HDHomerun Prime Owners Thread - Page 9

Sounds like a lot of problems for this product.

Hopefully the Ceton DVR delivers a better experience.

For a complete network reset, unplug or power down all devices. Then the power-up should be like this:

Modem.. until it is completely syncronized with your ISP.
Router.. until it is completely booted up.
Phone adapter.. if you use VoIP (should be directly connected to the router or after switches if that is the way it is connected)
Prime.. should be directly connected to the router. (If not power up switches first)
Switches.. if any.
Computers.
Any other network devices such as BRP or HDTV.

OK... I''ll play Little Mary Sunshine.

I installed my prime the week before Christmas along with TW tuning adaptor and CableCard. Other than waiting an hour on hold for a rep at the TWC CableCard Activation center, then waiting another hour for the card to actually authorize, it has worked flawlessly since then. It has not missed a recording (44 series currently scheduled, essentially duplicating the full schedule on my current TWC DVR). Once I had a WMC error about missing a file for video playback on my MediaPC, but reinstalling the ATI video drivers fixed that.

My network is not simple - wired gigabit, three wireless N access points (one of which is dual band), two bridges and at last count over 30 devices with IP addresses assigned (no, I'm not a network engineer). The main Media PC is (by necessity) wireless via a 5GHz bridge connection (shared with co-located Samsung Smart TV and Oppo BDP). Essentially all viewing/recording from the prime is wireless. The dedicated 5GHz bridge link between the tuner and the Media PC easily handles three simultaneous streams (either three recordings or two recordings plus live). I have not yet tried three recordings plus live Hulu+ HD streaming to the TV... but I suspect that might cause some issues. I've been happy enough to be seriously considering downgrading my TW DVR in the main family room to a plain STB (to maintain access to VOD), leaving all of the DVR chores to the Prime/WMC combo.

I regularly use my notebook PC as a "portable STB" connected to TVs in my office and basement family room (saving TW box rentals for those locations). I also use the notebook standalone as a wireless TV out in the garage or in my shop or out on the deck on one of the warmer days we've had. I laughed when TW launched the beta of their TV on PC stuff last week... the laughable PQ and limited channel selection are a joke compared to the full access that the Prime allows (of course it does work on PCs running other than Win7 and it's free).

So yes... it can and does work just fine, but you are correct that people typically don't post here when things are going well. My success doesn't necessarily help those that are having issues, but interested folks shouldn't think that they represent all of the user experiences out there, either.

Thanks for the suggestions and the proper way to reboot everything. That will really come in handy.

My issue is now fixed. In <24 hours of opening a ticket with SiliconDust, they emailed me and said the latest beta firmware fixes the issue of not being able to watch live tv without recording something on another tuner. After a quick install, the problem completely went away. Great customer service!!

I totally agree with the post about how this forum is all complaints and love the tv forum reference. I was scared to death to buy a plasma (took 6+ months until the wife was tired of waiting). But, isn't that why we are here? To learn from people's issues and hopefully troubleshoot ourselves?

For the record, I've owned the non-cable HDHomeRun and now the Prime. I think both products are fantastic and am a SiliconDust fan despite my one or two minor issues here and there.

God... that's the truth.

I've had a Prime for a couple weeks now and have been really pleased so far. Especially while using the iPad app to watch TV.

Well my tuners unavailable and network down was the first glitch directly tied into the prime, other then that it's been issues caused by me or something else not setup right so plenty happy with my prime too. Like I said it is a PC device so a occasional glitch is going to happen but it seems really stable for 99 percent of the time. Anymore I'm more interested in stability then speed but lately even though my board and install of win7 seems fine every so often it will just BSOD or something, but that is very occasionally and never seems to be exactly the same thing twice as I think sometimes something gets lost and takes everything down with it. I do know one of my main issues was a driver for a extra SATA port on the board and since I found a newer driver that particular issue hasn't cropped up again.
It seems as we've gotten higher Windows versions and multiple core CPU's my boxes just aren't as rock stable as a few of my XP builds were, but I sure can do a lot more with what I have now so I guess it's a tradeoff.

