Other new ATSC 3.0 STB tuner at upcoming NAB show...

[N5XZS]

Set to be in NAB showroom in April...

Here's the link...

Atlanta DTH Unveils ATSC 3.0 Gateway

Compact plug-in receiver will make its first appearance at the NAB Show in April

www.tvtechnology.com

 

[comfortably_numb]

So... is this supposed to compete with HD Homerun?

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

Looks like a HD Homerun Clone to me.

I have been happy with my HD HomeRun Flex 4K.

 

[N5XZS]

I guess so, but not as many features compared to Homerun STB.

 

[comfortably_numb]

I have been happy with my HD HomeRun Flex 4K

Same here. Solid device and good price.

 

[primestar31]

I LOVE my new HDHomerun 4k Flex even more, now that I set up the Channels DVR server. I discovered last night, it can read .m3u files, AND .xml EPG files! I now have 463 live streaming channels from Pluto, Stirr, Canada, Samsung Tv Plus & more. All of them are integrated in the same guide. Not only THAT, but the streaming channels are also recordable!

 

[FTA4PA]

I'm open to trying it but need more info about capabilities and, of course, price. Time will tell I guess.

 

[primestar31]

I'm open to trying it but need more info about capabilities and, of course, price. Time will tell I guess.

Getchannels.com

 

[primestar31]

Set to be in NAB showroom in April...

Here's the link...

Atlanta DTH Unveils ATSC 3.0 Gateway

Compact plug-in receiver will make its first appearance at the NAB Show in April

www.tvtechnology.com

You know they kept using the term "Gateway" in that article. But now that I'm home with real internet and checked it out, it's simply a 3.0 tuner, and has a usb port on the back that's likely for a harddrive, NOT "tv connection" as he said. It only mentions 1.0 & 3.0 capabilities, and does NOT mention multiple tuners. That's NOT a gateway.

These manufacturers better get on the stick, because they are falling WAY behind the curve here. SiliconDust's HDHomerun tuner has been on the market well over a year. Tablo is also about to release at any minute what looks like a GREAT 4-tuner DVR option.

They'll get the market all locked up between them, and we might never get anything better (by "better" I mean with other capabilities).

 

[navychop]

Gimme a DTVPal DVR with ATSC 3 capability!

 

[LEEHRAT]

just a free tuner like we got when things went digital would be great for me

 

[primestar31]

just a free tuner like we got when things went digital would be great for me

That's not happening this time.

 

[Trip]

You know they kept using the term "Gateway" in that article. But now that I'm home with real internet and checked it out, it's simply a 3.0 tuner, and has a usb port on the back that's likely for a harddrive, NOT "tv connection" as he said. It only mentions 1.0 & 3.0 capabilities, and does NOT mention multiple tuners. That's NOT a gateway.

That's exactly what a gateway is. The HDHR (and other HDHR-like devices) are exactly how the term "gateway" has been described to me by lots of different people in the industry. A gateway has one or more tuners and then passes the signal over the network to a TV set or streaming device.

If it has a video output, then it's a converter box (or set-top box, or dongle, or whatever the name is this week).

But I agree that the USB port is probably for a hard drive or something, not for outputting to TV. That's not what USB is used for.

- Trip

 

[Foxbat]

They say dual tuner, but does that mean one tuner is ATSC v1 and the second is ATSC v3, or does it mean two ATSC tuners that can decode V1 and v3 channels? If each is limited to its respective protocol, you might be able to watch two separate channels at once as long as they didn’t use the same encoding.

It depends on the price. Anything over 1/4 the price of the Silicon Dust unit isn’t going to cut it.

 

[ancient]

My first question about any devices such as this one is, does it have the capability built into it to convert the AC4 audio used by many ATSC3 channels down to the much more compatible AC3? Can it do this WITHOUT needing to have an active Internet connection (in other words without having the ability to spy on what you are watching)? The HD HomeRun Flex 4K fails big time on this. Of course if you only have a stereo receiver you probably won't care, but if you add a backend system such as Tvheadend and then use that with Kodi running on your HTPC's and feed the HTPC output though a multichannel receiver that's not a very recent model with Dolby Atmos support, you aren't going to have audio. And no, ffmpeg can't handle it for you because ffmpeg doesn't have ac4 decoding support yet (there is a hacked version floating around that has limited AC4 decoding support but it's never been implemented in the official version).

Silicon Dust really dropped the ball on this. Most of the people who don't have any problem with it aren't running multichannel sound setups. Then their "fix" was to implement a hack which requires the HDHomeRun to be in constant communication with their servers. Not only does that raise all kinds of privacy concerns, but it also means if you are watching TV and your Internet goes out, you lose audio (and maybe video too, I am not sure exactly how that mechanism works).

I don't mean to denigrate those who are happy as a clam with their stereo audio, but for those of us who like surround sound the HDHomeRun Flex is not the product to buy. And maybe I'm not reading correctly but it sounds like this new device can't be used with any kind of PVR software; it sounds more like a glorified converter box than anything, and I have no idea what it does with AC4 audio.

 

[Trip]

Silicon Dust really dropped the ball on this.

No, they didn't. I'm going to quote myself from another forum.

"Er, it does have upgradable firmware. What it may not have is on-board hardware to do audio decoding, but that's never what the HDHR has been. It's been a tuner attachment to a network, and the display device (or computer, or streaming device) is supposed to handle the video and audio. You're expecting it to be something it's not."

"If you buy a small car and complain you can't move a sofa with it, that implies you're using the wrong tool for the job, not that there's something wrong with the car. In this case, the manufacturer provided you with a free trailer for moving sofas, above and beyond what they likely expected to provide originally.

The fact of the matter is that if the HDHR hadn't ended up as the only available 3.0 tuner at a reasonable price, I suspect a decent number of people wouldn't be using it at all. People want it to be something it's not because the right tool for the job literally hadn't existed until the Tablo announcement. (That's assuming it's not vaporware like the ZapperBox, but given Tablo's history of actually delivering product, I suspect it's real.)

The HDHR is not a set-top box. It does not convert audio and video to baseband and feed it over HDMI. It's a tuner, and outsources all of that other stuff to elsewhere in the chain. Which is probably why the Tablo is 50% more expensive, because it does do all of that.

I, for one, am exceptionally happy that SiliconDust went above and beyond not only in producing a cheap 3.0 receiver more than a year ahead of literally everyone else, but has now provided a work-around for the widespread audio issues which are not their own fault. I'm sure that providing this service is not free, but they're doing it anyway."

- Trip