Features:

  • Cut the cable and cut monthly fees; Watch live HDTV on up to 2 devices simultaneously on your wired network
  • Works with our HDHomeRun DVR software so you can watch, pause and record
  • Expand the number of tuners with multiple HDHomeRun devices; Will stream HD via WiFi on an 802.11ac router or SD on an 802.11n compatible router
  • Watch and record in full 1080p resolution where available
  • HDHomeRun streams to DLNA compatible devices on your network; TV Antenna required
After playing around with some settings I am able to get live TV pretty reliably over the network on my Roku Ultra and ...

Working well with PLEX as a DVR. Live TV works fairly well too using the unofficial PLEX channel "HDHR Viewer 2". After playing around with some settings I am able to get live TV pretty reliably over the network on my Roku Ultra and even my gen 1 Chromecasts (sometimes I need to pause for a few seconds to stop stuttering). If I am being picky, I would complain the transcode profiles are vague and not changeable. They are just called things like "Heavy" and "Mobile" and "Internet720", requiring me to go look around online to find out the actual resolutions, frame rates, bit rates, etc. I also see a lot of interlacing problems using their profiles, so for recordings on PLEX I actually just record the raw MPEG2 and have my DVR computer convert it to MP4 later using MCEbuddy. For live TV though, the on-the-fly transcoding works fine and makes the Extend worth the extra cost over the Connect.

Great Product

A month ago I returned my 2 HD DVRs and a regular box to the cable company. I now have two HDHomeRUn PRIME tuners in my basement where the cable connection comes in. They are connected directly t a gigE switch (SMC 8508T) that then takes the cable feed via cat 5e cable to a media center PC in my family room and living room. In my bedroom I have a xbox 360 4gb unit that gets the HD stream wirelessly from the computer in my living room via the wireless-n router that is also in the basement. Couldn't be any happier with the setup. Very few hiccups and love having the ability to use the HDHomeRun QuickTV at my computer if I just want to watch a live feed without having to have the overhead of Windows Media Center. The XBOX stream works really well also. No issues. I didn't do all this because it was cheaper...I did it to improve my TV viewing experience and it has. Love this product because it doesn't require the device to be attached to any PC. It is a standalone unit that just sits on you network. That is why I went with it over Ceton. Not for sure how the Ceton product is...but don't care because this is a really great product!

Perfect Device - Wired Network is Best - HDHomeRun View all is the way to go and I have no complaints

If you have a wired network (not wireless) and a good OTA signal then this device will do everything it is intended to do. In my case, I have a large bow-tie antenna in the attic and I am 30+ miles to the network antennas. One of the problems with home antennas is you have to split the signal and try to run it over your house. This creates signal strength problems and you end up needing boosters which can create it's own problem. With this device, my attic antenna has a 6 foot cable into the HDHomeRun so there is next to zero signal loss. The HDHomeRun is then wired directly to my network. The wired network runs directly to where my computers, Amazon Fire TV and outside projector are located. The end result is a perfect unboosted signal that I can enjoy from any network device. The stream from HDHomeRun is hyper-sensitive to network delays and it can consume between 8-15 Mbps so you REALLY need a wired connection. If I leave the View app running on my Fire TV for hours at a time, I have noticed that either the video or audio gets dropped or locks. If you change the channel the problem corrects itself so this is not a big deal for me. These drops are not that common and it takes a second to get it back. If you are running Windows 10, you are better off installing the HDHomeRun View app from the Microsoft Store. If you have Kodi, you can install the HDHomeRun all and it will buffer the signal to make it a little more resilient against network problems. Aside from buffering, I see no real difference between running the viewer through Kodi or natively on my computers or Fire TV device. I've only had this running fro a few days and so far everything is perfect. There are occasional blips but that is causes by signal interference with the antenna and not the HDHomeRun. I am surprised as to how little you can configure these. The device gets an IP over DHCP and there is nearly nothing you can do to tweak or change the system. Maybe there's just nothing that needs to be done, but it would be nice to be able to block out stations with poor signals or unwanted channels.

Plays DRM content with the correct apps

Works great. Windows 10 HDhomeRun app plays all DRM content over 400 channels with Cox Cable. I installed with cable card, and cisco tuning adapter. tested on HDHomeRun app, but use it on a windows 7 pro machine with WMC which also works perfectly. Only hickups I had was that I initially set it up with the hdhomerun app, and the channel scan took over an hour and I thought it wasan't working with WMC. After the scan finished all was fine. I also tested with NextPVR and Plex live tv. Both of these apps would not play protected content (basically everything).

I don't know if this is the best HD tuner (only brand compatible with Plex DVR at ...

Bought this to use with my Plex setup and I have to say that I am impressed. I don't know if this is the best HD tuner (only brand compatible with Plex DVR at this time) but it does what I need it to do which is to bring me crystal clear HD TV over the air and interface with my Plex DVR. I get all of the channels that are available to me in my area so no complaints there. For the price, it would have been nice to have a wall mounting option. Yes, I would recommend.

Set me free from TiVo!