Are you guys using PCs that you built yourself? Is there a net top or something preconfigured that works well with HDHR Prime?

I roll my own around here but I've seen some low power very small and cheap boxes that could probably do the job with nothing or a few minor upgrades if all you want to do is capture and play HD streams with it.
Assassin has some good guides up about how to build one and what works if all you want is a quiet, small form factor box that can be a HTPC.
Mine is a full bore rig with some new and old parts that works well for everything for me. It has a hex core 1090t CPU, 8 gig of ram, lotsa smallish hard drives, a old ATI 4870x2 video card, 850 watt PSU, and a few big drives hooked to the media players on the network. You can build a dedicated rig pretty cheaply that wouldn't need all the goodies or huge tower case I run but the prime was a add on to my existing rig.

Mine is home-built, aimed at cool/quiet HTPC operation:

• ASUS M4A88T-M/USB3 motherboard
• AMD Phenom X4 840 3.2GHz 95W CPU
• 16GB G.Skill Ripjaws memory
• 1.5TB Seagate Barracuda Green HDD
• LG Blu-Ray burner
• AMD HD6450 video card (recent upgrade from on-board HD4200... wanted to experiment with 3D Blu-ray)
• Noctua NHC14 CPU cooler
• Antec Green 380W power supply
• nMediaPC HT5000B case
• Win7 Home Premium X64

It has no problem managing recordings, live TV or combinations thereof with the Prime. It runs dead quiet and very cool.

Just don't want to spend time researching specs and building. Can you assume that if the video card has HDMI, it meets whatever HDCP requirements for recording and viewing and then possibly transferring (media extender) shows over the home network?

Or do you have to worry about a certain level of performance? I thought the Silicon Dust page said simply "dual-core" CPU. Can that be those cheap AMD CPUs?

Or pick up whatever is on special at Office Depot or wherever and then add storage (perhaps even external storage)?

Yeah I'm looking only for WMC DVR use, including being able to view recordings on two or more WMC DVR PCs throughout the house. Or maybe one WMC PC and one Xbox for use as a media extender. Is 802.11n even an option for the Xbox?

Amazon and New Egg have refurb deals on smallish ready to go small form factor PC and things from time to time so they are worth watching too. They just had one that was 149 bucks but it was tiny and very basic, think it had a cheap dual core or something and 1 gig of ram. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16883157058
Out of stock now and price is back up but that thing might work or at least be a cheap starting point with some extras.

Does anybody know if Charter is copy freely in So Cal? I did a search on AVSForum and didn't get results for my area.

How much did these components cost?

How long to assemble? Just a couple of simple tools?

Just doing some quick searches, I see 8 GB i5 with 1 or 1.5 TB towers going for about $600 or a bit less. I don't know too much about AMD processors but if they're quad-core, presumably they're more than enough for HDHR Prime?

I don't think you need an i5 with 8Gb for an HTPC. You should be able to put it together for around $500 or less if you shop around. Takes about an hour if you've done it before.

EDIT: for PVR use you'd probabaly do better wth i5 and 8 Gb but in my experience the innards of a $600 retail box aren't going to be too good.

The original build cost me around $625. The recent HD6450 video card add-on was $32 after rebate. The only reason I added the video card was to experiment with 3D Blu-ray. The motherboard's integrated HD4200 graphics worked perfectly well for watching Prime programming.

I went AMD based on previous experience and cost vs i5. 95 Watts for a quad core 3.2GHz was nice, too... the low power requirement was a good tradeoff vs the smaller cache this particular CPU has. Nothing against Intel... my i3 notebook with integrated Intel graphics does a nice job for watching Prime programming, too.

