HDHomerun Prime Owners Thread - Page 4

As far as I could tell it's just a regular WD drive that MAY be slightly ruggedized so it can sit there doing A/V type stuff for a long time without overheating and blowing up. It may have a slightly bigger cache but mine was black and wasn't any heavier then any of my other normal consumer WD drives I have.
I do have a WD drive designed to be in a server running raid 24/7 and it is noticeably heavier and just looks better built and higher quality.
They probably are just built mostly to price and use and I bet it's mostly a marketing thing like you said to make the end users more warm and fuzzy about their new toy.
I have done a lot of things at once in this box which would probably be more then equivalent to 10 streams and none of my drives has ever had a issue I'm aware of.
If you checkout the big thread on the Philips 3575 and newer variants of it we have listed specs for many hard drives to try and match the power draw and claims of what else it can support.
I don't think any users have found a upgrade yet that refuses to work as long as it matches the connectors the machine needs.
Pretty sure the drive I got was from some huge DVR contract and was a leftover that was supposedly refurbed, there were a LOT of them for sale at Woot cheap back then.

I've been reading up on this since my cable company wants to charge $16 monthly for their HDDVR, and I am about 90 percent certain I'll be buying one soon. I've read about issues with premium movie channels and the Prime, but I am still not sure... do those limitations apply only to MythTV and other applications that don't implement the full set of DRM that Windows 7 Media Center does, or is even that screwed over as far as the commonly used protections on those channels go? I'm aware that individual cable companies can set recording flags differently, even within their own customer bases, but the thrust of my question is whether WMC has a different set of limitations than other applications?

The HDHR Prime works fine w/Cablecard and Myth for unprotected content. You can't watch or record any channels that have the copy flag set, but all the other stuff works fine. Myth gets a standard mpeg2 stream just like you were recording OTA or clear QAM, because there is no protection on it.

Comcast is pretty good here in the ATL too, they only protect the movie channels. I think I'll pick up a $210 Prime from Microcenter here soon and use it with WMC and Xbox/Linksys extenders, and later when Myth support goes into the release builds for Mythbuntu etc. try it out there too.

What I want to know is, can you watch and record channels that have Copy Once flag set with WMC? I wouldn't expect to be able to with Copy Never, or am I wrong even about that, as far as watching live?

Copy Freely: Watch recorded on any device
Copy Once: Watch recorded only on the device (or extender) that recorded it
Copy Never: Watch only

Yep, you're stuck with WMC and extenders if you want copy once content. Copy never is only supposed to be set on PPV events or sports packages like MLB extra innings, which for Cablecard users is usually a non-issue.

I have an hd homerun and a prime, how can I set these up so that MC picks the clearqam stations from the hdhomerun and then move on to the hdhomerun prime tuners?

Several months ago, when I was looking into buying a Prime, I called to find out what Comast Jacksonville, FL was charging for an m card. I was told that the first one was free and the 2nd was $5. Now that I have purchased an HD Prime I am told that it is $8.50/ mo because I already have a dual tuner dvr. If I didn't have any rental equipment from Comcast, the m card would be free.
That is really some bizarro world logic in my opinion. 'If you are already paying us for some rental equipmant, then we will charge you more for additional equipment If you don't have any rental equipment at all, we will give you some for free?' I left the Comcast office shaking my head in the hopes that when I ask again the story will be different. That often times happens with large companies; call back if you want to hear a different story. Does anyone have any guidance on what Comcast is charging for m cards?

I was quoted $1.50 last week in Denver and I have 3 cable cards total. I haven't seen the bill yet so we will see

In Philadelphia, Comcast doesn't charge for the 1st card in a device. They do charge $9.25 for an HD Technology Fee which includes one STB. I could return the box and receive a $2.50 credit, but at that price, I keep it as a backup and for OnDemand.

Your post made my day!

I'm with TW and it's the same with them. Your mistake is attempting to apply logic. And I woulden't blame comcast or TW. Although I have no evidence, I suspect your city officials, or more likely the Feds (FCC?), made some kind of law or regulation that says, "You must give your customers the option of paying for channels without having to rent equipment". "However, if they are renting equipment, then you can charge for the CC".

But they are our elected officials, so I don't question them. Obviously they are more intelegent than us, otherwise we woulden't have voted for them.

Although I don't understand the logic, I trust them.

I trust them with my health.
I trust them with my finances.
I trust them with my job security.
I trust them with to not let AT&T merge with... well, maybe not that one.

Of course, they are also responsible for Fast And Furious, so.....

Thanks to all who replied. Thanks leebo. That makes the most sense, in as much as laws usually have unintended consequences. I was able to raise enough **** until I got 8.50/ credit for one year. Can't say enought about the folks on this forum. Happy Thanksgiving!

I don't have WMC in front of me so I might not have the names of the menus right, but it';s something like: Settings -> TV -> Guide and then Edit Source (you do this per channel). There can you select the priority of the available tuners.

/Anders

Sounds like the same rate as in the ATL - first card is included with service, if you want another one or have one of their boxes additional cards are $8.50 a month - $2.50 credit = $6/mo. So not quite as bad as you were told.

But the more important question is, why do you need their crappy DVR now? Get extenders and use the Prime with one card.

(OnDemand is not worth keeping their box and paying that rental, to me).

Comcast is only supposed to charge $1.50 if it's an extra card in the same box (i.e., the old Tivo S3 that needed two cards), but some areas incorrectly apply that rate for extra cards to your benefit. If you get that rate it's a good deal.

Figured that out but for the clearQAM channels the only available tuners are the hdhomerun run. I have listing in my guide for 9 that requires a cable card and 9.1 that is clearQAM, is there a way to merge these?

yes. I'm still flying blind here wrt the menus, but you have to select e.g. 9.1. and then it's like merge or something, essentially you have to pick the channel name that 9.1 and 9 corresponds to and it will be added to 9.

If you don't find it I'll try to explain better tonight when I get home and I have the menus in front of me.

/Anders

Heads up, Prime is only $170 shipped at Amazon now. I got one from Newegg earlier today for $177 shipped, and Amazon lowered their price to match later.

...keeping the dvr for my bride while the prime and htpc are in beta at chez Scott. Of course the goal is to replace the Comcast dvr.
I see I missed some key strokes; I got 8.50/month for 1 year to offset the card charge, so I have plenty of time to debug the system.

Does anyone know if one of the cheap $250 emachines on sale this black Friday are powerful enough to host this device? Do you have recommendations for other cheap alternatives if you don't have Windows7 already?

I am now a proud owner of a HDHRP. Should get my new toy in sometime next week. Hopefully my install goes smoothly. I'll be using TWC as that is the only option I have for cablecard.

I hopped on the Newegg deal and I have essentially the same plan for my house for the month left of introductory free HDDVR.

Score! Thanks for the heads-up - I am planning to build an HTPC in the next month, and was going to wait to buy the HDHR until after it was up and running... but at this price, I just had to order it now.

Powerful enough may be the wrong question, HTPC isn't so much about computing or graphics power as it is about low power consumption and compatibility with stuff like HDCP and HDMI.

For best results start by tossing away the word cheap, its caused me nothing but trouble and more expense in the long run. Best to read one of the guides and deviate little from one of the suggested systems.

OOS at amazon, so I decided to order to lock in the price and if I change my mind before it ships easy to cancel.

Got my hdhrp in today. I have TWC coming in on wednesday to install the cable and give me a cablecard. I'll make sure to go to through Digital Cable advisor beforehand on all my PCs. Anything else I should do before TWC shows up with the cablecard? Currently I have uverse so if I want to test out the hdhrp I'll need to use an antenna for OTA channels.