Does that apply to MythTV for Windows platform as well? I guess as long as I'm happy with Beyond TV I'm fine?

There is currently no support for most tuners in mythbackend.http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/MythTV_on_Windows

This may be true for number of HD channels but I am not sure that the GTA is #1 for the variety of content available in HD. Other than the CBC the Canadian stations produce very little compelling original content so who cares if you can get CTV or Global OTA when you already get the same shows from Buffalo stations? Some of the large cities in the US, such as New York and LA, have tons of OTA with lots of sub-channels. They may not be in HD, or even in English, but New York city has about 50 OTA channels as shown here although much of the content may be the same. http://yourfreedtv.com/BigApple/
I posted that before I took a trip to LA for March Break. All the stations/towers in LA area seem to be from the same area up the Rockies. Single aim and it is that easy. There are >30 channels easy.

Toronto is pretty good in getting key HD channels from 2 countries. Yes, I am a bit of a HD snob and actually I do delete most subchannels LOL

All the stations/towers in LA area seem to be from the same area up the Rockies.Those are the San Gabriels :) The Rockies are way over in Colorado.

I've also noticed the single-aim thing down in LA, just like it is here in Vancouver towards Mt. Seymour.

LOL
Thanks for pointing that out. I saw some snow on top so I just assumed.

I'm considering buying an HDHR in the future..
any owners want to comment on sensitivty of reception compared to something like an hvr 1250 or 950q?

I know they're both 5th gen tuners - wondering if I should wait and see if silicondust updates witha 6th gen sometime in the future?

I'm considering buying an HDHR in the future.. any owners want to comment on sensitivty of reception compared to something like an hvr 1250 or 950q?
The HDHR is the least-sensitive (worst) ATSC tuner I have used. Even my HVR-1600 card is leagues better than either of the two HDHRs I have owned (one original model, which died, and one of the latest revision). The 950Q is way, way better.

It may have a "fifth generation" component inside, but performance is definitely 3rd or 4th generation, not 5th or 6th.

Cheers

The HDHR is the least-sensitive (worst) ATSC tuner I have used.

Do you have an early revision of the HdHomerun? Later revisions have, apparently, better reception...

I think you're supposed to be able to identify the tuner using the prefix of the S/N but I don't remember when the tuner was upgraded (1013?).

Have a nice day!

Nick

Well, I guess that answers my question :P

Though, if you indeed have a first gen, that might explain it

Can devices like WDTV Live/O!Play, perhaps the newer Popbox stream live off HDHomerun ??

If not, there is not a significant advantage but perhaps some risk involved possibly not very good tuner. Worse than HVR-1600 is not good.

It is better to wire the house properly with both ethernet AND RG6. Put dual tuner in each PC. Overkilled :confused:;)

Do you have an early revision of the HdHomerun?
Like my original post says, I've had one of each: first rev and latest rev. Both are fine for strong stations, and neither could detect any of the weak stations that my 950Q, television, and HVR-1600 all find.

I've since sold the latest rev unit, and kept the original for receiving CBC and SunTV (strong channels).

Cheers

Like my original post says, I've had one of each: first rev and latest rev.

Oops, sorry... I left that message just a few minutes before getting ready for work so I guess I read did not read your message properly (probably because I thought that part of it only referred to your other tuners, I don't know... :confused: ).

BTW, did the power supply on your older one stopped working properly?

Have a nice day!

Nick

PS: I have an HdHomerun but I haven't been able to use it properly since my antenna is no longer able to get UHF...

BTW, did the power supply on your older one stopped working properly?
No, it continues to work just fine.

The PSU problem was with later units (the "middle rev" ones), not the original shipments.

Cheers!

I've since sold the latest rev unit, and kept the original for receiving CBC and SunTV (strong channels).
Mmm.. slight correction on this: I did have an original first-gen HDHR, which died 18 months ago, after about 18 months of use.

I bought a new one, and also sent the old one in for partial credit against another new one directly from Silicondust. One of those two new ones was subsequently sold off by me, and at this point I don't remember at all what rev unit is in the setup here now.

I'll check and update this post shortly. :)

Edit: The one I have here now has 1013xxxx, which makes it an early Rev.2 unit.

All three units had the same abysmal tuner sensitivity. They require a pre-amp or dist-amp just to get the strong locals at 100%. But I do love the device, apart from that!

Guess I'll be waiting for Rev. 3, then.
Thanks for the info

All this talk about HDHomerun made me look it up. Certainly an interesting idea. If you have a full HTPC backend, I am not sure how much it buys you over a USB or PCI tuner, but it could be useful if you taking more of a distributed computing approach with quasi independent micro front/backends and network attached hard drives. Not sure how you would get around the need to have a box co-ordinate everything, though I guess it could act as a manager and not do any of the actual work, allowing it to be an extremely low powered system (possibly the box attached to your main TV).

For this to work really well it would be great if the HDHomerun could write directly to a network attached hard drive removing the need to have any computers on while recording. They would only be needed to program the HDHomerun(s) and to watch content (though the latter could be done with a media player box).

To understand the HDHR, just think of it as a simple alternative to using a USB tuner. It's a (double) ethernet-connected tuner, that's all.

Other than the style of cable/connector, the idea is exactly the same as for USB. But with the benefit of using open protocols for communications, instead of a (typically) buggy vendor driver/software package.

This gives a nice, compact, dual-tuner, that doesn't take up any space inside the typical small HTPC enclosure, and doesn't require a precious PCI or PCIe slot (most HTPCs don't have more than a couple of slots for tuners).

Practically nobody uses these for their networking capability, so just ignore that part. :)

Cheers

It's also much easier to use with multiple computers.
Instead of having to configure streaming from a host HTPC, the hdhr does it all for me.
I could simply start up a tv program on my laptop and watch wirelessly from the back yard.
I believe I could even (if I didn't live in Canada, land of the slow and expensive internet :P) send the HDHR stream over the internet and watch from anywhere in the world (which had 20mbps+ internet)

.. all without needing a host computer to be powered on.

Interesting. Slightly off topic I know, but is MythTV smart enough to let multiple backends share the HDHR (obviously not simultaneously) so that when watching live TV, you can keep all your tuners in one location without requiring all traffic run through your master backend (probably not an issue, but it seems cleaner and it might allow your master backend to stay in a lower performance state).

It's also much easier to use with multiple computers.
One at a time, yes. But if multiple computers (or multiple MythTV backends) want to dynamically share an HDHR, then that is not easy. It requires (non-existing) software support for locking the shared resource (tuners), and having the denied machines automatically fall back to another tuner or timeslot.

Complex.

Which is why "Practically nobody uses these for their networking capability, so just ignore that part." :)