One of the more extravagant upgrades was the nMediaPC case... but I really wanted the PC to look like an AV component sitting on the shelves with the other components. The 16GB of RAM is definitely overkill, but Newegg had it real cheap that week and I couldn't resist.

I've built more PCs than I can remember, so the hardware assembly time was no more than an hour or so - YMMV (Much more time is required to install Windows and apps). Don't need much more than a Philips screwdriver and needle nose pliers.

I suggest that you take this to the HTPC forums for more information on the PC build if you're interested.

As far as the setup handling the requirements for the Prime... as I mentioned earlier three simultaneous recordings or two recordings plus a live channel are no sweat at all. Couldn't ask for better.

Bingo. As long as it has HDMI out (and most everything does now), that's all you need. CPU in any of these boxes is plenty good enough, and they're usually quiet. Stick with Intel boxes for lower power usage, if you care.

Latest Xboxes have 802.11n built-in, but you won't want to use that for HD streaming (i.e., extender). Too many variables, might work well might not. Stick to hardwired - either ethernet, MoCA, or worst-case, powerline adapters.

Just wanted to post I upgraded from Ceton to Prime about 3 or 4 months ago (don't recall specifics, I got the Prime as soon as it came out).

I had problems with the first few weeks of firmware/client software but I haven't even thought about it after they issued about their 4th version release. I run on FIOS and it changes channels faster over my switched gige network streaming than the Ceton did local.

I did have intermittant issues that required a reboot, but then I did a static assign one tuner to each TV and left the last one floating (I have two TVs). Have never had to do a reboot once since. Very happy with the product, its simply invisible to me now. I'm sure there are new versions of sw/fw since I last updated months ago but I have no desire to break a perfectly working thing.

I just added a Prime to my current HTPC along with my original HDHomerun. 3 cable tuners and 2 OTA tuners working without problems on WMC7. I used the GuideTool program to get my channel lineup straightened out. Great program - it should be built-in to WMC.

I did a test by recording five HD shows simultaneously. My Intel i3-2100T H67 barely broke a sweat. I'm ready to send back my two Verizon DVRs.

Another update regarding my NickHD channel being spotty. SiliconDust support replied back yesterday for me to check 4 other specific channels as they said Verizon FIOS bundles those channels and that will help them narrow down the issue. Low and behold, those channels all have the exact same issue.

Still not fixed, but I have to say I was impressed that the tech support already knows about this issue with these Verizon channels. Now, if I can just get a solution from them and have them email me more than 1x per day, I would be a happy camper.

I'm in the process of setting up the same configuration... about to reinstate the old HDHR to OTA duty. Holdup has been relocating the old HDHR to same location as the Media PC... not wanting to push my luck trying to stream 5 channels over the wireless bridge link! Unlike hardwired Ethernet, the coax cable is already run there there, I just need to reconfigure some of it.

I'll have to check out Guide Tool. Thanks!

Hello folks,

Thank you so much for starting this thread. Very informative. Had a few questions for you folks.

Here's my setup just to give you a visual.

I'm currently with Cablevsion. I have three HD DVRs. Each runs me about $20/month (DVR fee plus the box rental), almost $60/month total.

I just recently switched from DishNetwork. Cablevision made me an offer I couldn't refuse. $69/mo for all services (cable/phone/broadband). I got them to lock the price for 2 years as opposed to 1. However, I do know what to expect as soon as the contract is over. We'll cross that bridge when we get there.

I was quite surprised at the lack of features of Cablevision's DVR and the archaic UI. Both for the guide and the DVR menu. I just can't see paying so much in monthly DVR and box rental fees. The cost doesn't justify the service rendered.

Hence the reason I'm here.

I looked at Tivo. It seems to be great but way too expensive. Especially when I have no choice but to get 3 boxes. An investment of $2400.

The main LR/Office (small corner of the LR is an office/PC area):

A triple monitor setup (all DVI) with a 4th DVI out to the LR HD projector.

