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 set this up with an outdoor antenna, and its working great. It has a USB port to install a hard drive for storage to use its DVR features. I'm using it with third-party DVR software that stores recordings on my network, so I didn't connect a USB drive. Its compatible with Plex, and other third-party streaming programs. Installation is simple, plug it into the home network, plug in the antenna, and plug in the power... done! I purchased the Flex 4k that includes 4 tuners, so up to 4 different channels can stream simultaneously for viewing or recording at any time. Local broadcast channels stream with built-in DVR features for free with the simplicity of a streaming service.

I love the idea of using a single OTA antenna to serve multiple TVs and other devices in my home. I selected this device over other similar products based on the 4 tuners, two of which support ATSC3.0, and availability of a useable app for my current devices. Please research app availability for your platform before considering purchasing anything. A lesson that I have recently learned. The tuners seem to be quite good as I have a temporary antenna placed in front of a basement window and some channels are coming in at 90% signal quality or better. This is just for proof of concept and have an outdoor antenna coming soon which should improve signal quality across the board. The app works well on a new Google TV device but not so much on an existing Roku device. On Roku, if the signal quality is not about 75% or higher consistently, the picture will intermittently freeze, audio will stop and "malformed data" will show on the display. To recover, one must select the desired channel again from the channel list or guide and start the stream again. With strong signal quality, this is not a problem on Roku. From what I read online, this is not specifically a HDHR app or product issue, it's the way that the video must play on this platform. On the Google TV device, it simply works, even with the same channels that froze on Roku. As you might expect, there is some pixilation and audio loss with lower signal quality but it's not necessary to start the stream again. For both platforms, the full guide could use some fine tuning. When selected on a currently playing program and press the OK button to select, it provides options to record rather than tuning to that program as one would expect. There is also a smaller quick guide of sorts on the right side of the screen that does work well and as you'd expect. There is a Windows application available called HDHomerun Config GUI which is very helpful for antenna aiming and general troubleshooting. It is free to download from their web site. Overall, I'm very excited with this new-to-me product and look forward to dumping my cable subscription.