[mythtvnz] Part 1 of a HDHomeRun Review

[Andrew Gordon]

Steven Ellis wrote:
> I've been send a review unit of the DVB-T compatible HDHomeRun and the 
> first part of my review is now online.
> 
> http://www.mythtv.co.nz/mythtv/2009/03/18/hdhomerun-review-part-1/

Mine (my own purchased one) arrived nearly a couple of weeks ago now.

I tried it with Windows first, which worked fine.  The basic PVR 
software it downloaded/installed worked as well as it could with my old 
hardware.  Including sound, video and EPG (more than just now/next, it 
included past and future programs as well).

My Mac experience went I bit better than yours.  GTK downloaded and 
installed without a hitch.  I also downloaded the latest VLC replacing 
an older one in the Applications folder so I didn't have the same path 
issue you did.  No where near as featured as the provided windows 
software, but I I was somewhat pleasantly surprised to find all channels 
working fine with VLC.  Although the HD channels where a little bit too 
much for my little Mac laptop to keep up with quite a bit of the time. 
Yes, passing more stuff through to VLC would be good.  When you access a 
DVB-T tuner directly with VLC it can display channel names and the name 
of the current program so having that working with the HDHomeRun 
shouldn't be totally out of the question.  HDHomeRun support built 
straight into VLC would be even better.

Getting it going with MythTV hasn't been so good.  The version of MythTV 
I had installed (what ever version it is you get with Ubuntu 8.10) 
doesn't support the DVB-T version of the HDHomeRun at all (more or 
less).  I've spent hours trying different versions and stuff.  Not that 
long in I managed to get it to do a scan and find all the channels (by 
picking the UK as the country), but I haven't got it actually tuning in 
and recording anything.  The error I get is "Error: dtv_multiplex data 
is required for tuning".  For my reading on the Silicon Dust forums it 
looks like this should be fixed with MythTV SVN/trunk/whatever version 
20221.  I don't know how that relates to the version "20227" that I 
"svn"ed, but I still get the error.  Might have to try a brand new from 
scratch database.  "Multirec" support is also still in development by 
the looks of it.

All in all a promising little device.  Will be quite good when it is all 
working fully, including multirec.  Versions that support DVB-S(2) and 
the encrypted streams on TelstraClear cable would make a perfect set 
:-).  Currently (when I'm not trying to get it going with Myth) I'm 
mostly just using mine with VLC on my laptop to watch Futurama :-).