To further tempt current and potential cord cutters, buying a new Shield today entitles you to six months of Plex Pass (a $30 value) for free. In conjunction with the Plex news Nvidia announced today that version 5.2 of its Shield Android TV software would roll out over the next couple of weeks, adding live TV support and a couple of other extras, like the ability to record TV shows and movies directly to their network attached storage (NAS) via Plex. Olechowski called out the $200 Shield, which added Plex server capability last year, as an ideal device to use with Plex live TV. Support for Android phones and tablets, as well as Apple TV, is coming soon, with more devices to follow. You can watch on your iOS device, namely an iPhone or iPad, or on a TV using an Android TV device like Nvidia Shield. Plex says its live TV service is still in beta, so device support is limited. I'm curious to see how the pristine quality of over-the-air high-def holds up when passed through Plex. Video quality is optimized for mobile or in-home viewing, and as with other Plex streams it can take advantage of hardware transcoding, if the server is robust enough. You can favorite and exclude local channels, filter and sort shows by genre and other criteria and tackle recording conflicts - something that's easier if you connect a dual-tuner device. The interface lacks a grid guide (something he said was on the list of features coming soon) but the thumbnail images of shows looks nicer and serves a similar purpose of surfacing stuff you can watch now.ĭata goes out for 14 days and is supplied by Gracenote.

Plex co-founder Scott Olechowski showed me a quick demo over video chat.

Plex dvr tuner