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HDHomeRun Connect Streaming Media Player (HDHR4-2DT UK Version) - £96.96 Delivered (~ $170AUD) @ Amazon UK

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With that glorious home media solution Plex just announcing beta DVR functionality I've gone hunting for the only current compatible device - the SiliconDust HDHomeRun Connect only to find it's $230 or more in Australia.

Luckily the UK version is DVB-T / DVB-T2 compatible as well and is known to work just fine here!

  • Watch live HDTV on up to 2 devices simultaneously on your wired network
  • Works with all popular PC DVR software so you can watch, pause and record
  • Watch many great primetime broadcast channels from your favourite networks
  • HDHomeRun is DLNA compatible and streams over UPnP

Shipping time looks to be a little lengthy (1-3 weeks before sending), however this should give you time to save up for your PlexPass subscription or wait for DVR to come to the free version.

Price History at C CamelCamelCamel K Keepa.

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closed Comments

  • +10

    Who wants to pay for free to air TV? Almost all channels have catch up TV, not seeing any benefit in Australia for this..

    • +5

      Nobody wants to, you're right! Often those catchup ones aren't great / rotate shows away quickly. I can imagine this being useful for people who want to DVR sports to watch later or recording Aussie only TV shows.

    • +8

      With catch-up TV you can't skip ads, can't copy TV shows to your phone/tablet to view when travelling and you also can't build up a library of shows or movies you can watch in the future.

    • +13

      Those catch up services are horrible. Some require flash.

      On more than one occasion, I've had to sit through the ads, only to start streaming the show I want to watch and for it to fail. I have to then refresh the page, re-sit through ads again and hope the show loads up.

      You don't have those issues with torrents, or netflix

      • +1

        iView and SBS on demand are amazing, no ads on the former and the latter has one ad at the beginning only. Commercial TV is all crap anyway, hardly worth watching

        • Haven't been on iView and SBS on demand for a while. The last time I used them regularly, the bitrate and/or resolution was pretty awful.

    • +2

      Me?

      I have my PC record multiple shows daily which I then jump in bed and watch a few hours later without the ads.

      I even have recordings convert to smaller mp4 files which sync to the wifey's mobile and she watches on the way to/from work without having to worry about data limits and drop outs etc…

    • +1

      This sounds to me as a VCR-era habit. Usually, a whole show will have 2 or 3 ads when streaming, so I find that the work and cost to have such device running is not worth it. Anyway, we are not here to judge the habit, but the price, and should this be the cheapest around, it's a bargain.

    • You do realise that not everyone has access to decent Internet?

  • +3

    Not sure if I am fully understanding this…so as of right now, Plex would essentially access / control the tuners of the HDHomerun and record to the PC HDD, then Plex clients on gaming consoles and TV's etc can access these recordings?

    IE: you cannot watch live TV via Plex, just watch recordings?

    If so, I'm not sure how different this is to using other PVR software on a PC with TV tuners, then pointing Plex at the recordings folder?

    • At the moment you can't watch it live yeah, but they're working on that aspect apparently. It's no different to setting up your own DVR/PVR software, just more streamlined and simple really (though there's no ad removal function)

    • There is other apps that will allow live, like Kodi etc

      • +2

        Couldn't even get kody set up. Brought me to tears. 2 hours later managed to get wmc working on win 10.

  • +1

    thanks op , looking to upgrade from the 3 X Tivo's and purchased plexpass when was $70….so am very interested.

    • yeah, costs a bit for lifetime now huh! Hopefully they'll do another one of those 50% birthday promotions in the next year

      • +3

        yeah 3 mates and my self jumped on the bandwagon very early on, and it just keeps getting better, with HP8 server with xeon upgrade running 24/7 this looks the way to go, central recording , accessible by all plex players ATV4/PC/IPAD/ROKU etc, including remote access…….if your net upload speed permits. Any info on how well it works with plex?

  • +7

    It's a pity MS decided to stop Windows Media Center. I found it really good for live TV.
    The tuner works well over wifi on my phone/tablet too btw.

    • +2

      Nah works fine on win 10. Just google it.

      • Nah works fine on win 10. Just google it.

        MS officially stopped developing and supporting WMC. Unofficial methods may work now but may break in the future. That won't be suitable for non-techies.

