This article includes a list of general references, but it lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations .(May 2014) |
HDHomeRun is a network-attached digital television tuner box, produced by the company SiliconDust USA, Inc.
Unlike standard set-top box (or set-top unit) appliances, HDHomeRun does not have a video output that connects directly to the user's television. It instead receives a live TV signal and then streams the decoded video over a local area network to an existing smart phone, tablet computer, smart tv, set top streaming device, computer, or game console. This allows it to stream content to multiple viewing locations. [1]
The HDHomeRun can be controlled and viewed from a wide variety of DVR/PVR software. Microsoft provides Windows Media Center for Windows XP through 8, but discontinued the product in Windows 10. [2] Apple macOS 10 runs EyeTV 3. [3] Linux runs Myth TV. [4] [5]
Consumer Tuners
Line | Model | Part Number | Number of Tuners | Tuners | Coax Ports | CableCARD Slots | USB | Hard Drive | DLNA/UPnP | Hardware Transcoder | Notes | |||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
ATSC 1.0 | QAM 64/256 | ATSC 3.0 | CableCard | DVB-T | DVB-T2 | DVB-C | ISDB-T | |||||||||||
Flex | Flex 4K | HDFX-4K | 4 | Yes | Yes | Yes (2 of 4 tuners) | No | No | No | No | No | 1 | 0 | Yes | No | Yes | No | |
Flex 4K Development Edition | HDFX-4K-DEV | 4 | Yes | Yes | Yes (2 of 4 tuners) | No | No | No | No | No | 1 | 0 | Yes | No | Yes | No | Comes with developer firmware for deep signal inspection/tinkering | |
Flex Duo | HDFX-2US | 2 | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | 1 | 0 | Yes | No | Yes | No | ||
Flex Quatro | HDFX-4US | 4 | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | 1 | 0 | Yes | No | Yes | No | ||
Connect | Connect 4K | HDHR5-4K | 4 | Yes | Yes | Yes (2 of 4 tuners) | No | No | No | No | No | 1 | 0 | No | No | Yes | No | |
Connect Duo | HDHR5-2US | 2 | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | 1 | 0 | No | No | Yes | No | ||
HDHR5-2DT | 2 | No | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | 1 | 0 | No | No | Yes | No | |||
Connect Quatro | HDHR5-4US | 4 | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | 1 | 0 | No | No | Yes | No | ||
HDHR5-4DT | 4 | No | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | 1 | 0 | No | No | Yes | No | |||
Connect | HDHR4-2US | 2 | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | 1 | 0 | No | No | Yes | No | ||
HDHR4-2DT | 2 | No | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | 1 | 0 | No | No | Yes | No | |||
HDHR4-2IS | 2 | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | 1 | 0 | No | No | Yes | No | |||
Scribe | Scribe 4K | HDVR-4K-1TB | 4 | Yes | Yes | Yes (2 of 4 tuners) | No | No | No | No | No | 1 | 0 | No | 1TB | Yes | No | |
Scribe Duo | HDVR-2US-1TB | 2 | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | 1 | 0 | No | 1TB | Yes | No | ||
Scribe Quatro | HDVR-4US-1TB | 4 | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | 1 | 0 | No | 1TB | Yes | No | ||
Dual | HDHR3-US | 2 | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | 1 | 0 | No | No | No | No | ||
HDHR3-DT | 2 | No | No | No | No | Yes | No | No | No | 1 | 0 | No | No | No | No | |||
HDHR3-EU | 2 | No | No | No | No | Yes | No | Yes | No | 1 | 0 | No | No | No | No | |||
HDHR-US | 2 | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | 2 | 0 | No | No | No | No | |||
HDHR-EU | 2 | No | No | No | No | Yes | No | Yes | No | 2 | 0 | No | No | No | No | |||
Single | HDHR-US-T1 | 1 | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | 1 | 0 | No | No | No | No | ||
Extend | HDTC-2US | 2 | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | 1 | 0 | No | No | Yes | MPEG2 → h.264 | Plastic case and fan | |
HDTC-2US-M | 2 | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | 1 | 0 | No | No | Yes | MPEG2 → h.264 | Metal case, fanless | ||
