Are you an HDHomeRun user, and if so, how are you using it?

[Lou Jacob]

If you are an HDHomeRun user, we'd like to know more about how you are using it. Please answer the poll question and if you have time, please post a little information on how you are using it. What we'd really like to know is the type of PC you are using, what PVR software you are using, and anything else interesting about your implementation.

Some other questions:

Are you using a set-top box, such as a Neuros, XBOX360 or some other device, to view your recorded material on your TV?

Do you watch your recorded material on your PC, laptop or other portable device?

We think that the HDHomeRun is a great product, but there are a variety of ways to implement and use it; we'd like to hear more about how folks are doing it!

Lou

PS I can edit the poll choices as I get more data... Lj

[velcro]

Works great!

Running with XP MCE on an Aopen HTPC (EPC945-M8) nice form factor (TiVo sized).

Using DVI to HDMI cable to watch at 720P on my HD TV. I almost always use the TV to view the recordings, its hard to watch the full HD content anywhere else, like on my laptop, as its not beefy enough for HD video, however, using WebGuide http://www.asciiexpress.com/webguide/ I can stream and transcode video anywhere and schedule recordings via the guide. It makes MCE much more useful, and its free!

I especially like the fact that I can record 2 HD programs and 1 SD program (using my Hapauge tuner and HDHomeRun) at the same time.

The power supply went out on my HDHomeRun after nearly a year, and the guys sent me a new one free of charge. Now that's service!

[Lou Jacob]

Please note that ArcSoft TotalMedia is now available at no charge for all HDHomeRun Users.

For information and instructions, please see the forums area of SiliconDust's web site:

TotalMedia for HDHomeRun - Download Information and Instructions (http://www.silicondust.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5181)

[MatthewFlook59289]

I'm using the HDHomeRun with my custom built Vista Home Premium Media Center PC. I use it to pick up the unencrypted QAM HD channels from my cheap Comcast cable TV service. It's a miracle to be able to view these channels perfectly in the MCE interface instead of using an unreliable OTA HD antenna.

I actually do most of my TV viewing via an Xbox 360 running as an Extender. The QAM HD channels come across great on my modest gigabit LAN. This provides a great viewing experience for my girlfriend and I and comes at a great price considering our low monthly cable bill.

The only drawback is the messy guide data in MCE - a lot of my channels report "no data available" despite the HDHomeRun software grabbing all appropriate channel info from zap2it.

[FlorinAndrei59479]

Using it with MythTV. One input for OTA, the other for unencrypted Comcast digital channels.

[EarlGuyer64433]

I built a new computer just before Christmas. It's an Asus motherboard, Intel E6850 processor and 4 GB of Ram. I'm running Vista 64 bit. This computer is primarily my Media Center computer and I use it for everything video. I have some great programs for converting DVDs to Mpeg files that I can watch on my TV. I have 2 HD TVs. One is 52", 1080i and the other is a 32" 720p. Both have Linksys Media Center Extenders connected to them and I love being able to watch all the content on my computer in HD on my TVs. I am getting about 14 channels in clear quam over cable. About 90% of what I usually watch is available in HD and I have everything scheduled to record on my MCE computer. The HDhomerun has worked perfectly from the first day and was really pretty easy to set up.

Earl in Plano

[ScottFiddelke64266]

Using BeyondTV on an XP machine with Meedio controlling everything else.

[rprochnow]

I purchased our 2nd HDHR from DVRupgrade.

Our local Comcast recently added clear QAM channels for most of the standard analog cable channels, in addition to the HD local broadcast channels. This has eliminated any need to use an analog cable tuner - because all of the channels we watch are now in digital.

Our primary media center is running Vista Ultimate - with two Hauppauge PVR-150 analog cable tuners, plus it is configured with 3 HDHR tuners (from the 2 HDHR boxes we now have).

The remaining HDHR tuner is available for use on my desktop or laptop - both running Vista Ultimate.

The network capability of the HDHR gives a lot of flexibility in sharing the HDHRs between multiple PCs and with 2 HDHR boxes, it's now possible to reserve one HDHR tuner for 'floaters' and keep 3 tuners dedicated to the primary media center.

A minor complaint with the HDHR is that their channel editor - to make the QAM to Media Center channel assignments still needs work. The limitations of the editor are a bigger problem right now since Comcast seems to be changing their digital channel assignments every few weeks.

