I went with the HD Homerun over any of the other tuner options because it doesn’t lock me into a tuner that works only on the Mac platform. Like a wireless network, neither actually hit those rates often so the HD Homerun is quite capable of streaming two channels at the same time. Based on some entirely unscientific google searching, I found that the highest bitrate available using ATSC is about 19Mb/s while QAM is around 56Mb/s.
The HD Homerun’s ethernet port runs at 100Mbit and easily supports watching a pair of channels. The HD Homerun will also allow you to use one of the ports for ATSC and the other for QAM if you so choose.
The HD Homerun has two hook ups meaning I can record two shows at once or watch and record a show or even watch two shows at the same time.
Chances are the cable TV provider in your area provides at least some QAM channels. ATSC is the new digital broadcast standard and QAM is the how many channels are distributed on the cable system. The HD Homerun is a network based dual ATSC/QAM tuner. If you didn’t visit any of the links I provided before then here is a quick over view of what I ordered. I promised a post once it all arrived and here it is. Hope that everyone is having a good experience too.A while back I posted about having ordered EyeTV and the HD Homerun.
I have stress tested this setup having all the TV/AppleTV’s with the Channels app tuned to the same channel and the EyeTV software recording this same channel at the same time. HomeRun A has the two antenna feeds into it. TV/AppleTV’s #1 and #2 are used the most and so each of these has a different primary tuner. The EyeTV software is pointed at HDHomeRun C I have unchecked the third HDHomeRun C in the Channels app on all TV’s TV/AppleTV #3 wired - HDHomeRun A is first, with HDHomeRun B second TV/AppleTV #2 wifi - HDHomeRun B is first, with HDHomeRun A second TV/AppleTV #1 wired - HDHomeRun A is first, with HDHomeRun B second So for example, let’s assign letters to the HDHomeRuns and numbers to the Apple TV’s With the new feature in Channels to prioritize the tuners, I setup each AppleTV with a different HDHomeRun as the primary. The need to record two different shows at the same time is not needed at the moment, but it’s good to have a little extra capability. Currently I can only record one show at a time, but if I am successful in amplifying the signal and splitting it, I’ll be able to record two shows at the same time. In the EyeTV software I have disabled the tuner ports for the HDHomeRuns I don’t want the EyeTV software to try and use. Three Apple TV’s (4th gen) - two are on a wired ethernet connection and the third is on WiFi 802.11AC.Īn iMac loaded with the EyeTV software is for DVR functions. Although I may look at amplifying the signal from the antennas, split the signal, use only one antenna for each HDHomeRun and fill in the unused tuner ports. So, yes I have a couple of unused tuner ports, but I would have to split the feed from the antenna to use them, and in my area I would weaken the signal strength too much. I don’t think this is exactly standard procedure, but it seems to work.
The HDHomeRun with the two antenna feeds is using two antennas that are pointing in the same direction and pick up the same channels. Two of the HDHomeRun’s only have one antenna feed into them, the third HD HomeRun has two antenna feeds into it. Three HDHomeRun’s (each has two tuners) the old white ones. I have grown the number of tuners and Apple TV’s I have over the last few months since I cut the cord. The added feature set of version 2.1 has made this app really really good. I’ve been using Channels for a few months now.