Wootalyzer's Pricing Post! - The price of today's woot item is saved here for future reference
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SiliconDust HDHomeRun Prime Tuner
$149.99 + $5 Shipping
Condition: New

*DISCLAIMER* Wootalyzer! is in no way affiliated with Woot!, and this post may not always be here!

This thing has a long name

Here is a video with some FAQ's of this product.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmVlgbVbaYg

CNET review: http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-33153_7-57330671-10391733/get-a-silicondust-hdhomerun-prime-cablecard-tuner-for-$169.99/

I've been using this for 7 months and its fantastic. I can use it with two W7 computers at the same time with 2-3 different channels going at once.

From what I skimmed this thing could replace my DVR, meaning I could save on the monthly charge?

This is a great deal if it's what you're looking for. More than $50 off what you'd normally expect to pay. Basically, if you use Windows Media Center for your media center goodness, or even if you DON'T and have an XBox 360 hooked up, this handy dandy device can REPLACE your cable provider's set top box/DVR. You'll still have to lease a CableCARD, but that's typically in the $3/month range, as opposed to the $20/month of an HD DVR.

HDHomeRun PRIME is not compatible with satellite TV or IPTV services such as U-Verse

This should be in bold!

I still think there is a hidden #3000.

although i do work for Ceton. I do enjoy my infinitv 4 because it has more tuners and internal

Pretty good comparison of all the different cable card tuners before all the price drops:
http://thedigitalmediazone.com/2011/12/03/cablecard-tuner-comparison/

Will this work with Mac OS X and DirecTV?

Techradar has a review ... http://www.techradar.com/reviews/audio-visual/digital-tv-receivers/silicondust-hdhomerun-591815/review

Compatible with Verizon FIOS. This is what I'm currently doing and it works great. Won't let you do FIOS on demand though.

I have Windows 7 and I currently stream to 2 separate xbox's using Media Extender.

marlin8765 wrote:Will this work with Mac OS X and DirecTV?

No. This is not compatible with satellite TV, which uses completely proprietary equipment.

aw, snap! we need you to fix something.

Bought one last time, April 23, 2012.
http://deals.woot.com/deals/details/358fc6c4-afea-4563-94e5-f0d3f9d073ce/silicondust-hdhomerun-prime-tuner

Highly Recommend this Network CableCARD tuner.

Good overview of PC CableCARD Tuners
http://www.frictionfactor.com/1668/tv-tuners-for-your-htpc

marlin8765 wrote:Will this work with Mac OS X and DirecTV?

Does not work with satellite as satellite does not support cable card.

Elgato makes some MacOSX solutions. the eyeTV

bryaninphx wrote:Bought one last time, April 23, 2012.
http://deals.woot.com/deals/details/358fc6c4-afea-4563-94e5-f0d3f9d073ce/silicondust-hdhomerun-prime-tuner

Highly Recommend this Network CableCARD tuner.

Good overview of PC CableCARD Tuners
http://www.frictionfactor.com/1668/tv-tuners-for-your-htpc

Same Price Free shipping @
http://www.amazon.com/SiliconDust-HDHR3-CC-HDHomeRun-CableCARD-tuners/dp/B004HKIB6E
$149.99 + Free Shipping
In Stock. Sold by J&R Music and Computer World

OK, I've turned into my Dad.

This will, if hooked up next to the tv, replace the cable tuner box (may need to rent cablecard), but has no other tivoish bells and whistles, right?

If I hook up an ethernet cable to it from the router for my wireless net and install some software on computers, it will magically send tv to all of my computers on my network, or just the one with physical ethernet cable? I don't see that it does anything wirelessly, but that may be my router's job....

I think it's worth it to just replace the tuning function of a cable box, but does that mean that I change channels through this box, or by my tv. I want to use my tv to change channels, not some eerie box. In my day, we all wore onions on our belts, because that was the fashion then....

This device mAKES MY BRAIN HURT!!!!

rcbutchko wrote:OK, I've turned into my Dad.

This will, if hooked up next to the tv, replace the cable tuner box (may need to rent cablecard), but has no other tivoish bells and whistles, right?

If I hook up an ethernet cable to it from the router for my wireless net and install some software on computers, it will magically send tv to all of my computers on my network, or just the one with physical ethernet cable? I don't see that it does anything wirelessly, but that may be my router's job....

I think it's worth it to just replace the tuning function of a cable box, but does that mean that I change channels through this box, or by my tv. I want to use my tv to change channels, not some eerie box. In my day, we all wore onions on our belts, because that was the fashion then....