This device has set me free from TiVo for good! I've had the HDHomeRun Prime since June of 2017, and I'm more and more amazed every day by what I can do with this thing. Couple this with Plex, and you've got yourself a serious powerhouse of a way to DVR and watch your content, but also with the HDHRViewer plugin, you can stream live TV to any other Plex client! Including on your phone. From anywhere in the world! This thing is awesome! Works perfectly with Comcast's CableCARDs. These things aren't completely perfect, however. DRM support is coming for everything else aside from WMC (which I won't touch), but hasn't arrived yet. Yes, that means no HBO. For now. HBO Go works to fill in the gap there. Also, these things are very sensitive to signal quality and strength fluctuations, and also are prone to a host of problems caused by bad splitters and coaxial cables. If you have one of these (bad) cables or splitters, you'll know it as soon as you try to set the box up. Trust me on that. Overall, this is a solid little box to have, and I've no intention of ever going back to TiVo now that I have the capabilities that this as well as Plex provide! And with no monthly TiVo subscription fee, to boot! Pay no attention to the people who write idiotic reviews with one star, because they were too busy just buying this thing, and not doing proper research before doing so, and creating problems for themselves because of it. There are a ton of those in here. If you're reasonably good at following directions, and can manage to connect this physically, you should have no problems. Just make sure you research and find out if it's going to work in your setup, first!

Once it's properly paired by the cable company, it works great

This product works great. Basically it gives you a pool of 3 tuners on your network that any Windows 7 MCE device can connect to and use to record cable programming. If one tuner is busy, the program grabs the next free tuner. If you schedule to record 2 programs at the same time, you use 2 tuners. Slick! The only proviso is this; when you go to activate it, don't call the typical first tier phone support number for your cable company. For example, 1-800-comcast is completely clueless about how to properly pair this device. The people that helped me for Comcast were at 877-405-2298, and they were 1) technically proficient, 2) proactive in suggesting what to try/ where to find data they needed, and 3) dedicated to making it work. Just make sure that you can find the cablecard menu (connect to the IP address of the device with your browser and it's there; I used the link in the HDConfig GUI program that comes with the tuner) to give these people the info and confirmations they need. Also, be sure to test it with Windows MCE, not the program that comes with the tuner. QuickTV would not pick up premium channels as it doesn't support the silly encryption scheme that is required to watch premium shows.

Works with PLEX DVR

PLEX DVR (beta) has just been released to Plex Pass Members There are only two 'approved' devices at this point, and this is one of them - which is why I bought it. The PLEX DVR software allows you to schedule recordings on your PLEX Server. Once you setup the DVR in Plex (it was really easy to do - google 'Plex DVR') PLEX will download the 'programming guide' info for the channels that you get. Then it is just a matter of clicking on the show and setting up the recording options for it Note - I am using this with an Over the Air Antenna. I am in S Cal and I can get about 140 digital channels from the Los Angeles area, about 15 are the ones that I want to watch - main channels like ABS, CBS, etc I only got this working this morning but so far I have been very pleased. It was very easy to add to my existing Plex Media Server and I am really surprised how the picture quality it is. I am getting ready to 'cut the cord' in another 6 months or so when my Dish subscription ends out, and this looks like a pretty good way to go - especially if you are already a PLEX user Edit to add - someone asked if this would record two channels at the same time. I noticed this morning that I had it set to record some kids shows in PLEX and sure enough it is recording these two channels at the same time. Also, I was very pleased with the "Gracenote TV Guide" that PLEX uses. For example, I saw the "Commander in Chief" debate was on tonight. I went into Plex and started typing Commander in the search bar, an sure enough it pulled up the listing and I just clicked on it to set up a recording. photo added to show the two programs recording at same time

It just works

Bought this for use with Plex DVR. Setup couldn't have been easier. Plug in antenna, plug into my network, and Plex immediately found and configured it. There's really nothing to configure as far as the HomeRun is concerned. If you're using this with Plex, the EXTEND version seems like a no brainer, since it will significantly reduce the storage requirements for the streams. Plex is able to transcode in real time to h.264 when recording, but I am sure my 6 year old PC Plex server is not capable of doing that with any kind of quality, and certainly not two streams at once. The extra $60 seems a small price to pay to keep load off the server when recording. If you have a really fast server and fast hardwired network, then maybe not necessary, but seems like cheap insurance. HARDWARE Appears to be of good build quality. Solidly made. No buttons, one light on the LAN port. Simple. SOFTWARE The internal web UI for configuration is (charitably) basic, but there's really not much to configure other than transcoding options. Plex can manage the options through its DVR setup anyway. It would be nice if the web UI had some kind of integrated signal strength meter to help with positioning antenna, but there's a free android app that works well enough for this. I tried the "beta" Android app for watching live TV and the Kodi extension running on my Amazon Fire TV (gen 1). The Android app works OK, though the video seems to stutter a bit. The Kodi extension works flawlessly. It's a little surprising that they don't have better apps since this product has been around for such a long time, but I guess most people use it in conjunction with some other software anyway. OVERALL HDHomeRun + Plex DVR is awesome. Having OTA broadcasts appear in Plex is a dream come true. I just canceled my DirecTV service. The only thing I am missing right now is being able to start watching recordings while they are in progress (though this has nothing to do with this hardware, and really just software support - perhaps Plex Live TV will support this).

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