HDHomeRun - Dual ATSC or QAM to Ethernet Box - Page 14

Stankia I think MCE remote is supported, but analog is not--it's digital TV only (why would anyone want analog anyway...).

If you don't have a network of any kind, then you can connect the HDHR directly to your PC (with a special "crossover" cable, not the one included with the HDHR) and you'll need a DHCP server (software) in your PC, also available at the silicondust website.

It's a tuner that MCE speaks with directly. So it has nothing to do with the MCE remote, that'll continue to work as expected. If you do currently have a remote already working then you'd probably want to get one elsewhere (like with an analog tuner). It's an ATSC tuner for HDTV signals only. You'd still need an analog tuner if you're on MCE2005 or want analog channels. Do not bother with direct connect, plug it into your existing network that connects to your internet setup.

But if i plug the cable from the HDHomeRun, there will be no more place to plug the cable from my modem.

Then you'll need to get a switch/hub/router, or another NIC card.

Stankia,

Here's a suggestion for a gigabit switch. This is the one I use at home...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16833122140

Thank you for the suggestions. The switch costs about 40$, i better get a wireless router for 50$. And I'm ordering HDHomeRun tomorrow, finally a solution to get HD on MCE through Cable and enjoy it on my new 24" LCD

Get a home router. Plug the modem into the WAN port on the router. Plug the PC and the HDHR into the LAN ports on the router. If you've got anything wireless then pickup a router that's got wifi built in. This will, in the long run, be easier to deal with than a plain switch, a direct-connect or a 2nd network card.

Well, my VBOX-150's came with no software at all except a driver disk, and that's exactly the way I like it. Why pay extra for a bundled app that they would either have to develop in-house or license when it's bound to be garbage anyway. Anybody interested in this type of device is going to be using it with MCE, Sage, BTV, etc anyway.

I didn't say anything about paying extra, except that I didn't want to (buy SageTV that is)!

But it looks like I gotta if I want to record OTA.

MythTV is free...

My point was, if they bundle an app you will be paying extra, they're not going to just eat the cost of developing or licensing that application, they're going to pass it along to the customer by raising the price of the product. Many of us don't want/need a bundled app because we want to use the app of our choosing.

Can someone verify that we can tune both ATSC & QAM using XP / VISTA MCE using the latest beta drivers.

Yes.

GBpvr is free (in addition to MythTV that someone else mentioned).

So is MediaPortal

any one running it with netgear ethernet over power line? I have my PS3 connected to my router that way and would like to just add one more access point.

I have ordered one as well

The 20070219 firmware is looking really solid so far. Silicondust (especially Nick) has done a superb job responding to bug reports. MCE dual-tuner QAM is functioning very well, based on my initial testing of the 20070219 firmware.

Yep...I got my HDHR in the mail today. I finally got around to playing with it after the kids went to bed. After about an hour and a half of goofing around, I am pleased to report it is working brilliantly! I have it hooked up to a new Vista machine and it streams to my Xbox 360 like butter! I am so impressed by this product...I can't believe it's not getting more press! I've been waiting for QAM on my HTPC for years and I'll tell you...this thing answers the mail. It's just a matter of time before I retire my trusty BTV machine!

I'm in for one too. It should arrive today. Not really sure how I plan to use it until I see how it works. Gotta test QAM first and see what I get. I was hoping to eliminate my SD tuner in my HTPC but that might not be possible right now.
At the recommendation of another user here and online reviews I'm also waiting to receive a motorola amp for my cable line. I have a bunch of splits and I'm sure my cable signal isn't the greatest.

been using my homerun box on in-wall CATV feed, complements of my apartment complex

I've mostly left it stuck on 1 channel (kqed-hd). funny that its the one channel that DTV will NOT carry (I have their SD service and cancelled the HD after the hr20 fiasco.)

recorded jewel, live, last saturday. wow, what a great picture! clear-qam and saved the hour long show to disk as .ts. FREEDOM FEELS GREAT

highly recommend the hdhomerun if you have atsc or qam in the clear.

This thing just rocks! One user already has 2 of them connected to an MCE, giving it 4 tuners.

I have 2 MCE boxes, so that will give me 4 per box! Wohoo!

I have 3 MCE boxes at present and a 4th one on the way... And I already have 1 HDHR, gonna get another one next week.

I've only been using a single tuner so far. it takes 15% ethernet for 1 channel so 2 should easily work. 4, hmm, not sure if that's good to put on one single 10/100 port. even if you have gig-e on your side, hdhr only speaks 10/100 max. I'd probably use dual ethernet for 2 hdhr boxes, if it was my system.

cpu util seems about 4% or less per channel, so recording is NOT cpu taxing at all. no encode/decode happens, of course. so that part is nice.

playback of just one hd stream on my system (very modern system, c2duo e6400) takes most of my cpu, though!

The user reported no problems with 4 tuners on a single box and 100 megs (not sure how many recordings, I think at least 3)... I am considering Gig on the desktop side anyways, so we'll see.

In regards to the playback, what decoder are you using and what video card? I've had good success with a 6600GT and Nvidia's purevideo. I've been able to record 2 HD shows, play back one show, and streaming to an xbox360 on the same system. I think with purevideo it's able to offload CPU to the video card. Might want to take a look at that if you arent.

I bet that purevideo and NV cards do well. I just kind of object to NV for various reasons.

I don't have the latest hardware leveraged decoder, though. that's prolly my biggest issue.

card is passive cooled (which limits me) ati 1650pro. it SHOULD have enough accel but I'm not 100% sure my player uses all the latest api's. hard to understand all of what goes on under an opaque cover...

I do have the latest direct-x and ati drivers. I also use a recent media player classic and it -seems- to have selectors for overlay vs 'that dx9 thing' (I'm not a windows guy!) so I'm thinking I have some hardware accel support but maybe not the best I can get from this card.

in terms of gig-e chips, I'm not sure if they have earned their way yet. most desktop gig-e chips are still inferior to quality (intel) 10/100 chips. the intel 10/100/1000 chip is still (perhaps) the best but almost no desktop comes with the eepro1000. I'd still personally trust a dual quaity 100 vs a junky desktop 'realtek' gig-e. (it was very true for pci based ether chips. maybe less true with pci-e based ones, though).

but clearly the ether requirements are not as straining as you or I would have thought. disk i/o is mellow and net i/o is mellow. what is NOT mellow is video card heat and host cpu heat on playback!

Cyberlink decoder plus overlay seems to work best for ATI cards. I have a P4 2.53 with a x1600 running SageTV. For just video playback of HD files, it uses about 35-45% CPU.

I'm playing HDHR transport stream captures over the network and wanted to throw out a warning that my 100/full ports saturate 100% when seeking. This network interface saturating while seeking in playback would cause mild to moderate glitches in recordings.

Are you using a switch?

My HDHomeRun is actually 3 switches way from the MCE computer that is using it.

HDHomeRun --> 10/100 switch --> 10/100 router --> 10/100 Access Point --> MCE computer

And I've been able to record 2 HD streams so far. I don't know how the utilization is and such, but I'm guessing since it works, it can't be too bad...

it records streams fine but i found similar issues in that i would see a few glitches here and there (network utilization was ~35%). My CPU usage has almost always been 5% when recording 2 streams (X2 4200+)

I since did a dedicated 100mbit line to my media server and added a second nic to it with a hdcp server thats posted on the hdhomerun forums and do not see any glitches anymore.... its damn near perfect.