Only major complaint is actually with Comcast - and not with HDHR. Comcast has decided to encrypt the HD 'standard analog' cable channels. This means that in order to get Fox Sports HD or ESPN HD, we can't use the HDHR and instead must use the Comcast DVR (which has very, very poor software!).

Hopefully DVRupgrade will stock other solutions to this problem - which will probably either be Hauppauge's new HD-PVR component-to-digital converter (when it's supported by Vista Media Center) or the HDPC-20 DirecTV USB dual-tuner (assuming it works better than the very limited ATI OCUR CableCard tuner). But even with those other technologies, we'll probably continue using our HDHRs to access the unencrypted digital cable channels - because the networking feature makes it possible to share the tuners across multiple PCs.

[Lou Jacob]

Only major complaint is actually with Comcast - and not with HDHR. Comcast has decided to encrypt the HD 'standard analog' cable channels. This means that in order to get Fox Sports HD or ESPN HD, we can't use the HDHR and instead must use the Comcast DVR (which has very, very poor software!).


I'm curious... what does Comcast charge for their DVR and why is TiVo not an option in your current environment? Is it a pricing issue, a technical issue or something else?

[rprochnow]

On our last bill, Comcast is charging us $7.49 for the HD DVR box and an additional $9.95 for the "HD DVR service". So we're paying almost $17 per month for Comcast's DVR - vs. free for the HDHRs with Media Center!

[Lou Jacob]

On our last bill, Comcast is charging us $7.49 for the HD DVR box and an additional $9.95 for the "HD DVR service". So we're paying almost $17 per month for Comcast's DVR - vs. free for the HDHRs with Media Center!

Wow. You may want to keep something like the TiVo HD on your radar. The initial cost of the hardware may put you off, though - the MSRP is $299. The cost of the service is $12.95 / month (lifetime subscription is $399). And Comcast will want to charge you about $5 / month for the CableCard that is required; so the monthly fees are pretty much a wash. You'd definitely get a lot more for your money with the TiVo's additional features.

With all of that said, the HDHomeRun is definitely the best 'value' - its just those encrypted channels that are a problem...

[rprochnow]

Really want to stick with the Media Center solution - because we have 3 media extenders accessing the central media center - so the HD-PVR or HDPC-20 solution may be better for us than a TivoHD.

Just have to be patient until Vista Media Center update comes out later this year and see what new devices work in our environment.

[briany2000]

I'm currently running it on a Windows Vista system with Core2Duo and it works great as an OTA receiver with an outdoor antenna (I can actually see the antennas from my living room). I did need to buy an amplified antenna splitter for it to work well. My Comcast basic cable service did have unencrypted QAM but the bit rate was so low that viewing it was unacceptable with any movement on the screen.

I still have a Hauppauge PVR350 for recording analog programming so I love being able to record three programs simultaneously (two ATSC and one NTSC).

I did have problems getting it all to work in the beginning, but the instructions given in the SiliconDust website was correct. It just didn't work for the first few times. Not sure why. Updated the firmware and drivers and it works fine now.

[paulgamla]

If you are an HDHomeRun user, we'd like to know more about how you are using it. Please answer the poll question and if you have time, please post a little information on how you are using it. What we'd really like to know is the type of PC you are using, what PVR software you are using, and anything else interesting about your implementation.

Some other questions:

Are you using a set-top box, such as a Neuros, XBOX360 or some other device, to view your recorded material on your TV?

Do you watch your recorded material on your PC, laptop or other portable device?

We think that the HDHomeRun is a great product, but there are a variety of ways to implement and use it; we'd like to hear more about how folks are doing it!

Lou

PS I can edit the poll choices as I get more data... Lj

The truth is it is installed but I am paying Time Warner for HD DVR. My set up is no line of sight to OTA digital UHF briadcasts from Mount Wilson.

I own two Tivo boxes, a series one and a two linked to Amazon.

I am only interested in High Quality Content in HD.

Time Waners ON Demand HD has only 2 channel stereo sound...If Carl Ichan knew that heads would roll......lol.

I have no trouble porting from my cable box to the MCE laptop and from there to an old Dell Media Center Extender to the full Home Theater at 1080i (good enough) with 5+1 sound using component cables.

I was hoping to find new (outside Time Warner) content using Home Run from the Internet in HD....(I am not looking for a pirate video)....I have had no luck with this and thus am too ignorant to know how to use my device. What i have downloaded is just awful either due to piracy or compression.

