I want to cut the cable, I am sick of CC. What is the best tuner to use for OTA recording, easiest to install and get up and running? I have PLEX pass so all I need is a tuner(s) and the space for recordings (have 8TB so I think I am OK), correct? I know there a list of tuners but I want to hear from those that have set this up which is the simplest. Some talk about an NVidia Shield and I don’t want to deal with another device if I can help it.
Really depends on what you are looking for. I have two HDHR Connects, one HDHR Dual, one HDHR Extend, and one HDHR Prime. I do not have any of the USB or PCI tuner cards. Others like the PCI/USB devices because they are typically cheaper than the HDHR devices. I like that the HDHR devices are network devices and not attached to a computer. I have 6 different Plex Servers setup that I could be using. Four that I routinely use when testing Alpha versions before Beta release. It is nice having the tuners all on the network so I do not have to remove a tuner from one computer to add it to one of the other servers for testing. The advantage of the Extend over the other devices is that it can do transcoding on the device from mpeg2 to h264. But it is limited in the transcoding options. If you want the video converted without changing frame rate, resolution, or interlacing there is a setting (Highest Quality) for that, if you need the interlacing converted to progressive there is a setting (High Quality) but the resolution is converted to 720 if the incoming stream is 1080. Was just replying to a thread in the last few days in which the user has Roku devices for the Clients. Apparently the Roku can not handle the Interlacing so for Live TV he is seeing a lot of server transcoding if he leaves the Extend set to Highest Quality. The clients I am using Fire TV, Fire TV Stick, and Shield TV all handle the interlacing fine.
1 Like
if you want “best” I’d pick extend as it can offload transcoding, you can always turn that feature off if you later have some customization or no need for it, but the h264 is smaller and direct plays on most clients. If you want to save money I’d pick a duo, you can also look at the refurb shop on silicondust’s site. I like the network tuners as well. I had some others previously, but any new purchase has been hdhomerun extend =)
Where are you based? I would consider something outside HDHR tuners for someone in a DVB broadcast area.
As you posted in the Community Supported Tuners Subforum, I saw the headline as got curious 
I’ve always been happy with the hauppauge cards (running a quad-hd now) as they just spit video out to your disk and you don’t have to ship it all over your network. I’ve also got the dual-hd usb stick which works well on my shield and is portable. the quad picks up more stations than the usb, or my televisions for what it’s worth. Haven’t tried any of the prebuilt solutions.
Be careful buying an HD homerun any of the versions, if you search the forums here, there are lots of posts with people having the same issues, and plex seems to have no interest in even addressing them. Seems like they work for most people but the rest of us are just SOL.
What kind of issues?
I have found the HDHR to be the most un-problematic of all tuners I have tested.
- No need to hunt for drivers
- doesn’t depend on the OS of the server
- works almost instantly
1 Like
I agree with your three bullet points, however many people run into an issue when you try to watch a channel you get a message “unable to tune channel”. I was hoping it would be the easiest to get working based on your three bullet points, but it has been the most problematic for me. That being said, SA2000 posted a reply in another thread and i am going to send logs so hopefully it gets resolved.
I did switch from a haupauge dual tuner due to the fact both tuners were not supported in the linux kernel. I see changes have been added by Brad Love but it has been taking forever for it to get added into the mainline kernel so i gave up on waiting for that.
1 Like
