SiliconDust HDHomeRun HDHR5-2US Connect Duo Dual Tuner

TL;DR: Amazing cord cutting TV solution provided you live in an area that can receive good antenna signal. One device, one antenna to provide TV across the entire home. Pros -Extremely simple setup -One device can provide channels to several TV’s across the a home -HD local channels (dependent on location) -No lag or channel disruption with a whole home mesh network -Apps across all devices including Smart TV’s, streaming devices (Apple TV, Nvidia Shield, Fire TV, etc.) Mac/Windows. -Flawlessly compatible with Plex Pass (Lifetime purchase and monthly subscribers) -Can get TV in rooms with no antenna signal since it streams on internal network Cons -Native app works very well but the navigation is bad After a very bad experience with my cable company, I have decided to pull the plug and become an official cable cutter. I live in a metro area of Arizona so I know I get great HD antenna service at my home. I have one antenna and was looking to purchase a few more as I have 5 TV’s in my home. I started looking up solutions for whole home antenna service and I stumbled across the HDHomeRun. There are several different models of the HDHomeRun, some of which include 2 simultaneous streams and some that have 4. Others have Hard drives with DVR capabilities (extra subscription cost required) and one that even allows you to connect a paid cable provider which would allow you to have one cable unit to provide cable across several TV’s instead of renting multiple cable receivers. I chose the HDHR5-4US Connect Quatro 4 Channel Tuner because I have a home that often runs 2-4 TV’s at a given time and I am not interested in DVR. Once I received the unit, setup was a breeze just as everyone else says. The box includes everything you need, the tuner, power cable, and CAT5e Ethernet cable to connect to your modem/router. I have a mesh network where all of my satellite units have their own Ethernet ports so I chose the room that had the best window access to the antenna towers. There are several websites you can go to which can help you learn what channels you should expect to get and where the towers are located. Once I connected my HDHomeRun to my router and power, I let it fully power on(only solid green light on the back) and then went to my computer to do the final setup. You go to a website specified in the instructions, scan for channels, then download the app to view. It is that easy! Once you open the app, as longs it is running on the same network as your HDHomeRun, TV will start playing! The native app is less than desirable. It is clunky and hard to navigate but once the channel is playing, it works very well. I personally do not use the native app. I use Plex as I have a Plex server and am a paid Plex Pass subscriber. Setup on Plex was also very easy, but I will not go into detail as this review is not for Plex. There are also other third party apps you can download/purchase if desired. After a few weeks of using the HDHomeRun exclusively, I am very happy o say that cancelling cable has never been easier. Yes you may only get a small handful of channels vs hundreds from the cable company, but depending on your needs, this product works excellent for getting TV across an entire home without the need of several antennas. Plus if you only get antenna reception in one room, you can still get good reception across an entire home including a basement that normally would not have access to TV signal since it streams over in home router equipment. Highly recommended for cable cutters who want local TV.

Got this to stream live TV through Plex and can't believe how easy it was to get up and running. I was expecting some configuration and setup but it was entirely plug and play - attached my antenna, plugged the network cable into my switch, created a DHCP reservation for the device so its IP address won't change, and added it as a tuner to Plex by its reserved IP. Seconds later I had live streaming TV! While this is not a review of Plex, there are a couple things you should know if you are planning on buying this to use with Plex: 1. You need a Plex Pass for certain features, for example casting live TV to a Chromecast. 2. Casting to a Chromecast device is pretty problematic in the current version of Plex (stream ends unexpectedly, sometimes I'll get "stuck" in a show in Live TV mode where the show ends and Plex fails to continue the stream as the next show begins, etc.) 3. Casting live TV to a Chromecast (and I think just playing it through a web browser like Chrome) causes Plex to do a significant amount of transcoding so ensure your Plex server has adequate CPU / memory. But, if you don't have Chromecast devices, it's probably fine. I have 2 TVs with Amazon FireTV Sticks, both of these can stream live TV through Plex for hours on end with no issue and perfect 1080i video quality. If you're just planning on using the HD Home Run app, it works well enough for streaming live TV on your mobile devices. There's no cast option in the native app so it's useless for me to use on my TVs with Chromecasts attached, but the few times I fired up the app, video and audio quality were fine.

When we cut the cord, including a DVR box, we tried to make up for it with subscription streaming services, but the ones that give local TV had gotten really expensive. I connected an antenna, but then missed the DVR capability. The HDHomeRun looked to be the solution.It took maybe 5 minutes to get it out of the box and connected to the antenna, Ethernet, and power. We have a server computer than runs 24/7 and already has Plex. I'm using Plex and the $4/month subscription (needed for DVR). It works better than the streaming service. Probably took about a minute to configure it to the HDHomeRun. I think it was the fastest and most trouble-free install of technology gear I've ever done. The HDHomeRun will pay for itself in a little over two months! And I'm back with a two channel DVR with commercial deletion. Recorded programs are completely integrated with other media stored on Plex. And I can play any show on any of our "smart" TVs, phones, or computers. Life has never been so good! One nice feature that I haven't taken advantage of yet is that the HDHomeRun + antenna can be located anywhere, for best signal, and then connected by wire to power and the network. It doesn't have to be located next to the TV. There is one room in our house that has unobstructed view toward the broadcast towers and I plan to move this gear there.

