HDHomeRun Flex 4K ATSC 3.0 NextGen TV: 2/4 Tuners HDFX-4K

This is kind of lengthy... Previously, for the past 6 years, our household used a “Tablo” as our in-home OTA DVR solution. For that purpose, it worked fairly well. I won’t go into any of the downsides, but the final deal killer was the inability to access it remotely using Roku devices. No matter how many router tweaks and settings such as port forwarding I tried, Roku just couldn’t access it. The only thing that worked was using a smartphone. All we wanted was the ability to access our local news broadcasts and sporting events when out of town. We thought we had found a solution by subscribing to “YouTube TV” which provides local channels as part of the package. Imagine our disappointment when on our first trip out of town, we could not get any of our hometown stations but instead those of where we were at the time. Upon our return, I resolved to finally replace the “Tablo” with a SiliconDust “HDHomeRun Flex 4K”. Operationally, much like the “Tablo”, you connect an OTA antenna to the unit, connect to your home network and then power it up. One of the nice things about the “Tablo” is that you can connect to your home network wirelessly. The “HDHomeRun” requires a wired ethernet connection. This meant we would have to run ethernet cable from our router to where the unit would reside. Fortunately for us this was something we did last year for different reasons but in the process, the “Tablo” was connected directly as well which greatly improved its responsiveness and stability. Unboxing the “HDHomeRun” and connecting it in place of the “Tablo” took only a few minutes. I used the “HDHomeRun” app on my android phone while connected to the same network to finish up firmware upgrades and channel scans. The “HDHomeRun”, when connected to our attic antenna, picked up 52 local ATSC 1.0 channels and 4 ATSC 3.0 stations. Now, the main reason we selected the “HDHomeRun” was its ability to integrate with our “Plex Media Server” which we have had operating for years. Within just minutes, the “HDHomeRun” was setup within Plex which, as part of our lifetime pass, provides a guide for all of the channels the “HDHomeRun” found. Plex also provides native DVR support so no additional storage devices or fees to SiliconDust for their DVR functionality. What Plex won’t do is decode AC-4 audio (blame FFmpeg) which is what the ATSC 3.0 broadcasts come with. Not a huge problem since all of the ATSC 1.0 audio channels work just fine. We anticipate that Plex/FFmpeg will provide the AC-4 decoder eventually as ATSC 3.0 adoption picks up, but the main thing is, since Plex is a server, we can access it remotely which means all of our local channels are available remotely as well. “HDHomeRun” also has a Windows 10 app which was downloaded to test. That worked great and after downloading a couple of drivers it said it needed, including a 99 cent one from Microsoft, I was able to play the ATSC 3.0 channels with audio as well. Some users have complained about channel changes taking a long time. For us this is 2-3 seconds. I challenge anyone to go from one YouTube or Roku channel to another much faster. All in all, to date, this change over has worked out well. It picks up all of the local free channels we could ever need. Subjectively, we also think the image quality is great. If I had a wish list, it would be that the “HDHomeRun” apps provided more native info and/or metadata about each channel such as the kind of audio track being listened to and the video resolution. Kind of like YouTube providing “Stats for Nerds” on each of its videos. We’re not sure if we are future proofed on the ATSC 3.0 roll-out but that was not the only or even main part of the reason for our purchase decision. What we wanted is what we got, and it works very, very well.

I had an Internet/TV/Phone bundle through Verizon that I've had for years but I finally decided to "cut the cord" because I was tired of paying for TV service that, honestly, I rarely used. We have a couple of streaming services that we watch purposefully, and we only ever used the TV service for background noise or to watch live TV during special events or local news or things like that. So I dropped the bundle, increased my Internet speed, and ended up cutting my Verizon bill almost in half. As part of that decision, I decided to get this HDHomeRun box so that I could still get local broadcast stations for local live news and event coverage. I paired it with this antenna: https://a.co/d/4Xrc74l The box is in my basement, connected to my core switch. The antenna is on the second floor of my house near a window. I reused some coax I had in my house to connect the two - making sure that nothing else was connected to the coax - no splits or anything. This box is great. My Plex server found it immediately and was able to perform a channel scan and pull guide information no problem. AND even though I'm using it with Plex, you don't have to. As long as you have a device on the same network at the HDHomeRun box with the HDHomeRun app installed, those devices can address the box directly without needing to go through Plex at all. I was hesitant to buy a box with four tuners in it - why would I need four tuners? I discovered the answer during the eclipse on April 8 - I had Plex set to record two different news broadcasts during the eclipse while I watched a third broadcast using the HDHomeRun app on my Chromecast with Google TV. This engaged three of the four tuners in the box, and it performed perfectly. I will point out - since some of the literature is unclear - that all four tuners are capable of ATSC 1.0, but only two tuners are capable of ATSC 3.0. In my area, only two channels are broadcasting in ATSC 3.0 right now, but even those channels are broadcasting in both for the time-being. But for most folks, ATSC 1.0 is all you need at the moment, and having four tuners that can pick that up really makes it useful when you want to watch or record multiple things at the same time. Set up is easy - plug the box into your network. It will check for firmware updates on its own, and you can use the web interface to apply those updates if you wish. I gather that it essentially uses DLNA to share the media streams, so anything on the same network can use the box. Also, if you're using it with Plex, the recommendation is to assign a static DHCP lease to the box because if the address changes, Plex may have to set it up all over again. This is not a requirement if you're just going to use the HDHomeRun app, since the app looks for the box via broadcast each time you open it. This box is easy to use, works with a wide variety of devices and applications, and is practically plug-and-play in terms of setup. I am very pleased to have it.