HDHomeRun?

[wtg]

Thanks for the info. I figured the output was MPG2 but wasn't sure and there's surprisingly little info on the manufacturer's website. I keep hoping someone will come out with an HD tuner that outputs Dvix or XVid natively. For a device like this which absolutely requires streaming it'd be a lot easier on the network.

In any event, thanks for the details. This just might have to go on the Christmas list.

[Yog-Sothoth]

A typical HD stream with the HDHomeRun is about 18Mb. It should work with wireless in theory, but the performance was poor when I tried it, and wireless isn't officially supported.

I read somewhere that the two video formats you listed aren't capable of the features needed for PVR functionality; I believe it was on the SnapStream site.

[whurlston]

The download link for my software now includes an updated gbHDHR_tune.exe to fix a couple of timeout issues.

[steve232]

I got few minutes to install HDhomerun last night. I haven't tried using it with gbpvr yet, but I have to say it provides a great quality picture.
I can see me not using the PCI cards if this box and software becomes stable under gbpvr.

Steve

[wtg]

An update for people who've followed this thread and are wondering whether this thing works or not.

I bit the bullet and ordered one of these this week and received it yesterday. This thing is too cool. It's definitely a beta product as it came with no manual and you had to download the software from the company's website, but it's a darn good beta. I immediately downloaded a firmware update as recommended by a one page insert in the box, and it was working standalone in a few minutes.

The firmware and software is being updated pretty frequently, and it seems to have a very responsive forum. You read there boards and there are times people post a problem and a firmware update is available for testing in a day or two. While originally the product required VLC to save the stream to disk, a recent update of their software allows saving of a native .ts stream directly.

Whurlston has done a great job getting this thing integrated into GB-PVR, pretty well documented over on the HDHomeRun forums. His first attempt uses the software recorder and his latest plugin allows native integration, supporting Live Preview and integrated guide to frequency mapping. I've not tried the new one yet but plan to shortly. I'm already excited just using the software recorder.

Anyway, I just thought I'd post in case there were others like me who've been following the developments of this thing, wondering whether it's worth it or not. I've only had mine a day but I'm quite happy so far.

[User]

Thanks for the update, am following the thread with interest and it sounds like a great product.

[turlock_aviator]

I've got the HD Homerun, and I love it using the software that came with it and VLC. Use it with SageTV, and things start to go downhill. Takes forever to tune channels...and the process of remapping channels in SageTV is tedious.

I have two MediaMVP devices I used with SageTV.

I'm planning to move to GBPVR in hopes all will work better than SageTV.

I also have the Zensonic Z500 High Definition Network Media Player. I love this thing. It supports streaming multiple formats of media via SMB and uPnP shares. Wish it could also tune television stations using the HD Homerun. For more info on the Z500, go to:
http://www.z500series.com/

My dream media server machine would do the following:

- Archive my DVD collection for playback over the network to media extender devices like the Zensonic and MediaMVP devices (I currently convert my DVD's to MPEG4 XVID)

- Allow me to stream both live and recorded analog and digital television content from multiple tuner sources like the HD Homerun Network DIgital tuner and a collection of internal Analog tuners (I have what appears to be an unsupported Analog tuner, the ADS Tech InstantHDTV PCI device - ...been looking for a way to make this work in GBPVR).

- Support for internet steaming of audio and video.

- And all of this provided by a single product rather than having to run multiple products.

New to the forum...looking to see how well GBPVR is going to perform as compared to much more expensive commerical products (I've used all of them...SageTV, BeyondTV, and I have a couple of MediaCenter machines). Definitely willing to support development of this product if it seems it's going to suit my needs. Does seem to be some innovation here not seen anywhere else.

[dinki]

I'm contemplating purchasing a HDHomeRun, but I'm uncertain if my server will be able to play the streams recorded. Can someone tell me if an AMD2000XP+ with 1 gig of ram has enough horsepower to handle the streams coming from the HDHomeRun?

I'm a total newbie when it comes to HD and would like to get the information upfront before getting into the money trap of upgrading everything. Do sample HD 'clips' exist that I could use to test my system's capabilities with HD?

[laserfan]

I'm contemplating purchasing a HDHomeRun, but I'm uncertain if my server will be able to play the streams recorded.

dinki here are a couple comments:

1. HDHR grabs digital programs OTA and cable and transfers them across-the-ethernet to your PC. At the PC you can store these streams as-they've-been-captured and to that extent they are perfect copies of the original program. Assuming you have a 100Mbps network or ethernet connection your PC will be perfectly capable of doing this.

2. PLAYBACK and display of these transport streams is another matter entirely and is dependent (in the case of the PC) on the playback software you use and the videocard/monitor you output them on. You'd do well to find some .ts (transport streams) to test with--sorry I don't know a source but I do know they are out there so you need to do a search and download a couple.

In my case I have another option which is simply to stream these recordings/.ts files back-out again on my network to my HD media player which connects to my HDTV. Another playback option is a dedicated card like the MyHD MDP-130 (which also records--would be redundant to the HDHomeRun).

Sorry I know you asked about your AMD specifically but I thought this might help anyway. You might get a better response BTW if you posted this question over at the silicondust.com forum (home of HDHR).

[dinki]

Thanks for the info. I found some samples here:

http://www.nextcomwireless.com/r5000/samples.htm

So if I can play these without stuttering, then I should be okay with the HDHR?