        • Where there's a will there's a way…

        • +1

          @bluechan: I got 3 of my non-techy friends onto WMC on Win7 and they love it. They have to call me whenever something fails though, which rarely happens on Win7. I wouldn't set up an unofficial Win10+WMC system for them - it just means more work for me if/when something breaks.

          Techies who don't mind fiddling? No problem!

        • @eug:

          the whole process was actually quite simple on win 10, liek very simple, that it makes you wonder why they didnt jsut include it in win 10. dissapointing.

        • @T1OOO: If I remember right, it had to do with codec licensing fees for a feature that only a small minority use. I I suppose even if it only cost them 0.01c per copy, the cost for 50-100 million copies adds up.

    • I bought myself an old 2nd hand computer running W7 Pro just so I could get WMC back and use it as a DVR/PVR. I liked using WMC and couldn't find anything similar with an Aussie EPG after my other computer updated itself to W10 when I was out shopping :P

      EDIT: ^^ I googled it and followed all instructions but couldn't get it working on W10 - tried all the hints and tricks etc. It was easier to pay $99 for the W7 pc in the end (for me anyway).

      • after my other computer updated itself to W10 when I was out shopping :P

        You should have taken advantage of the 30-day revert-back-to-previous-OS feature at the time. :)

        • I didn't know about it >.< nvm - I have added a fix to my W7 pc so it will not upgrade and stay at W7 unless I decide I want to.

  • I've got an old HDHomeRun gathering dust somewhere behind my TV. Maybe I should fire it up.

    • want to sell it? PM me

    • Version 3? Apparently the original one and the 2nd version won't work with this as they use a different API…

  • Kodi supports live tv and has a hdhomerun plugin.

    App works fine on Android and iOS too.

    • What IOS app do you use with hdhomerun ? Or you do mean you use Kodi on IOS (jailborken)?. I use InstaTV Pro but keen to hear what else is out there.

  • +4

    Plex rules

  • Thanks OP. Want one of these for my Nvidia Shield Android TV!

    • What for? (I have a shield too)

      • +1

        I figure he means so he can use Plex on the Shield as a DVR/PVR - it's not available yet, but I don't imagine it will take them too long.

  • +2

    I thought the point of plex was that you didn't have to watch the crap FTA TV we get in Australia?

  • I currently use Win7 MCE Media Center PC in the lounge & XBOX360 as an MCE extender in another room. Can anyone suggest a solution (is Plex suitable) that can replace my setup. One of the important features is that I can continue to watch all videos from where I left off no matter where the video was started. Kodi on RaspPi in other room perhaps.

  • I have this. Integrates superbly with Kodi. Also allows me to remotely start a recording when I'm out.

  • I have one of the older model HD Homreuns and end up replacing it with a BeyonWiz Box… The Beyonwiz is 100x better!

  • Does anyone know if its possible to stream this while still actively recording a show. Or do you need to wait till its finished?

    Ideally I'd like to use it for something like watching the Cricket over summer. Have it start recording, and then basically start up the stream in kodi or on other android tablets around the house. I've only got two aerial sockets in the house and they are in inconvenient places, so this seems like a good alterntive if it allows streaming at the same time as recording.

    • At the moment it has to wait until the show is finished recording - hopefully they'll have timeshifting etc coming soon

      • Cheers, thanks. That's a shame, it would have been great for sports etc if you could watch on the fly. Oh well.

        • Hmm- so according to this article it should be able to live stream tv
          http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/computers/gadgets-on-the-…

          I guess it can either record or live stream, but not both at the same time?

        • @xccxxx: well it's got dual tuners… so I would imagine you COULD be recording one channel via Plex and streaming another channel live via the native HDHomeRunner app?

    • There are devices that can stream FTA to mobile devices, and the Xbox One can do it also with the tuner. You could use that as a live stream and have Plex doing recording separately? It'd be a bit of a hassle but should work.

    • +1

      Have a look at Fetch TV…it has a DLNA server, and you can start watching recordings whilst they are still recording (have tested this myself on phones, tablets, PS3, WDTV, Samsung TV etc).

    • You can definitely record using one tuner and livestream using the other tuner.

      I suspect you may even be able to record and livestream from the same tuner, albeit probably without timeshift.

  • stickytape a shieldtv+nas+hdhomerun together and you almost have a tivo replacement.