I would love to learn what software and sites work well to watch HD films...I am ok with paying for them...

I would willingly give up my cable box HDDVR for a series 3 but the price point including lifetime transfer would have to be sub $500 and this doesn't really solve the lack of variety of quality content in HD.

HELP!

[SungWoo67484]

Being able to capture ClearQAM is the reason why I got HDHR. Simply put, I love it -- two tuners makes life wonderful. No complaints whatsoever!

[Lou Jacob]

I would love to learn what software and sites work well to watch HD films...I am ok with paying for them...

I would willingly give up my cable box HDDVR for a series 3 but the price point including lifetime transfer would have to be sub $500 and this doesn't really solve the lack of variety of quality content in HD.

HELP!

There is another alternative, especially if you are a movie buff. Check out VUDU (http://www.dvrupgrade.com/dvr/stores/1/vudu.cfm); its $295 for the box, plus the cost of any movies you rent or purchase. Delivery is instant, though VUDU's proprietary p2p network. You do need a fast network, though. The VUDU solution is far superior to things like AppleTV, XBOX360 and the streaming stuff Netflix does to the PC. The library is decent (about 6000 titles) but growing very quickly, with a particular emphasis on HD (1080i).

I will start another thread here in the "Interesting Products" area for follow-up discussion, or if you don't find one, please feel free to follow-up with additional questions by creating a new thread - I don't want to sidetrack this one, too much.

[Lou Jacob]

There is another alternative, especially if you are a movie buff. Check out VUDU (http://www.dvrupgrade.com/dvr/stores/1/vudu.cfm); its $295 for the box, plus the cost of any movies you rent or purchase. Delivery is instant, though VUDU's proprietary p2p network. You do need a fast network, though. The VUDU solution is far superior to things like AppleTV, XBOX360 and the streaming stuff Netflix does to the PC. The library is decent (about 6000 titles) but growing very quickly, with a particular emphasis on HD (1080i).

I will start another thread here in the "Interesting Products" area for follow-up discussion, or if you don't find one, please feel free to follow-up with additional questions by creating a new thread - I don't want to sidetrack this one, too much.

New thread created here (http://www.dvrupgrade.com/forums/showthread.php?t=510)...

[NicholasMarchetti66511]

I have been using my HDHomerun with my Dell XPS 420, Vista Media Center. The HDHR is used for recording my Local HDs so I can keep my dual OCUR ATI tuners available for the rest of the cable.

My only complaint thus far is a bug with the HDHR HD channels when viewed on an Extender. The HD channels come across all scrambled, unless I have Media Center open on my media center PC. I could not find a permanent fix to this issue, except to just always leave Media Center open on my PC.

Hopefully this issue gets sorted out in a future firmware or Media Center update. Besides that, they are working excellent.

[cruisereg]

I have a Core 2 Quad OS X machine running EyeTV with the HDHomeRun and a USB based analog tuner. I love the fact that I can leave the HDHomeRun in my garage, out of sight. It also worked better signal wise as I had dropouts (clear QAM) when I used a connection in my office.

[garyc]

Running on a modest desktop pc (XP Home SP3) this combination is like XBMC on steroids.

I use it to record HD OTA for later playback on a 37" Toshiba. It is rock solid with Cyberlink codecs.

GBPVR also streams my video, music and pictures from one wired and one wireless NAS box as well as XBMC ever did.

[David15]

Using the HDHomeRun with my custom built Vista Home Premium Media Center PC. I use it to pick up the unencrypted QAM HD channels from my cheap Compast cable TV service... It's a miracle to be able to view these channels perfectly in the MCE interface instead of usin an unreliable OTA HD antenna

[panna2000]

I actually do most of my TV viewing via an Xbox 360 running as an Extender. The QAM HD channels come across great on my modest gigabit LAN. This provides a great viewing experience for my girlfriend and I and comes at a great price considering our low monthly cable bill.The only drawback is the messy guide data in MCE - a lot of my channels report "no data available" despite the HDHomeRun software grabbing all appropriate channel info from zap2it.

[panna2000]

I use it for everything video. I have some great programs for converting DVDs to Mpeg files that I can watch on my TV. I have 2 HD TVs. One is 52", 1080i and the other is a 32" 720p. Both have Linksys Media Center Extenders connected to them and I love being able to watch all the content on my computer in HD on my TVs. I am getting about 14 channels in clear quam over cable. About 90% of what I usually watch is available in HD and I have everything scheduled to record