This is not what you are looking for. This is a cable TV card tuner that attaches to your network. This only works with a cable card for cable TV.
Thankx!
I am using a comparable product, Hauppauge WinTV-DCR-2650. It only has 2 tuners but it has a built in remote control receiver that I have programmed my Logitech Harmony 650 remote to work with. Instead of a network setup, I have 3 HTPC in my house each with a cable card and remote. It looks like the HDHomeRun will only do Hi Def if hard wired to the TV and Standard Def over wifi.
During a previous sale, someone mentioned hooking this up directly to the computer using a crossover cable plugged into a network interface card so that it would work like my 2650, but you would need to get a WMC remote to control the computer. Also since the NIC would be used to get TV to the PC, you’d need another way to get internet to the PC, like a usb wifi adapter. You need internet to get program guide updates and to stream internet media.
I would contact your cable company to verify compatibility, but keep in mind they won’t support your equipment so when problems occur, you need to be able to do some of the troubleshooting. My cable company was giving me a hard time about my system when a problem arose. I explained why it was happening and gave them proof that it was on their end. They finally agreed and fixed it but I wonder how many people would’ve just given up and switched back to the overpriced cable DVR.
I am starting essentially from scratch on a basement home theater going to a projector. I have routed ethernet from a router and and coax for our cable. I’m on TW super basic (essentially just major television networks). We currently just watch this on our tv using a Magnavox dvd recorder/HDR’s tuner. I have a Chromecast that we sometimes watch Netflix from the iPad. I am looking to set up a user friendly theater with a media computer to capture broadcast signals from cable and manage our library of ripped content. Would any of you suggest this as a component, or am I better off getting some sort of computer tuner (like a Hauppage 1196). If anyone can point me to a great “for dummies” page, I’d be thrilled.
Oh, and the TV we currently use is in another part of the house. I’d like to be able to stream content to it from the HTPC in the basement.
Nice, wanted to make sure this was mentioned. I bought 3 of these back in March (one for a gift) was very happy to see the DVR kickstarter announcement and I backed it right away. My hopes for the project are DLNA discovery, and the ability to play copy-once recorded content (TWC sucks) to a device that supports DTCP.
If you’re confused about this product, watch this vid.
[youtube=VN1Z0oKwELk][/youtube]
And how does one watch their shows on a TV? Not everyone has an XBOX. Can I just replace my cable box with this, and then plug it right into the back of my TV set?
My guess is that you are not using a cable card. I have cable from Charter and I can’t get any stations without the cable card or their cable box, which if you look close, has a cable card in it. This item is a network attached cable card tuner. It won’t do anything with out a cable card and if you don’t need a cable card to get content, you don’t need this.
To get help for anything else, try Google.
Nope, doesn’t work that way. The XBOX is an extender for a Media Center PC, you don’t need to have a XBOX but you do need to have a Media Center PC, or possibly another type of pc like XBMC or MythTV, but keep in mind that others may not work as well or as easy as Media Center. In fact, the others may not work at all for some channels because of copy protection. I’m using Win 7 with Media Center.
The reason I didn’t buy one of these last time they were offered is all of my TVs are located where it would be impossible to have a wired network reach them and according to what I know about these, you only get hi def from wired internet and standard def from wifi, but someone did say that you can attach these to your nic with a crossover cable directly into your PC. Anybody try it?
I have this and am happy with it. I usually only use one stream at a time though.
Is there anyway to customize the bitrate? It seems to auto-detect bandwidth and adjust but if I could tune it it would be much more useful.
It is very useful to be able to stream cable channels to a tablet and take into the kitchen while cooking or backyard etc.
This unit enabled me to turn-in one of my leased HD tuners. This saved me $11.50/mo ($10 for tuner and then an additional $2.50/mo credit for customer-owned equipment + $1/mo for cable card). Your savings and experience may vary but well worth the price in my opinion.
If you had talked to me a year ago I would have said the same thing… However during the past year I bought another HDHomeRun Prime and a newer version of the Ceton InfiniTV 6… At this point I would probably give my endorsement to the Ceton over the Silicondust. Ceton took longer to get running but it has 6 tuners instead of 3, it also seems capable of streaming over the wifi, the Silicondust has never liked wifi, my only solution has been to run it directly into the PC wired. But the worst problem is that the last HDhomerun could never communicate with the switched digital video box that the older HDhomerun works fine with… Silicondust just keep blowing me off about it being the cable company’s fault even though I was still able to use the other HDHomerun that was 2 year older fine.
The last Homerun prime is sitting in a drawer until we have a garage sale where I will gladly sell it to the next poor fool… silicon dust’s customer service was the worst I have ever experienced
They should really get some sort of set top box bundle going here. The Network tuner and 3 raspberry pi’s preconfigured or something of that sort for $300
I first bought the Ceton InfiniTV for my HTPC bulid, and I did get it set up just fine and dandy in Windows. But, I decided to move to XBMC (eventually Kodi) for better features and stability. It was just a total pain in the behind trying to get the card set up in linux. It’d work for a week, then due to an upgrade or two, would crap out again… I got sick of pulling what little hair I had left, so I bought a the SiliconDust. 6 of one, 1/2 dozen of another
If I buy this and rent one card from my cable company, three people can watch different channels over wifi simultaneously?
According to:
https://www.silicondust.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4088
"The HDHomeRun can be connected directly to a PC via an Ethernet cable.
The HDHomeRun is auto-MDX so does not need a cross-over cable.
Software: This feature requires HDHomeRun software release 20070829 or later.
Network configuration: Configure the PC to use a static IP address in the 169.254.x.y range, e.g. 169.254.5.12, with a network mask of 255.255.0.0. No gateway address or DNS servers are needed.
Firewall configuration: The Windows Firewall should be disabled for the interface when using the direct connect mode.
HDHomeRun Setup should detect the HDHomeRun."
That answers my earlier question.
My TV is not even close to my router and without a wired network connection I wouldn’t get HD. So all I need to do is connect cable TV to this, plug a network cable from this into my PC’s nic, and plug my HDMI from the PC into the TV.
I got one of these the first time it was on woot in 2012. (I also paid $60 more for it at that time) I love this little device. I have Charter with most of the movie channels. I have A Win 7 PC with Windows Media Center that is the main DVR for the house, it also has a 4TB drive that is shared to the other PC’s in the house. A touch screen HP with Win 8.1 that is connected wirelessly in my kitchen. And an Xbox 360 connected to a 60”TV in the living room.
Overall setting up the HDHomeRun Prime was really easy. Plug it in to the network, install the drivers on the windows PC. Then launch and run the setup for Windows Media Center. The two biggest problems I had were with charter and steaming to the Xbox.
I went and got a CableCard from my local charter office. They told me it would be setup and ready to use once I plugged it in to the HomeRun. But it didn’t work. There was an error on the tuner saying that the Cable card needed to be activated. I called Charter and the people on the phone had no idea what a CableCard was and after being transferred around a few times was told that it was now ready and would take an hour to process through the system. I did this three times over a course of 2 weeks. Finally I discovered, that hidden on charters website they have a moderated help forum that their top level techs monitor. Once I posted my problem I received a call that same day from one of these techs and by the time I was home from work the CableCard was activated and working perfectly.
The next problem I had was that streaming from my Win 7 PC to my Xbox was really laggy and the Video would time out after skipping commercials. After hunting through various Silicone Dust and WMC forums I discovered that I needed to enable “Flow Control” on my PC network card. After that the Xbox works perfectly.
This device is not for the technophobe but if you know a bit about computers and networks and want your cable on [mostly] your terms, I would say this is a great deal on a sweet little piece of technology.
yep