The basic rundown is this. This little box contains three digital tuners. It doesn't natively have any sort of video output, but if you connect it via Ethernet to your network, then any Windows 7 computer on the network will, after some basic setup, be able to access it and use it to record or display live TV. The other bit is that, if you have an XBox 360 connected to your network, then you can link that with one of your computers, and use that to watch live and recorded TV.

There's also other software available, but the simplest hookup is going to be through Windows 7 Media Center.

This is basically a Slingbox mated with a cablecard tuner, right?

rcbutchko wrote:OK, I've turned into my Dad.

This will, if hooked up next to the tv, replace the cable tuner box (may need to rent cablecard), but has no other tivoish bells and whistles, right?

You're not really in the right ballpark understanding what this does.

This is a tuner that sits on your network and says "here I am!" to compatible devices like your Media Center equipped PC (Windows Vista or 7).

Once it's on your network, your PC can see it, and access its tuner(s) to either record or watch live TV. Because it uses CableCard, it's a pure digital signal and will be basically as good as your cable company provides.

Once that's set up, if you wanted to watch it on a TV, you have two options:

1) physically hook up a dedicated Media Center PC to that TV
2) Hook up a Media Center Extender to the TV, that will talk to that PC through the network (most people will choose this option, and the XBox 360 is a Media Center Extender).

Silicon Dust also provides an iPad app so you can watch streams from this on your iPad, but you can't record, pause, etc on the iPad as far as I know.

The reason this is a network device instead of hooking up directly to a PC is so it can be accessed by multiple PCs / iPads on your network, rather than just one.

As far as wireless, it depends on how your network is set up, but as long as your wired network devices can see your wireless network devices, you should be good.

kschang wrote:This is basically a Slingbox mated with a cablecard tuner, right?

Sort of! Bear in mind that, unlike the Slingbox, there are no video-out connections on this little box- you'll have to find your own way to get video to your TV, whether it's hooking up your Media Center PC directly, or using your XBox 360 as an Extender.

Is there an option to select channel 4 for output instead of channel 3? My channel 3 became out of tune and I can't receive anything through it. My ch 4 is kind of out of tune too, but I could eventually receive from that channel if I turn the channel knob enough times.

lwang wrote:Is there an option to select channel 4 for output instead of channel 3? My channel 3 became out of tune and I can't receive anything through it. My ch 4 is kind of out of tune too, but I could eventually receive from that channel if I turn the channel knob enough times.

Who has a TV with knobs anymore?

lwang wrote:Is there an option to select channel 4 for output instead of channel 3? My channel 3 became out of tune and I can't receive anything through it. My ch 4 is kind of out of tune too, but I could eventually receive from that channel if I turn the channel knob enough times.

This doesn't have any sort of video output- it's ONLY for those who are willing to use another device- home theater PC, XBox 360- to display their TV signal.

I got the dual-tuner version of this last time it was here on woot.. came in much sooner than expected, too!

I haven't tried it with an antenna, still getting around to that, but I DID plug it directly into a friend's cable line (time warner) -- she subscribes to internet only, and I was still able to watch TV.

at first I thought I could only pull in about 7 actual channels that weren't encrypted or what appear to be the video that shows in the corner of the screen while surfing the on-demand menu screens for regular TV subscribers--

then I looked a little further into the software that it came with and discovered there are multiple programs per channel, bumping the actual tv channel number to somewhere around 37. a few of them seemed to be copies of themselves some in SD and HD, I haven't looked into what makes the various copies different that are on other actual channels, but the list I was able to put together is:
[plugging the dual-tuner version of this box into the cable line of a Time Warner internet only cable subscriber (Dallas/Fort Worth area)]
FOX, NBC, ABC, CW, Telemundo, Univision, CBS, MustBe21, KERA, C-Span3, C-Span2, C-Span, TV Land, 5 religious channels, 3 other spanish channels, Ion, WFAA-2, WFAA-3, KERA World, shopping stuff and Discovery.

everything else is encrypted, no data, or not really a channel but instead just advertisement loops for other programming. and one channel that is "reserverd for future use" or something.

and then I took my box back 'cause I wanna use it at home.

