[mythtv-users] mythtv plex integration

[Justin Alcorn]

On Sun, Nov 2, 2014 at 5:57 PM, David Whyte <david.whyte at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> I have done both of what has been suggested here:
> 1) Use the MythTV Plex Channel.  Works great, the metadata is all present
> but it seems a bit slow to navigate since you have to hop through Plex ->
> mythTV Services API all the time.
> 2) Use mythlink.py to put user friendly names of my recordings in a special
> 'mythTV TV Shows' library.  This is quicker to navigate but you don't get
> the same metadata since Australian listings don't include season numbers
> correctly, etc.
>
> I have thought about a third option, creating a special mythTV 'parser' that
> Plex can use.  This would mean you would have a 'mythTV TV Shows' library
> that just references your recordings storage group and then Plex uses the
> new parser to lookup the meta-data from the Services API.  Best of both
> worlds.
>
> My three annoyances with any of these solutions:
> 1) You can't watch in progress recordings.
> 2) You can't watch liveTV (though I use a separate Plex Channel for this)
> 3) Seeking within recordings seems to be slower than native mythTV which is
> so quick it has spoilt us all.
>
> Cheers,
> Whytey
>

I've done it 3 different ways. Note that I get both MPEG-2 Streams
from a HDHomeRun OTA and H.264 Video in a .MPG container from a HDPVR.
Note that None of them allow LiveTV watching.

First try) User job that took the .MPG files and transcoded it to .mp4
files for use with MythRoku.  HDPVR streams took the Commercial
Cutlist, reversed it and used ffmpeg and ffconcat to cut out the
commercials.  HDHomerun streams used mythtransocer --honorcutlist,
then HandBrakeCLI to convert to H.264.  This was somewhat unrealiable
and seeking was completely broken.

Second Try) Use mythlinks.pl with an enhancement to put SxxExx in the
title, and make a library pointing to that directory.  The
mythlinks.pl job was run by the plex user.  I still used #1 to convert
everything to H.264 and cut commercials.

Third try) Use the MythTV Channel on Plex to watch via the Roku.
Still use my userjob to cut commercials, but now I don't bother
converting the streams from MPEG2, I just let the server transcode.
Quality is less, but shows are available much quicker since I don't
have to run them through Handbrake. Interface isn't very good.  For
shows I want to archive, I use the Mythlinks strategy and copy the
files to my permanent library.  This is acceptable.

The script I use is at
http://jalcorn.net/~jalcorn/autoremove_commercials.txt . Constructive
criticism and ideas are welsome, it's a work in progress.