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 a couple of older, used HD Homerun (HDHR3-US) units in the house, and moved up after I got my large antenna up. This is more sensitive despite having four tuners instead of two, and it does pick up non-DRM'ed ATSC 3 channels well. Bummed about DRM not working, but it's really not the fault of SiliconDust, and I expect the FCC to help with all of that soon. I'm running this from a Channels DVR setup, Plex is also compatible, and the HDHR software works, too. Just remember that you need some kind of software to access it - someone was upset it didn't have HDMI, which is kind of the point of a unit like this. You put it where the OTA signal is good and just need to wire it to Ethernet.

I purchased a HDHomeRun Flex 4K in anticipation of dropping cable TV. I found that we tend to watch a lot of network shows on the DVR and have Fire Sticks on every TV, so being able to record over the air TV could save us a lot of money over cable without having to buy a lot of hardware. Setting up the HDHomeRun Flex 4K was easy and strait forward. Initially I connected an external hard drive to it and purchased a subscription to the DVR service. Unfortunately I found using this device as a DVR was significantly less pleasurable than using my Xfinity DVR. While the picture quality of live broadcasts looked very good, recorded shows did not. As a trial run I recorded CBS Sunday Morning off my local CBS station. The Flex 4K reported signal strength, signal quality, and symbol quality all at 100%. Playing back the recording the picture quality lacked resolution and color depth. Additionally several times while I was fast forwarding through commercials I got an error message and lost playback. When I went back to recordings it displayed "Your HDHomeRun DVR is ready to record" with no recordings. I finally gave up on using the HDHomeRun Flex 4K as a DVR and purchased an inexpensive mini PC that I set up as a Channels DVR with the HDHomeRun Flex 4K as the tuner. This has worked out extremely well. Channels DVR records at the same quality as watching off the air, has a clean interface, has great commercial skip capability, and the HDHomeRun Flex 4K integrates perfectly as the tuner. The Channels DVR service is more expensive than the SiliconDust DVR service, but it's worth it, and it's still a substantial savings over Cable TV with DVR service.

Update: I've been so frustrated with the constant freezing. I basically never watch antenna TV anymore because of it and customer support's usual answer along the lines of "it could be worse." In fact, I forgtt all about even having it until I saw the auto payment for another year of the dvr service. I saw it to late to cancel, but I don't renew next year, for certain. I don't even use it anymore until Sundays when I'm trying to watch football on my local station. I miss so many plays because of the freezing and having to restart (and missing every play that happened during that process), but that's not the only problem with live tv. Pausing hardly ever works, and more often than not, when I unpause, it skips right to live and I'm unable to rewind. When I watch something I've recorded, maybe the whole episode will be there... but maybe it crashes. In any case, if i try to pause, it restarts at the beginning. At one point, I blamed the Roku HDHomeRun app, but I later downloaded the app on an Amazon Fire TV, and wouldn't you know it, I have the same problems. I absolutely cannot recommend this product, which makes me sad bc it had a lot of promise, and I paid good money for it. Original review: The only reason I need a tuner/dvr at all is so I can record NFL games—I don't want to miss one while I'm watching another that's being broadcast at the same time, and I want to be able to skip commercials (and sometimes the announcers' chatter). I've tried several OTA receivers/DVRs but finally settled on the SiliconDust HDHomeRun Flex 4K. The SiliconDust HDHomeRun Flex 4K is dead simple to set up: plug in coax cable from the antenna, plug included ethernet cable into the HDHomeRun and your router, plug included power supply in. The HDHomeRun isn't connected to your television, only to your router (and antenna and power)—it streams your OTA channels to your TVs and other devices via app. Viewing OTA (antenna) TV: My two main TVs are Roku Tvs (and a rarely-used 3rd TV uses a Roku device), so I just added the HDHomeRun app. I didn't need to do anything else to view all my OTA channels, not even run a channel scan. I spent a total of about 2 minutes from opening the box to watching TV (and probably 60 seconds of that was bc my arthritic hands had trouble tightening the coax cable). I wasn't missing any of the 77 channels my TV found when the antenna cable was connected directly to the TV. (Incidentally, HDHomerun was not my first choice: I bought a Tablo Dual Lite first, but it could not find as many channels, and not the local networks that broadcast NFL games at all, so I returned it asap.) The picture through the HDHomeRun is clearer than watching when watching from my Dish, which surprised me. Note: Some Samsung TVs cannot get audio when using the HDHomeRun. The site's FAQ says "To hear audio, you need a TV, AV receiver, or soundbar that can decode Dolby Digital or AC3 audio over HDMI. Most modern TVs can do this, though we’ve noticed a few Samsung TVs cannot." DVR: If you want DVR functionality, you'll pay $35/year, and plug in an external hard drive to your HDHomeRun via usb. I tested the DVR functions via the HDHomeRun app on my laptop and on my phone. I started recording a program already in progress. I scheduled recording for a program that would start about a half hour in the future. I used the search bar to schedule recordings of all NFL games, on any channel, at any time. Super easy. The quality of the recording is great. Here's where things get a little less than ideal. I could not for the life of me figure out how to use the DVR functions from the Roku app. I submitted a support ticket to Silicone Dust, and they told me how to find my recordings (just hit the "back" arrow button on the Roku remote), but I can't schedule recordings from the Roku app... yet. I'll paste Silicone Dust's email below: The Roku version of the HDHomeRun app is getting some long overdue updates to help bring it in-line with the HDHomeRun app for other platforms. We'll be adding the ability to schedule recordings, search guide data, and more, in the coming months. When you open the Roku app, it will start playing the last played channel right away. Pressing left/right arrows will bring up the live channel switcher. Icons and guide data might take a moment to load, and we are working to improve those loading times. Pressing "Back" from live TV will bring you to a new "Live/Recorded/Discover/Tasks" screen. Selecting "Live" will bring you back to the live view on whatever channel was being watched before Selecting "Recorded" will show recordings if you are using the HDHomeRun DVR service Selecting "Discover" will give you our guide discover view. Selecting a TV program from "Discover" will show a summery for that program, and will show the current and future episodes (if the program is a TV show and not a movie). If a program is available on more than one channel, you will also see those options listed here. In the future you will be able to use this view to also schedule recordings if you are subscribed to the HDHomeRun DVR service.

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.