PC Specs:

Intel Core 2 Quad Processor Q6600
OCZ Fatal1ty Edition 8GB (4 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666)
3 x SAMSUNG EcoGreen F4 HD204UI 2TB SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive (6TB Total)
JATON VIDEO PX309 QUAD Radeon HD3450 4 DVI outputs 512MB DDR2 Per GPU 1GB Total Onboard PCI Express 2.0 x16 Video Card
Auzentech X-Mystique 7.1 Gold
3 x Acer G235HAbd 23'' WideScreen LCD Monitor
Windows 7 Ultimate

Home Theater:

Panasonic PT-AE900U
Bose Lifestyle 48

Master Bedroom:

Philips 42" LCD
Bose 321GS
XBOX 360
Apple TV (1st gen)

Baby's Room:

32" LCD
(I'll either get another media extender or maybe hook up a laptop in this room)

All rooms are wired via ethernet.

Now for the questions:

I've read that the HDH6 is actually two HDH3s together. You'll need a coax splitter no matter which version you get, right?

If I purchase the HDH3 now, I can always purchase another one later if I feel the need for 3+ tuners. The only thing I lose out on is the fact that the HDH6 will be just one STB? Is that the only thing I lose?

Anyone here have Cablevision setup with their prime? How's your setup so far? Anything I should know or look for?

I did confirm with Cablevision that I can get 2 MCards for $2/mo. However, I failed to ask about the, copy once, copy freely and copy never thingie. Just learned about that today.

So, with the HDH3, I'll be able to record 3 shows at once, or watch 2 and record 1? Also, in different rooms, like a multi-room DVR would?

Can you use the original XBOX as a media extender? I have a few of those lying around. Had XBMC running on them 'til I upgraded to Apple TVs with XBMC.

Apologies for the long post. Figured I'd give as much info as possible.

Thanks in advance for all your help.

KSN

I'm not sure what a multi-room DVR does, but you can record 3 shows at once, or watch 3 shows using three computers, or some combination of this (up to three tuners). The problem will come in if a show is "copy once", then you can only watch on the computer you recorded it on (or watch from an extender).

If you're talking about watching a show in one room then picking up where you left off in another room, I don't believe that's possible. At least it's not possible in my system. WMC on one computer is oblivious to what's occurred on WMC on another computer. Perhaps an extender might allow you to do that, but I don't have an extender.

Extenders allow you to watch in one room and pick up where you left off in the next.

KSN, you need to do some more reading - all of your answers are out there.

Looking around at some prebuilt PCs to go with HDHR Prime. A lot of the deals around $500-600 seem to be laptops, which have i3 or i5 with 640 GB drives.

Prebuilt PCs at the big box stores in this price range doesn't seem to get you a whole lot more, maybe 1 TB drives and presumably desktop processors rather than mobile ones.

Is anyone using a low to mid-range laptop for WMC DVR use? Storage is obviously important but some of these laptops already have USB 3.0 ports.

Is building a new desktop not an option?

You can make a super kick ass SSD based PC for $300-$500.

I am certain no retail PC would touch what I would build for the same price.

What specs?

Actually would SSD have enough storage for DVR use?

Your asking me what specs I would build for you?

Specs don't really matter as much.

In the retail world the PC maker knows the consumer shops on specs. Stuff like hard drive size.. amount of ram.. and CPU speed or model.

So the only way to make profit or increase sales is offer those things they consumer wants- or looks for in shopping-- for a better price, or for a better profit margin. To do this- they cheapen the product.

Crappier boards, Ram, HDD's Powersupplies and such.

So the specs you get in a retail PC never perform as well as a home built PC made from quality parts.


You tell me the budget or the specs you want and I will be happy to post an example build for you.

No I was referring to the SSD-based PC that you could build for $300-500.

Just curious because an SSD would take up a big chunk of that budget, unless it's really small capacity.