So I purchased the the Hdhomerun to finally ditch cable subscription and watch free OTA without a monthly payment. I did the math and after 3 months I would break even. So the setup was fairly easy and didn't require much input. The application is my only real gripe with this setup. Hdhomerun needs to clean up its application to make it more user friendly (my wife hates this thing). The guide setup is useless and makes browsing kinda annoying especially if your coming from cable. The channel changing is also odd at best and really isn't anything i would recommend for anyone who is use to cable (channel up and down???, mini guide????). The app works but its strange to navigate and makes it strange when trying to find shows. The recording feature is nice and fairly simply to setup. I do have plex server setup but forego the setup integration with HDhomerun because i dont want to switch apps to watch my recordings of my TV shows. Its weird that I would have a live TV app but then watch my recordings in another app. Yes I could watch Live TV and recordings in plex, but lets be honest, live tv in plex is awful and slow. Finally, recordings work fine and fairly easy except it only has the guide out for 2 weeks? so.... yeah....hopefully your new show is coming out any later or else you will need to remind yourself to go back into the app and search once it appears on the guide app. Its better then other options, i admit but it is still a far cry from what most people expect and needless painful for no real reason. If HDhomerun wants to make a cordcutting option, i recommend making it SIMILAR to cable so the transition is less painful. Prevailing logic would be that customers dont want complicated, they simply want a similar viewing experience without the headaches/large bills.

I could not decide on either the Duo or Quatro version, but ended up with the Duo. As there are only two of us who use it, I did not see much sense in getting the Quatro. If I had to do it over again, perhaps I might. But the way these tuners work, adding more tuners is only a matter of getting another Duo...or Quatro. This device appears as another "server" on your network. And with that in mind, I would say that it is one of the easiest devices I have ever used on the network. I essentially just plugged everything in (power supply, antenna coax cable, Ethernet cable), installed the applications on the computer, and it all just worked. I did have to scan for channels, which is done through a setup utility. But beyond that, the hardware has worked perfectly. As for the apps themselves, it's a mixed bag. I actually have had the best luck using the HDHomeRun app for viewing, and the DVR subscription for $35/year was worth it. Is their app perfect? No, as the use interface could use a little more work. But as for reliability, it seems to work the best of anything I've tried. The only place where I don't get good results is on the Nexus Player--I have minimal apps loaded on it, and the signal strength from the WiFi is nearly at maximum, yet it has a lot of dropouts. (I do not get the dropouts when using VLC to play back MKV files stored on my NAS.) The app works fine on my older Nexus 7 tablet under weaker signal conditions, so, go figure! It works smooth as buttah on my Windows 10 setup as well as the Pixel XL. For DVR, I had tried Plex, but it was a colossal failure--it missed more than half the scheduled events, and the start and ending times it decided on would cut off one or both ends of the program. Playback was also full of glitches on any device I tried. So no, I don't recommend trying it with Plex. The Nexus Player also has its own built in "tuner" feature (with Android 8.0), but like the HDHomeRun app, it experienced too many dropouts to make it usable. Emby I have not yet tried, but I may do so just out of curiosity. Overall though, the HDHomeRun is an excellent hardware product. The software side of things can be spotty, but all I can suggest is that you experiment, and also give their own apps a try, as they seem to work the best of anything I have tried thus far.

This is the second one of these I've own. I bought one with a cable card about three-four years ago and it was rock solid. I recently ditched cable, so I got one of these that hooks up to an antenna. It is rock solid and works fantastic. The install process was very easy. The device comes up and you can navigate to the web UI in your browser. The UI is simple, but it will scan for channels automatically and show you the list of what it finds. There's not a ton else you can do through the UI, but if you are a little more technical you can use it to get the URLs for the video streams for each channel which you can open with VLC Player or nPlayer (iPhone). If you want to watch directly on your computer or phone. If you're just looking to make it work, SiliconDust has more streamlined players for most devices, see their website for the list. I have used the Roku app and it works fantastic, even on my older Roku2 and over wifi. There's a built-in TV Guide so I can see what's on the channels and as long as you get a good signal, the stream is solid and the picture quality is great. I used my previous device with MythTV and it was rock solid, I haven't used the new one with it but see no reason why it wouldn't work. It's basically the same device, but without a cable card.