I was just using the HD Homerun Config Utility or whatever it's called, and VLC for playback, in Ubuntu, and also in Windows XP Pro via VMware in ubuntu. watching two SD channels (one in each operating system on the same computer [quad core 3ghz, 4 gigs ram] - 1 core and 1 gig going to the VMware guest OS {Windows XP Pro}) is fine. one SD channel and one HD channel at the same time also seemed fine, but two HD channels and things started to get choppy.

now granted this isn't your average everyday setup, nor is it optimal nor practical to watch this way, it is possible and proves it works, to an extent.

as time permits, I will try various combinations of hardware and software, ideally watching broadcast content on one computer with one tuner while a second computer is using the other tuner should more than one person want to watch different things at the same time, or watch one while recording another, etc...

overall I am very happy not even tapping the fullest potential of just the dual-tuner version, and I wish I had known the "good one!" was going to be offered here as now I'm greedy and want to tune and record everything at the same time. not all the time.. but when the next national disaster happens, I'd like to be able to watch and archive it from all the angles across all the news stations.

but the price seems a little high on this one, I don't remember how much I paid for my dual-tuner version, but I wonder if it would be cheaper to have bought more of those ones or a few of these ones...

can someone tell me if splitting off from the cable modem's line would produce better/worse/different results than plugging into the regular TV line for cable internet subscribers?

If you have Time Warner Cable you'll need Windows Media Center to view most content.

TWC sets the "copy-once" flag on all non-broadcast channels (even CSPAN). The iPad app (or other client) will not work.

Different model and review is 3 years old

I was minutes away from buying this from (a different online market) when I just happened to check Woot and had a wonderful surprise.

I'm going to hook this up to a HTPC I'm building with a huge amount of storage. It'll pull more power than my TiVo, but that's OK because I can no longer stand the friggin' TiVo.

I'm looking forward to trying this out! Is it pretty easy to move the cable card over to the tuner from the TiVo? I'm with Charter and have to use a separate box to make TiVo work. I expect that the separate box will still be necessary, but don't know if I need to do anything special to get the decoder box to talk to the new tuner.

haikuginger wrote:This doesn't have any sort of video output- it's ONLY for those who are willing to use another device- home theater PC, XBox 360- to display their TV signal.

From the picture of the silicondust tuner, the connector that sticks out looks like it can connect to my antenna/game switcher, then the 2 fork connectors coming out of the swticher can be attached to the 2 screws on my TV. The switcher I am talking about:

Looks like with MythTV it'll only be able to display "Copy Freely" shows. Anyone able to speak to how many shows/channels carry the "Copy Freely" tag? I feel like I read in the past that it's usually just the premium channels that lock out their stuff, like HBO and Showtime, but everything else tends to be open. Is that true?

lwang wrote:From the picture, the connector that sticks out looks like it can connect to my antenna/game switcher where its 2 fork connectors can be attached the 2 screws on my TV:

You got me, sir. Well played. Well played, indeed.

lynx44 wrote:Looks like with MythTV it'll only be able to display "Copy Freely" shows. Anyone able to speak to how many shows/channels carry the "Copy Freely" tag? I feel like I read in the past that it's usually just the premium channels that lock out their stuff, like HBO and Showtime, but everything else tends to be open. Is that true?

It varies by provider. Not to set false hopes, I'd do some googling on your local cable service; maybe try giving them a call.

I own the HDHomeRun Dual. I have it plugged into my OTA antenna to distribute TV signals to multiple computers in my home. Unfortunately, unlike the Dual, the Prime does *NOT* support broadcast HDTV (ATSC) - only cablecard. Which makes this entirely unusable to me.

TheTimmy wrote:
but the price seems a little high on this one, I don't remember how much I paid for my dual-tuner version, but I wonder if it would be cheaper to have bought more of those ones or a few of these ones...

The price on this one IS going to be higher per tuner than the last Woot deal for the dual-tuner model (which I bought!). This particular product accepts a CableCARD that permits decryption of premium channels.

Can this thing compress the signal? I'm guessing it doesn't so does that mean there is no way to place this device in house A and watch said TV in house B? What is the bandwidth on this for a SD/HD signal?

ivioo wrote:Can this thing compress the signal? I'm guessing it doesn't so does that mean there is no way to place this device in house A and watch said TV in house B? What is the bandwidth on this for a SD/HD signal?

This does NOT compress the signal at all, and really only works on the local subnet. As far as bitrates, the highest I've seen from cable for HDTV is 18Mbps. If you want to access your recorded TV from outside your network, I'd recommend the excellent RemotePotato software, which will allow you to stream your content to any Silverlight-enabled browser. Link below:

Remote Potato