HDTC-2US-L | 2 | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | 1 | 0 | No | No | Yes | MPEG2 → h.264 | 2US converted to fanless case | ||
Expand | HDHR3-4DC | 4 | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | No | 1 | 0 | No | No | Yes | No | 5V 2A power adapter | |
HDHR5-4DC | 4 | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | No | 1 | 0 | No | No | Yes | No | 5V 1.5A power adapter | ||
Prime | HDHR3-CC | 3 | No | Yes | No | Yes | No | No | No | No | 1 | 1 | Yes | No | Yes | No | USB for Tuning Adapter only [7] | |
HDHR3-6CC-3x2 | 6 | No | Yes | No | Yes | No | No | No | No | 1 | 2 | Yes | No | Yes | No | USB for Tuning Adapter only [7] | ||
HDHR5-6CC | 6 | No | Yes | No | Yes | No | No | No | No | 1 | 1 | Yes | No | Yes | No | Unreleased, canceled [8] |
Commercial Tuners
Line | Part Number | Number of Tuners | Tuners | Coax Ports | CableCARD Slots | USB | Hard Drive | DLNA/UPnP | Hardware Transcoder | Rackmount | Notes | |||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
ATSC 1.0 | QAM 64/256 | ATSC 3.0 | CableCard | DVB-T | DVB-T2 | DVB-C | ISDB-T | |||||||||||
Tech | TECH3-6CC-3X2 | 6 | No | Yes | No | Yes | No | No | No | No | 2 | 2 | Yes | No | No | No | Yes | |
TECH4-8US-2X4 | 8 | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | 4 | 0 | No | No | No | No | Yes | ||
TECH4-8DT2x4 | 8 | No | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | 4 | 0 | No | No | No | No | Yes | ||
TECH4-2US | 2 | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | 1 | 0 | No | No | No | No | No | ||
TECH4-2DT | 2 | No | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | 1 | 0 | No | No | No | No | No | ||
TECH4-2IS | 2 | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | 1 | 0 | No | No | No | No | No | ||
TECH4-8IS | 8 | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | 4 | 0 | No | No | No | No | Yes | ||
TECH5-4K | 4 | Yes | Yes | Yes (2 of 4 tuners) | No | No | No | No | No | 1 | 0 | No | No | No | Yes (ATSC 3.0 → MPEG-TS) | No | ||
TECH5-4K8-2X4 | 8 | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | 4 | 0 | No | No | No | No | Yes | ||
TECH5-16US-4X4 | 16 | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | 4 | 0 | No | No | No | No | Yes | ||
TECH5-16DT-4X4 | 16 | No | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | 4 | 0 | No | No | No | No | Yes | ||
TECH5-16DC-4X4 | 16 | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | No | 4 | 0 | No | No | No | No | Yes | Unreleased, canceled [8] |
Introduced in Fall 2011, the HDHomeRun PRIME provided the ability to view and record all the digital cable channels the user subscribed to without using a cable-supplied set-top-box. The device employed a CableCARD to replace the set-top box. The HDHomeRun PRIME could be integrated with Windows Media Center (WMC). With 3 tuners, the PRIME let you record two programs and watch another live simultaneously. Due to a change in FCC regulation (cable service providers no longer have to make CableCARDs available to their customers), they are no longer in production. [8]
Launched in 2018, HDHomeRun Premium TV was a virtual MVPD service that worked with the HDHomeRun Prime and HDHomeRun DVR service. A notable feature of this service was the ability to record the channel streams to a local hard drive for time-shifted viewing. In March 2019, HDHomeRun announced that it would shut down its Premium service. [11]
A set-top box (STB), also known as a cable box, receiver, or simply box, and historically television decoder or a converter, is an information appliance device that generally contains a TV tuner input and displays output to a television set, turning the source signal into content in a form that can then be displayed on the television screen or other display device. It is designed to be placed alongside or "on top" of a television set.
