SiliconDust HDHomeRun Connect 2 Tuner HDHR5 2US Review

Hurricane Zeta just passed and we wanted to catch the news. We had electricity and my home network was working, but we didn't have internet to stream. Sounds like an ideal situation for terrestrial television. Turn on the TV and open the HDHomeRun app. Grilling! Finally, this thing displayed the broadcast channels, so I chose our ABC channel. Dead! Waited 15 minutes but got NOTHING. Why would anyone be so stupid as to create an over-the-air TV product that wouldn't work without the internet? I…

Didn't work with the new QNAP NAS (kept error message and even QNAP staff couldn't figure it out) and there was no information on the Internet for people who didn't know technical terms and there was no search box in their forum, so you should read everything. Their support team didn't call me back until 30 hours after I left a message. It's not worth the effort or time, and you pay for the DVR annually. I returned it and will never buy this product again. This is 2018. We should never go back…

I'm still not sure where the video is buffering but this device lets you pause live streaming instantly, no subscription or DVR setup required. Works on FireTV Gen2 and Android, not sure about other devices. On-air reception is a little worse than my TV receiver, but I assume that's because it's a dual tuner, meaning there must be a 50/50 splitter inside. This device requires an Ethernet connection to your router, but then you can stream to your devices via Wi-Fi routers. A paid DVR service…

I use this one with a roof antenna and a Plex media server. Talk about plug-in play! I connected antenna, power and CAT5 to the router - Plex found it quickly. A few clicks and BOOM, we have OTA TV streaming to all my Smart TVs, Fire devices and mobile devices with a free DVR and guide. I should have done that many years ago. For the cost of the Plex pass, antenna, and HDHomeRun, we get a positive result by suspending HULU live streams in less than 2 months. Using it through Plex is great. I…

May work on PC but setup instructions are incomplete. I thought I could use this with ROKU via Emby, Plex etc. BUT, in addition to the $35 per year HDhomerun charges for DVR service, every app required to connect to ROKU requires an annual subscription, and some of those apps actually require a second subscription to a TV listings site a third party. That means at least 2-3 separate annual subscriptions for 2-3 different companies for one product. When you are done, it will be cheaper and…

Everything perfect so far. I use Plex because I have a lifetime pass and it's better than the Home app which isn't even available on Apple TV. Much smaller than I expected. I replaced my Tablo which cost me $5 a month.

I love this prefix. I got the 4 tuner version even though I only needed 2 tuners but I think it would be nice to have 2 extra tuners in case I want to watch TV on my phone or add another TV in the house. I strongly recommend installing an external antenna for this box. First I used one of the flat (unpowered) Revain antennas placed on the window. The tuner on this set top box is good but suffers from a weak signal. With a cheap antenna you get friezes and pixelation. After installing the Yagi…

Android app (Samsung S10) = 5 stars Roku app (TCL Smart TV) = 1 star Firestick app (connected to another TV) = 2 stars Overall a positive result. Combined with a conventional 150 mile rotary antenna, I received channels that had not previously passed through a TV tuner. So the actual tuner part is great. However, apps and just general usage were a headache. Worked almost flawlessly on my Android phone, clear signal, no dropouts, program guide worked as expected. That doesn't sound like typical…

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…