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(More customer reviews)In my house, I have a Linux home theatre PC in the TV room attached to the plasma. I have a Linux media server attached to an older TV in the basement for recordings. My wife has a Windows 7 PC on her desk. I have a MacBook Pro which I carry about and is on the home wireless network. So 4 screens in the house. All of which can call upon the HDHomerun attached to the rooftop antenna for high definition broadcast television of excellent quality, and very good reliability. The ability to share and the ease of configuration are the strong points of this device. I would not encumber my laptop with a USB dongle and a stiff length of RG-6 cable, just to watch TV, not when I have 802.11n wireless networking capable of carrying multiple HD streams at once. Nor would I want to split my antenna feed to give each PC a line in the off chance I'd want to view on it. And I certainly don't want to deal with indifferently supported USB drivers under Linux, or trying to find a home for my old PCI tuner in a house with no PCI slots.
An ARM based tablet computer, like an iPad, will not have the horsepower to directly decode the MPEG-2 data streams, but you can setup a computer to convert the video to H.264. For instance, I can leave EyeTV running on my MacBook allowing me to watch content on my iPad. I don't do this because I don't like leaving my MacBook running constantly, but I could; modern computers are capable of realtime video conversion.
Even if you use this device with a digital cable system, you are likely to only receive local broadcast networks, so be aware. I combine my antenna based MythTV DVR with a Netflix subscription, giving me most of the programming I'll actually want to watch for $8 a month plus electrical costs, supplemented by pay per view from Amazon and Apple, and if I didn't have kids, that would be it for TV costs. As an added bonus, if your local broadcasters are not putting too many sub-channels on their frequency, the quality is unmatched by cable and nearly pristine. Unfortunately, some of my local networks put up to 4 sub-channels on their feeds, but most are reasonable and look great.
And electricity costs should be included in your budget. My home theatre PC and my media server are using $3 each a month in electricity just being on waiting for their "free" content.
Setting up an antenna starts with searching for the antennaweb organization's website and finding out what stations are in your area, and how big an antenna you need. I ended up installing a really big antenna on my roof with a pre-amp, but once it was setup, it was setup and maintenance free for years. In my particular setup, I have my antenna split 3 ways, to this dual tuner, to a single tuner blue HDHomerun, and to the Panasonic plasma in the TV room, allowing me to record three programs while watching something live. This is much more than adequate, as it's unusual for me to need more than two simultaneous tuners given the limitations of local broadcast content.
Installation of an HDHomerun is simple, simpler in my experience than standard tuners directly attached to a PC. The package comes with one of those mini CDs hated by Macs and other slot loaders, so you should probably get your setup software from Silicondust's website. They make prompt firmware updates as issues arise, and write high quality if spartan software. I was able to use their setup utility on Windows 7 to get Media Center to see and use the tuner. Also EyeTV on OS X saw and used the tuner, and it was very simple using MythTV to see and use the tuners on Linux. Use wired Ethernet for distribution if practical, if not do not use less then 802.11n wireless, as I've found that g wireless is not quite up to the task of streaming HD video. I generally use my MacBook with the MythTV frontend for "OS X" to watch recorded programming on the Linux media server, it's free and works reasonably well, but I do own a license for EyeTV and have watched live TV with it.
I have owned the previous incarnation of the dual tuner HDHomerun for many years and it still works, but I was eager to compare this device to the previous models, the original white one and the single tuner blue one. I'm interested in signal quality, so I spent a couple hours with an iPhone/iPad app I wrote, Signal GH, looking at how these three devices handle my hard to lock television stations.
I hoped the tuner chipset in the Dual would improve upon the 5 year old chips in the original. And it did. The new tuner is more consistent then the original and a bit more consistent then the blue. Where the older model would swing over a wider range of signal quality, for instance ranging from 65 to 75 signal quality units on a given marginal station, the Dual will consistently stay in a range like 68 to 70. In fact, for some stations my original Dual will drop signal quality entirely either for a half second or even continuously even while showing good signal strength, something the other two devices do not do. Whether this is by age or design flaw I don't know. I just know the Dual is improving on the situation which will be great when the leaves grow to block my signal in the summer. To be clear any of these will handle a strong, direct, easily tuned signal, it's the marginal stations where the newer chips make the difference between an hour lost in a show and an hour of constant distraction.
This model has only one coax port. Previously the original had two ports which would have allowed you to dedicate one port to digital unencrypted cable, QAM, and the other to digital over the air ATSC, but the vast majority of users will be only using an antenna and most of the rest only QAM, so that is no great loss. Power usage is 5 W while tuning and 3 while not, an improvement in the idle power usage, but still another electricity sink. The original also had a remote control, which I never had cause to use, but some could use for simpler setups.
I've owned a couple other TV tuners over the years and this network based product is the only one I recommend. It is flexible, can be used with a wide variety of software, does not rely on often flaky USB drivers and is available to all my computers. And it can be located remotely from my already over hot TV cabinet reducing the need for noisy cooling. If you are sure of needing only one tuned channel at a time, then the single tuner model is cheaper and has fine signal quality performance. SiliconDust has announced a CableCard network device which sounds interesting but is likely to be less flexible then this DRM free device. The fact that the new Dual is cheaper then it used to be and has a more consistent signal quality only enhances the value.
Highly recommend for cord cutting antenna users within range of multiple major network TV stations,
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