TiVo is a digital video recorder (DVR) developed and marketed by Xperi and introduced in 1999. TiVo provides an on-screen guide of scheduled broadcast programming television programs, whose features include "OnePass" schedules which record every new episode of a series, and "WishList" searches which allow the user to find and record shows that match their interests by title, actor, director, category, or keyword. TiVo also provides a range of features when the TiVo DVR is connected to a home network, including film and TV show downloads, advanced search, online scheduling, and at one time, personal photo viewing and local music playback.
A digital video recorder (DVR), also referred to as a personal video recorder (PVR) particularly in Canada and British English, is an electronic device that records video in a digital format to a disk drive, USB flash drive, SD memory card, SSD or other local or networked mass storage device. The term includes set-top boxes (STB) with direct to disk recording, portable media players and TV gateways with recording capability, and digital camcorders. Personal computers are often connected to video capture devices and used as DVRs; in such cases the application software used to record video is an integral part of the DVR. Many DVRs are classified as consumer electronic devices. Similar small devices with built-in displays and SSD support may be used for professional film or video production, as these recorders often do not have the limitations that built-in recorders in cameras have, offering wider codec support, the removal of recording time limitations and higher bitrates.
A broadcast flag is a bit field sent in the data stream of a digital television program that indicates whether or not the data stream can be recorded, or if there are any restrictions on recorded content. Possible restrictions include the inability to save an unencrypted digital program to a hard disk or other non-volatile storage, inability to make secondary copies of recorded content, forceful reduction of quality when recording, and inability to skip over commercials.
Kodi is a free and open-source media player and technology convergence software application developed by the Kodi Foundation, a non-profit technology consortium. Kodi is available for multiple operating systems and hardware platforms, with a software 10-foot user interface for use with televisions and remote controls. It allows users to play and view most streaming media, such as videos, music, podcasts, and videos from the Internet, as well as all common digital media files from local and network storage media, or TV gateway viewer.
MythTV is a free and open-source home entertainment application with a simplified "10-foot user interface" design for the living room TV. It turns a computer with the necessary hardware into a network streaming digital video recorder, a digital multimedia home entertainment system, or home theater personal computer. It can be considered a free and open-source alternative to TiVo or Windows Media Center. It runs on various operating systems, primarily Linux, macOS, and FreeBSD.
A home theater PC (HTPC) or media center computer is a convergent device that combines some or all the capabilities of a personal computer with a software application that focuses on video, photo, audio playback, and sometimes video recording functionality. Since the mid-2000s, other types of consumer electronics, including game consoles and dedicated media devices, have crossed over to manage video and music content. The term "media center" also refers to specialized application software designed to run on standard personal computers.
Hauppauge Computer Works is a US manufacturer and marketer of electronic video hardware for personal computers. Although it is most widely known for its WinTV line of TV tuner cards for PCs, Hauppauge also produces personal video recorders, digital video editors, digital media players, hybrid video recorders and digital television products for both Windows and Mac. The company is named after the hamlet of Hauppauge, New York, in which it is based.
CableCARD is a special-use PC Card device that allows consumers in the United States to view and record digital cable television channels on digital video recorders, personal computers and television sets on equipment such as a set-top box not provided by a cable television company. The card is usually provided by the local cable operator, typically for a nominal monthly fee.
Moxi was a line of high-definition digital video recorders produced by Moxi Digital Digeo and Arris International. Moxi was originally released only to cable operators, but in December 2008 it was released as a retail product. Moxi was removed from the market in November 2011. The former retail product, the Moxi HD DVR, provided a high-definition user interface with support for either two or three CableCARD TV tuners. Arris also offered a companion appliance, the Moxi Mate, which could stream live or recorded TV from a Moxi HD DVR.
Windows Media Center (WMC) is a digital video recorder and media player created by Microsoft. Media Center was first introduced to Windows in 2002 on Windows XP Media Center Edition (MCE). It was included in Home Premium and Ultimate editions of Windows Vista, as well as all editions of Windows 7 except Starter and Home Basic. It was also available on Windows 8 Pro and Windows 8.1 Pro as a paid add-on. It was discontinued as of Windows 10 and the operating system also removes all of Windows Media Center during an upgrade from previous versions of Windows, although it can reportedly be unofficially reinstalled using a series of Command Prompt commands.