    • I use Shield TV w/Live Channels, HDHR3-DT and TVHeadend, works a treat. Will be even better when they add recording to the Live Channels addon.

    • And most exciting of all - The wave of the future, Quickflix, is now available on TiVo!

      • +1

        Yeah that sucks but nothing beats the TIVO UI for recording - I wish the kodi guys would rip it off.

        I have both btw.

        Nougat will support USB TV tuners - so see how we go there.

  • +1

    I have 4 of the older version tuners without DLNA. They work faultlessly…

    I use WMC for live TV recording in the living room. ServerWMC and Emby for mobile devices inside and outside the house. Emby transcodes fine when you are out and about. Kodi on a Raspberry Pi with pvr plugins work a treat as well…

    By the way you can add WMC to Windows 10. BUT it tends to break with updates….

    • mehhh… just turn off the Win10 Updater service -

      "Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Services. In the Services window, scroll down to Windows Update, right-click on the process, click on Properties and select Disabled."

      You won't get anymore updates until you turn it back on.

      • No security updates too then!

        • Turn it on once a month, get the updates, turn it back off.

        • @starionx: How will that avoid WMC breaking due to updates? You'd just be delaying it by a month?

        • @eug:

          At least you would know when that was going to happen (and take steps to resolve it), rather than the current, ridiculous, 'update anytime' scenario that microshaft inflicts on Win10 users.

  • I use FTA tv mainly to watch AFL games but I just VDR with a cheap $10 usb tuner on my old microserver and it works fine.

  • How's this thing different from PVRs?

    • I was wondering the same thing

    • central recording , accessible by all plex players ATV4/PC/IPAD/ROKU etc, including remote access…….if your net upload speed permits.

  • Love Plex.

    • Plex is love
      Plex is life

  • +2

    guys, i was excited by the PLEX release, but then reading the details i am dissapointed.

    im a big PLEX fan and have all my content on plex.

    i am also a big fan of DVBLINK which i used to watch LIVE and RECORDED TV off.

    when i got the DVBLINK plug-in installed on PLEX this was the panacea for me.

    (i think the caveat is that the dvblink isn't official, but it works very well for me).

    for those interested, ive got my DVBLINK server off my QNAP NAS, and im using my PS4 console to play PLEX.

    it may sound complicated, but it really isn't. they are all things we have (NAS, Gaming) in the house already, just used smartly.

    And its FLAPPING reliable.

    My 2c.

  • +1

    Thanks OP, I was looking at the prices of these after I read the Plex announcement this morning & think that $220 was a bit much. But I can afford $170 so - ORDERED!

  • mythtv backend running on old hardware, mix of android, linux frontends running Kodi does it for me, thanks.

    I'd still like to know what supposedly make Plex better than the mythtv/ kodi combo?

    • I think it just strikes a really good mix for people between not being QUITE as fiddly as mythtv/kodi can (sometimes) be and having quite a strong adoption and update schedule across the big name smart tv / media streamer companies. But meh, to each their own!

      Emby is actually looking pretty attractive and well integrated nowadays too!

      • +1

        Emby is fantastic. I use Emby server to manage all my media, and then use the Emby for kodi plugin on all my kodi clients around the house to keep everything in sync. Can also have kodi clients that are remote and emby streams and transcodes if necessary. Really liked Emby over plex as it seems to have a lot more options for actually controlling your content(i remember trying plex a while back and couldnt even find an option to limit the upload bandwidth on the server - may have changed now though)

    • I have similar setup to you - although I upgraded my MythTV backend hardware about 18 months ago (been using MythTV since 2008). The backend has the HDHR3 - bought in March 2014 for $139 delivered - plus a dual tuner card - so I have 4 virtual tuners (and I have a PlayTV usb dual tuner sitting in a cupboard that I picked up cheap on an Ozbargain deal a while ago). I have 3 frontend micro pc frontends running Mythbuntu with Kodi. But Plex is great for the phone - and especially for transcoding and syncing video onto the phone for offline viewing. Amazingly fast and convenient. I don't watch live tv, but my wife does, so I thought I'd dabble with solutions to allow her to watch on her phone. I installed Kodi and set the parameters for my MythTV box. Live TV works, but it is really slow to load up all the data it needs for MythTV - much slower than my frontends when doing the same thing. I'm guessing a solution like this deal would be much quicker and convenient. I probably won't go for this deal though - its not really a pressing requirement - and I'm guessing there's probably a quick and seamless solution for live tv on Android given the setup I already have - perhaps TV Headend or one of the other solutions mentioned here.

