SiliconDust HDHomeRun HDHR-US Dual Networked High Definition Digital Television (White)

Product Details

Product Reviews

(3 stars) - Nice product, but...
So the reason I was searching for a TV Tuner for my computer was to of-course watch television on my computer AND more importantly watch what was recorded on my DVR on my computer.
Pro:
+ I loved being able to watch TV from any computer, even on my wireless laptop on a N router. And the QuickTV software was adequate.
+ No hardware installation hassles

Cons:
- I realized that I can't watch my DVR since the DVR's Coax output is Analog and this box is digital only.
- Can't get any more that 5 ClearQAM HD channels, not realizing that I am so used to HD that watching standard definition again was depressing.
- For the price that should either include Analog through Component or just allow HDMI if digital only. That way I can watch HD DVR recordings on the PC.
- Now I thought I'd just record on my PC using Windows Media Center. But after HOURS of going through the forums and manual setup it just didn't work well enough to provide an enjoyable, hassle free experience. That's the straw that broke the camels back. At $160 it should just work. They say they are working on a fix but no timeline. The hand-me-down Haupauge PVR 150 I had worked beautifully till I went above 4GB ram on my Windows 7 64bit box.

I so wanted this to work, but I decided this isn't for me and am returning it. The AVerTV Hybrid TVBox 11 looked promising but without the ability to watch all the HD channels I would be setting myself up for another disappointment.

So I decided to get myself a new 25.5" Samsung Monitor with a lot of inputs and ordered a $5/month HD cable box.

(5 stars) - Great customer support
Got this dual HD tuner over a year ago. It was pretty simple to set up and to integrate with Windows Media Center. Also, the software is continually being improved. Any problems that I did have were always answered in the SilconDust forums.

That was until last week. I thought the tuner had gone bad, since it was no longer recording on one particular channel (and my TV tuner had the same channel). I sent an e-mail off to customer support and to my surprise they answered the next morning. They had me run in diagnostic mode and had a solution for me within an hour. It turned out that my signal strength wasn't high enough. Changed how I split my signal and things started working immediately. Comcast probably reduced the signal strength for the channel that gave me problem.

Anyway, I had to write this review, since it was so refreshing to get an immediate response to my e-mail. One that wasn't a boilerplate, and one the actually solved my problem. Kind of restored my faith in customer service.

(5 stars) - A dream come true
The SiliconDust HDHomeRun is exactly what I expected it to be. I use it with Windows Media Center to simultaneously record up to two TV shows to my Windows 7 computer, and watch recorded shows or live television through my Xbox 360 acting as a Windows Media Center extender.

The driver has been rock stable and shown no issues on Windows 7, even before Windows 7 was officially released.

The only minor inconvenience for me, which I'm sure some people will consider a feature, is the two separate input connectors. I don't subscribe to TV service, so I only have one signal source: the antenna outlet on the wall. In order to be able to record two channels at once, I had to purchase a splitter so that I could connect the same antenna to both inputs. Even though I got the highest-quality splitter available, the added coaxial cable length and the splitter itself do cause some signal loss, resulting in occasional glitches in the video and/or audio streams. If you go this route, make sure you purchase a 2+ GHz splitter that can accommodate the higher bandwidth of digital television.

Other than the above, which being a design choice rather than a flaw I don't consider a valid reason to drop a star, I'm extremely satisfied with the HDHomeRun and consider it one of the best investments I've ever made.

(5 stars) - Great Hardware
Bought this at Microcenter for $130. Works as advertised. Have both antenna and cable (clear QAM) hooked up. Am streaming video to PC using 802.11n (pre) from D-Link. Excellent quality picture. Definately recommend this.

(5 stars) - So easy!
I was up and running with the HDHomeRun within minutes, on a Dell Dimension 8400 w/ Windows 7 and a basic Netgear router. The longest part of the setup was scanning for channels (a couple of minutes), but that seems to be the case with all tuners.

It comes with 2 coax cables, an ethernet cable, power supply and cd. A splitter would have been nice, but I purchased the Belkin PureAV and am very happy with the setup.

I would definitely get rid of the hump on top with future iterations.

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