SageTV Media Center, now open source, was a proprietary, commercial DVR and HTPC software for Mac OS X, Windows and Linux. It requires that the host computer have a hardware-based TV tuner card. The SageTV software has an integrated Electronic Programming Guide (EPG) that is updated via the Internet. The program provides a television interface for DVR, music, and photos on Windows and Linux. SageTV Media Center typically records in standard MPEG2, making it possible to transfer recordings to laptops or other devices. It also has a built-in conversion feature to transcode files into other formats compatible with iPod, PSP, cell phones and other portable devices.
TiVo digital video recorders encompass a number of digital video recorder (DVR) models that TiVo Corporation designed. Features may vary, but a common feature is that all of the units listed here require TiVo service and use its operating system.
Windows Media Center Extenders are devices that are configured to connect over a computer network to a computer running Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition, Windows Vista Home Premium/Ultimate, Windows 7 Home Premium, or Windows 8 with a Pro pack to stream the computer's media center functions to the Extender device. This allows use of the Media Center and its features on a television receiver or other electronic visual display.
Virgin TV is a digital pay cable television service in the United Kingdom, owned by Liberty Global (50%) and Telefónica (50%) after the merger its UK businesses to form Virgin Media O2. Its origins date from NTL and Telewest, formerly two of the UK's largest cable operators, which merged on 6 March 2006. All NTL:Telewest services were rebranded as Virgin Media in February 2007. Since the acquisition of Smallworld Cable in 2014, Virgin is the sole national cable TV provider in Great Britain. Currently about 51% of UK households have access to Virgin's network, which is independent from BT's Openreach network.
Sling Media Inc. is an American technology company that develops placeshifting and Smart TV solutions for consumers, multiple-system operators and set top box manufacturers. The company is based in Foster City, California, and was a subsidiary of Echostar. Their initial product, the Slingbox, debuted on the US market on July 1, 2005. The EchoStar business unit was part of a corporate assets exchange with Dish Network at the beginning of 2017 and now operates as Dish Technologies Corporation under Dish Network.
This is a comparison of digital video recorder (DVR), also known as personal video recorder (PVR), software packages. Note: this is may be considered a comparison of DVB software, not all listed packages have recording capabilities.
Monsoon Multimedia was a company that manufactured, developed and sold video streaming and place-shifting devices that allowed consumers to view and control live television on PCs connected to a local (home) network or remotely from a broadband-connected PC or mobile phone. It was one of 5 major transformations initiated by Prabhat Jain, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur with 5 undergraduate and post graduate engineering degrees from Cal Berkeley and Univ of Vienna, Austria. On the even of Cisco acquiring Monsoon in 2017, EchoStar, the new parent of Sling sued Monsoon for patent infringement, having obtained confidential information about the date of the acquisition by Cisco from a Monsoon employee under murky circumstances. Monsoon settled the lawsuit by agreeing not to sell its products in the USA simply because it did not have the legal funds to fight mighty Echostar's legal maneuvers. EchoStar thus successfully removed its only competitor from the market place. This meant Monsoon's death knell.
Xfinity Streampix is an online on demand media streaming service offered by Comcast that launched on February 23, 2012, with shows from ABC, NBC, Scripps, Cookie Jar and Lionsgate as well as movies from Sony Pictures, Universal, Snag, Disney and Warner Bros. The service is designed to compete with other online streaming services such as Netflix, Amazon Video, and Hulu. The service costs $5 per month, while Comcast customers who subscribe to Internet Plus, Internet Pro Plus, HD Preferred Plus XF Triple Play, HD Premier XF Triple Play or HD Complete XF Triple Play packages receive access to the service at no additional charge.
A TV gateway is a television headend to a network UPnP router that receives live digital video broadcast (DVB) MPEG transport streams (channels) from terrestrial aerials, satellite dishes, or cable feeds and converts them into IP streams for distribution over an IP network.