Review on SiliconDust HDHomeRun Connect 2 Tuner HDHR5 2US by Virgilio Feliciano

UPDATE: It's been almost a year and we've dropped from 4 stars to 3: WE bought a roof antenna unit. (no cable) Unfortunately, when the signal fluctuates due to trees, planes, weather, clouds, the signal drops and when it does, it is difficult for this device to stabilize the image. Often the picture freezes and freezes. When watching a recorded program, fast-forwarding 30 seconds causes the audio to stutter, and rewinding 10 seconds causes the same thing. We have contacted the company and the customer response is a little disappointing or they may not have enough staff to resolve any issues. When it works (it worked initially but got worse and worse over the months) it's great, but now we have problems too often. Now we are looking for the best mousetrap. Continue original review below: After almost 20 years my TIVO Series 1 and 2 stopped working. It's time for 2018 so I searched the internet and found HDHomeRun. With just a roof antenna (we cut the cable years ago) the Connect DUO 2 tuner was just what we needed to finally start recording shows in HD, and so far the analogue picture is less crisp than crisp. The device arrived quickly and was easy to connect as described. (We use wired ethernet, which is recommended over Wi-Fi.) You'll need an external hard drive to record the show, though. SiliconDust supports WD NAS drives, but you can actually use any external hard drive. The DVR software provided by SiliconDust is, as they say, under development, and yes, it is evolving. Especially APPs. Just keep this in mind: once the device is installed on your computer (PC in our case) and your device is "detected during setup", download the DVR software. The $35/year minimum fee for the DVR e-Programming Guide is well worth it as you get great graphics and info on shows and search capabilities (and an EPG can be used with multiple HDHomeRun units in your house). You can also "open" the show function. (If the show doesn't appear in search or the manual, you can just search to find it.) When you set up the DVR software and follow the steps to set the program location, locate the external hard drive that's already installed and apply The changes . .If you switch to the external hard drive using the NAS setup and are NOT using a NAS drive, just click "Finish". Our department discovered and used an external drive as a recording source. Note: At the time of writing this review, instructions on how to use the DVR's features, including recording and options available, were extremely limited, if any. Online training videos do not answer all potential questions that may arise. BENEFITS: *Easy to install *Over-the-air device, stronger signal than original over-the-air decoder *Watch HD on your TV *NO CABLE BILLS! * Pairs with downloadable HDHomeRun DVR software (under development). * Shows are recorded in .mpeg format, which can be easily loaded into our Sony Movie Studio editor (Microsoft Snipping Tool). CONS: * DVR software instructions are vague * Frequently asked questions or potential issues instructions are vague * DVR setup does NOT require their "sponsored" WD NAS drives as it is heavily pushed (and has 0 online help on Troubleshooting on their website or explains the options fully below at the time of this purchase/review.) *WITHOUT REMOTE CONTROL. While your phone can be used to watch programs remotely, WiFi MUST be on and working. * You cannot manually set the DVR to record a specific time in a show or manually record a channel. (Let's assume if you only want to record the first 15 minutes of a 30-minute show, you can't.) Our Connect Duo 2 tuner recorded two shows simultaneously and, as we've stated, stored them on our external drive ( Seagate 6TB). . To record shows individually instead of a whole 'series', just click on the show you want to watch and the 14-day guide will then fill in all the upcoming shows in that series. Just click on the line of the show you want to record and the red record button will light up to indicate it's scheduled. (You can check "ASSIGNMENTS" to be sure. We purchased our device and everything described and received no compensation for our honest user review.