


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## cybergrimes (Jun 15, 2015)

Hey guys, just ordered my first TiVo (Roamio OTA) and have been lurking to learn more from everyday user threads here. I just wanted to chime in my experiences with Plex-- they have no problem releasing a laggy interface, be it the software or underpowered hardware of the rendering device. I'm a gen1 Google TV owner, started using Plex on that device back in late 2011 and it was always a slow affair. It did not matter if the server was an x86 desktop or NAS device. The only way to keep it useable was turning off a lot of features like background art, etc. I eventually quit using Plex altogether when Plex Pass became the big push but support of the product remains limited to forums only, no email or telephone for a product with an ongoing or lifetime payment. Don't get me wrong, it's great software when you've got a powerful machine on both ends of the stream. I just feel like they've reached a point where they've targeted too many devices but fail to fully resolve all of the issues the users experience across all the platforms.


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## JBDragon (Jan 4, 2004)

Henryr said:


> I think this is going to be the biggest variable. Some folks are running Plex on a NAS (underpowered, designed to be JUST a NAS!) and others are running it on i7 hardware. Even i7 "hardware" doesn't mean you have a good set up. Not knowing how many other process are running on ANY system its hard to knock Plex without any context.
> 
> I just bought the lifetime pass for Plex. It's evolving and I think its going to be a viable replacement to my Media Center set-up that has been in place for year.
> BTW, just got back into TiVo. Other than Roamio, doesn't look like I missed much. :|


I have all my movies and other content on my NAS, but the PLEX server runs on my high end Windows i7 systems, and the PLEX Database is on it's own SSD drive on my computer!!!

So Plex is normally pretty snappy on my ROKU and Xbox system's etc, but on the TIVO it's pretty laggy!!! The 720P limitation doesn't help either. I hope it can get better in time. If it's your only option, OK, but PLEX runs on many different devices. My Roamio is a great device for what it does mainly, and that's record all my programs from a Antenna. But for PLEX, it's not very good. It's a pretty slow client from all the others I have. I guess it's better then nothing. It's still not on my Tivo Mini yet!!! Or iheartradio for that matter. I have a TON of content indexed with PLEX. So maybe that adds to the slowness that I'm seeing on PLEX though the Roamio box. I'm about as best as you could ever get for a PLEX Server speed wise.


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