Works great! It's just a tuner, there is no DVR built into this unit. You need to provide your own device to work as a DVR if that's what you want. I use it with PLEX and it's DVR function (this requires a PLEX subscription). The web interface on it just works, it's very basic all you need to do is scan for channels and you're done. Plug it into a high quality OTA antenna and you're in business, I get 53 channels where I live, some don't come in so we'll but it's not a fault of this unit it's more an antenna/interference issue. Another plus is it doesn't do any transcoding, so if you're a channel surfer you can quickly flip between channels with out much delay (it's not instant, 1-2 seconds). I've seen other tuners that transcode to a more compressed format and the transcoding time takes a few second, like 5 -10 seconds just to flip a channel. I recommend getting the Quadro if you plan to use the DVR function a lot as well as watch live TV. Each recorded show and live TV viewer will consume a tuner, so you can only either record 4 shows at once, 3 shows and 1 live viewer, etc. What's also great is you can have any "smart" device in the house tune in, just install the HDH app and away you go.

UPDATE 1 : This unit does seam to work with my new Fire TV cube. using their App, I ran this for 5 hours and no problems. The operation was only to view all of the tv stations, I did not setup a server, to do any Recording with this uint. UPDATE 2 : The Company does not you to use a pre-amp or a tv distribution amplifier, into there unit. it will over drive the input. So I solved the problem by putting a 10db attenuator, so i could use my pre-amp and my tv distribution amplifier. ########### This review is base on the Roku premierre+ and Roku Ultra , and Apple iPhone 11 and My Apple iPad Pro. nothing else. I have 4 Roku units their are as follows 2 Model 4630x premierre+ ,and 2 Model 4670x Roku Ultra . The TV system is as follows, A DB8 antenna joined together with a DB4 antenna , with a 35 foot RG6 solid Copper core. connected to a Channel Master distribution amplifier with 4 outputs. The HDHomeRun CONNECT QUATRO is connected to the 4th output with a 1 foot RG6. Testing went as follows. Running the HD Roku APP on my Roku units on all 3 TV, for 4 hours after that time they all went down to a power saver mode , this happens if you do not touch the remote. The sound is lost on only the 2 Models 4630x premiere+, picture is present and good.. I found that if your have selected a TV channel and the picture pixelate, the unit will recover but some times it dos not. when this happens the unit just brings you back to the main menu. I have found out that the Roku remote head set will not work with the HDHomeRun CONNECT QUATRO Tuner I do not know why this does not work. I have tested the HD APP on my Apple iPhone 11 and My Apple iPad Pro both work great. I have no complaints with the Apple apps. ( home run on Apple apps.) The Setup is a web base system which you log in for your PC or Mac. the menu is set up with the list • Channel Lineup • Tuner Status • System Status • Installation Instructions from here you can get all the information on the uint status, Also note the Company does not have a Apple TV APP , But I found if you use the VLC player, on an Apple TV uint the video is good and sound is good. The company tech support was been very good in responding to all my emails. I was told by the tech support The Following two Items listed below., 1: “We are currently working on an official version of our app for Apple TV. 2: As a Tech Support Told me ” the app not keeping the Roku active, and they will make a fix available as soon as possible. ”. Summary: The Company to me needs a little more work on the Roku system, Their Tech Support Is One of the most responsible I have encountered I a long time.

Should be called out as incompatible with Australians frequencies. Purchased a paper weight.

This was shipped to Australia, but does not work with Australian free to air TV. Fastway agreed to return for credit, minus a restocking fee, at my freight expense. Not happy. The fault here in not Silicon Dust, but the vendor and the product description on Amazon.

Ho scelto questo tuner per non buttare le vecchie TV che ho ... A settembre ci sarà il primo cambio nelle trasmissioni DTV per passare tutto alle nuove codifiche più efficienti e adatte alla qualità HD. Sulle TV più vecchie ho Amazon FireTV Stick: installando su quest'utlimo l'APP della SiliconDust (gratuita) ho ottenuto che senza decoder esterni sulle vecchie TV vedo la TV (tramite proprio HDHomeRun), Netflix, Disney+, RaiPlay, Chili, AppleTV ! Ho trasformato le vecchie TV in smartTV che si usano con un solo telecomando e saranno funzionanti anche dopo lo switchOff sia del 1 settembre 2021 sia quello di giugno 2022. L'installazione è facile se si seguono i semplici passi indicati nel foglietto incluso nella confezione (e se si leggono i messaggi sullo schermo). Nei prossimi giorni penso anche di "agganciarlo" a Plex per poter registrare qualche programma senza "bloccare" il sintonizzatore della smartTV principale ma, già così, lo trovo molto soddisfacente! Lo consiglio a tutti coloro che non vedono solo serie e film in streaming ed amano ancora usare la TV. Con HDHomeRun si ha una modalità di fruizione della TV tradizionale molto moderna e 2.0