[amonteiro]

Now that my HTPC is built, I've been researching ways to add TV functionality to it. From what I understand cable card is out of the question since I built the PC. Is this correct?


I'm ok with just having basic channels, although I would really like to get Discovery HD and ESPNHD. Is this possible without cablecard?


I was thinking of getting a HDHomerun, is there a way to see what channels I will get on it before I pull the trigger?


Also, can an hdhomerun be used by multiple computers simultaneously? Like watching tv in the living room off one HTPC and recording off of another HTPC in the bedroom?


Lastly, If I have multiple hdhomeruns on the network, does the software handle this well, especially if there are multiple computers using them? has anyone tried this?

 

[kapone]



Quote:
From what I understand cable card is out of the question since I built the PC. Is this correct?

Yes.

Quote:
I'm ok with just having basic channels, although I would really like to get Discovery HD and ESPNHD. Is this possible without cablecard?

No.

Quote:
I was thinking of getting a HDHomerun, is there a way to see what channels I will get on it before I pull the trigger?

http://www.silicondust.com/wiki/hdhomerun/channels (although it's not 100% accurate)

Quote:
Also, can an hdhomerun be used by multiple computers simultaneously? Like watching tv in the living room off one HTPC and recording off of another HTPC in the bedroom?

Yes and Yes.

Quote:
Lastly, If I have multiple hdhomeruns on the network, does the software handle this well, especially if there are multiple computers using them? has anyone tried this?

Kind of. It's not elegant, and occasionally it goes belly up (I have 3 HDHRs, for the most part it works with 4 tuners, anything more than that will probably not work. I have 4 shared tuners off of two HDHRs, and two dedicated off of one HDHR). You also have to hack MCE or VMC to support more than two digital tuners.

 

[amonteiro]

wow...thanks for the quick reply...its really appreciaited.


As a follow up to the last question...can you set each htpc to use its own hdhomerun, without messing with the other htpc's hdhomerun? Ideally I would like it to know whats set to record on the other htpc and consolidate any recordings, so its only done once, but i know thats probably wishful thinking.