  • +1

    I got a HDHR about 12 months ago (the newer model).

    I've never had a device set up so easily before.

    Basically plug in all the cables and it worked instantly.

  • Great, I was looking for this last week.
    I have also bought 2 indoor aerial.

  • Tvheadend works for me, got it in my nuc, raspberry Pi and HP micro server running Xpenology, not for the technically challenged tho…

  • Luckily the UK version is DVB-T / DVB-T2 compatible as well and is known to work just fine here!

    Any source for this? I Googled and couldn't find anything definitive. I want to be sure before I pull the trigger on it.

  • Got one of these myself and well worth it. ALL pcs can watch FTA and you dont have to worry about a splitter losing signal strength. No antenna point in the study? No worries - all you need is a network connection. (Works on tablets too I believe)

  • If you wanna save money and go the DIY route, you can do the same with a raspberry pi (or other SBC), a generic cheap DVB-T stick, and the software tvheadend.

  • BTW. I'm guessing this will require an AU plug adapter - so that adds a little bit of cost onto the deal.

  • Yeah, what happens with the AU power plug? I got one of these units and they're great! I use it with my Intel NUC on my main TV. It's way better than the AverMedia F200. Wish Microsoft brought back WMC - Still a way cleaner GUI than Kodi.

  • These work with EyeTV DVR software for Mac users. And at a hefty cost, It also works on Apple TV 4, iPad & iPhone using the Channels app. (www.getchannels.com)

    HDhomerun also have the own (beta) DVR software which can be used with QNAP, Synology & WD MyCloud NAS. (www.silicondust.com)

  • Ordered one. I'm actually not 100% sure how often I will use this, but it could be very useful and at least it will be a cool toy.

    I already have a Plex Pass, Plex running on my home server and all my TVs, and a house with wired networking, so it seems like a small additional investment to add DVR functionality across the board. I do already have a FetchTV, but that's only one TV, and the app for that is stuffed and won't let me watch recordings remotely, so at the very least this should fix that.

    I think it will be a relatively easy way to get more video content on to my server. It's not going to get you the latest HBO series, but it would provide an easy way to gradually build up a good catalogue of recordings of classic shows like Seinfeld and The Simpsons. And it'll record to my server, so it'll never run out of disk space.

    • I do already have a FetchTV, but that's only one TV, and the app for that is stuffed and won't let me watch recordings remotely, so at the very least this should fix that.

      Fetch TV has a DLNA server, so recordings can be accessed via anything with a client…eg: I have tested with a PS3, WDTV, Samsung TV, PC etc.

      A true multiroom solution is also being released later this year.

      BTW their app is being completely rebuilt, and should be available within the next month or two.

      • Ok, I've tried to use the DLNA server but the "Recordings" folder is empty. Am I doing something wrong? I have the Optus YesTV version so it may be deliberately restricted.

        • I have the Optus YesTV version so it may be deliberately restricted.

          Ah yeah - Optus are still restricting the use of this on their boxes, however I believe that will be lifted in the near future.

  • SO i got mine today, plugged it all in and it won't work properly. It's laggy AF.. Like unwatchable…

    • Checked to see if there's a firmware update available? Using ethernet cable or trying to watch over wireless?

      • gigabit local network. It's running over cat6. I'm currently talking to their support now.

        • Yeah, definitely odd - hope they help you sort it out!

    • A stuttering video can occur if you don't have a strong enough tv signal.

  • +2

    Got mine yesterday. Setup was a breeze. Now viewing tv on my pc and Android. Very fast and no lag once I have position my indoor antenna correctly with its signal strength apps.

  • Just ordered one for delivery 13-20 Oct. Anyone had any luck hooking it up to Plex?

  • Just to save some of you guys time. If you was to look at splitting your antenna from 1 to 2, this is a very good product.

    http://www.radioparts.com.au/product/00760683/sa162f?gclid=C…

    I have paid $34 at Jaycar today and I am amaze that all channels are registered 100%. Prior to that it was around 95% on direct connection - 1 to 1, but now 100% for both points from the splitter. I highly recommended this product.

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