Recognize This Tuner?

In browsing HP’s DigitalLife booth (for both work and pleasure), I stumbled upon a familiar site:

Sure looks a lot like the new-yet-still-destined-to-fail ReplayTV PC hardware edition. Which looks a lot like Hauppauge’s pair (PC and Mac) of USB HD tuners. Which looks like a lot like the Eye TV Hybrid.

As an occasional USB HD tuner user (Pinnacle variety), I wonder how much ATSC tuners cost these days? Perhaps it’s time to start building this functionality into most laptops (and integrate antennas into the LCD chassis).

Somewhat related, DVRUpgrade has provided me with a HDHomeRun review unit and it sure seems like the hardware engineers designed the software. Yeesh! Functionality good, interface horrible. Fortunately, it can be used via BeyondTV and SageTV… and one of these days when I find some time, I’ll try it with both. ElGato’s software (Mac) also controls it, but I haven’t secured loaner software.

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Personal Computer – PC Info and Accessories

6 thoughts on “Recognize This Tuner?”

  1. Regarding the HDHomeRun: The software interface for the HDHR might not be the most polished, but it works well and is worth every penny. The HDHR works with BTV & Sage (as you mentioned), but it also works with MCE, VistaMCE, GBPVR and Media Portal also.

    Can you tell I love this device? 2 tuners that can be used for unencrypted qam and/or OTA HD. Plus it doesn’t use up any ports on your computer – just plug it into your lan and you’re set! You’re going to be impressed I think.

    Brent

  2. Yah, I’ve had it a few months and have already played with it on MCE (and the Mac) a bit. If someone’s computer isn’t positioned well for ATSC OTA or near a cable jack (for clear QAM) and wants dual tuning, it’s a good choice. But you have to be geeky and you have to invest some effort in getting it going. Configuring clear QAM has been a pain – though that’s partially Comcast’s fault in how they (don’t) support it. But why am I running command line scripts to scan for channels? Bleh! ;)

  3. Didn’t realize you still had to do command line for channel scans on MCE. With Beyond TV’s latest version its a bit easier and doesn’t require cli at all – huge improvement for me.

    When I first got mine it wasn’t even supported by BTV, MCE or Sage. I got mine working with an user-made add-on for BTV. Talk about work to set up! It was a lot of work and I became a tester (not just a user). Much improved with BTV now though.

  4. I can’t recall which OS I was pulling channels via script, but it’s obviously not for the mainstream. I assume BTV, Sage, EyeTV all facilitate nowadays. PS Credit to Ben D who helped me out when I first got this thing.

  5. The latest MCE version of the software worked great and installed easy. There was no command line work and it didnt take much effort at all to use.

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