SiliconDust HDHR3-CC HDHomeRun PRIME 3-Tuner US CableTV with CableCARD Stream Premium Channels and Cut the Cord

Pros: Ditch your overpriced cable box and use a PC in it's place. Your storage for recording is limited only by the size of your hard drive. Integrates well with Windows Media Center which comes with a very nice channel guide.

Cons: I've completely given up on using a wireless connection to watch TV streamed by this device. At this point the only devices that work without glitching out are gigabit wired devices. I have a $300 top of the line AC router and wireless still doesn't work without stutters and the picture breaking up all the time.

Overall Review: If you have a solid wired gigabit network, then this thing is great. Power line adapters work OK, which takes the sting out of not being able to use wireless connections.

Pros: Setup is fairly easy if you follow certain steps. Insert a cable card into the slot on the rear panel of the HD Homerun Prime device. You obtain the cable card from your cable TV provider. Download the latest HD Homerun software from the maker's website. Install the software. Then call your cable TV provider to activate the cable card. Once the cable card is activated or provisioned (whatever your cable TV provider calls it) then you can run the HD Homerun setup program. After completing the HD Homerun setup routine you can run Windows Media Center setup for TV Signal, which hard drive you want to record on, etc. Windows Media Center should "see" 3 digital tuners (the HD Homerun Prime). Windows Media Center then needs to download the TV guide / program listings, about 12 days worth, so it takes a few minutes to complete this.

Cons: If your cable TV reception is temporarily interrupted or lost (are you listening Comcast?) then you may need to unplug the power cord from the HD Homerun Prime box, wait 20 seconds, then plug the power cord back in and wait for the tuner to start up again which usually takes less than a minute. This isn't really a con for the HD Homerun Prime box, but it's worth noting.

Overall Review: We've been using one of these at home for over a year and it works great. The unit itself is very reliable. TV reception, picture and sound quality are as good as our Comcast DVR was so no problem there. *Note: If you use Powerline adapters to send TV reception to a computer in another room for recording TV shows, be sure to unplug any cellphone charger cords or other chargers from the power outlets in the same rooms as the Powerline adapters. We discovered that even when charging cords are not in use they can generate some interference which may reduce the Powerline adapters' throughput.

Pros: This turns any connected device into a TV. I bought this for watching sports around my house. I got tired of having to be stuck in front of a TV. Now I can take a tablet or laptop and watch anything that is on the TV. I use Windows Media Center and can record shows and then watch them later.

Cons: I took some time to get it working properly with WMC but once it does, it is a great DVR.

Pros: Reliable, 3 tuners, wired network very stable and using your HTPC as the DVR is easy.

Cons: None. Instructions do not tell about required WMC needed updates. Perfect when done.

Overall Review: My 2nd review after 8 months. Has been flawless and using WMC is easy. You get all channels, but loose the ability for 'pay per views'. I don't miss it, hardly ever used 'PPV'. Any combo with tuners.. watch 3, record 1 watch 2, record 2 watch one..etc. I find the mouse and keyboard better than a remote. $4 a month for my cable card service. Saving $19 without DVR = $15mo savings for me. It's better to have a seperate dedicated HDD for recorded files. WMC features handle all recording needs. I do recommend this.

Pros: If you have a windows 7 pc attached to your TV, this makes it all worth it.

Cons: Occasionally buggy behavior (weak signal error, tuner in use error, etc), but usually fixed with a quick restart of windows media center via the remote. Took 3 comcast installers before one actually showed up with a cable card, and he was totally baffled when I told him to install the card into this little box in the basement without a TV in sight. Then it took the usually 3 or so calls before I could get someone on the line who knew how to properly activate a cable card. Annoying, but it can be done with persistance.

Overall Review: Disappointed with the available content on netflix, we opted to get regular cable via comcast (which I've never had before), and wow was I amazed at the amount of content. Once a week I go in and find movies and shows and set them to record, and I never run out of content to watch. I'm usually having to delete things from my 500 GB drive before I can watch them because I need to make room for more. Added a PC in the kids' room, and now I wish we had more than 3 tuners!

Pros: Not enough to mention.

Cons: Had issues with my experience, both with the device, getting everything in windows to work with it, and issues with my cable company.

Overall Review: I realize they do not have control over issues with the cable company or their components (the card, and tuner) however I had issues with WMC on every computer with getting content to play for most of my subscribed channels. Also a limitation of having the content on the computer that records it, and not playble to another pc in the house was not what I wanted. So overall my experience was not good, I returned the device. It may have been a defective device, but was not worth the money to me to try another one.

Pros: Once it started to work, it is a great thing to have! I have a home theater setup, and wanted to use Windows Media Center to watch television. I didn't want to have to switch inputs to do it, and I wanted to be able to record however much stuff I wanted to. The three tuners are great. The Manufacture RMA process was very easy.

Cons: Comcast is difficult to work with. The first device that I had was bad, I found out after contacting HDhomerun. The OOB frequency wouldn't lock on. I had a technician out to the house the first day to install it, but with a device that wasn't working properly there wasn't much we could do. You need to make sure that comcast has the Host ID, Device ID, and serial number exactly right in their system otherwise the card will not activate correctly. I found that Tier 2 Support was very helpful from Comcast, that number was 855-479-4541. At first I was only getting local type channels and not any subscription channels. The comcast technician had to remove all of the two way products from the cable card. Pay-per view, Video on Demand, etc. This was key to making the device work. The last thing they did to finish making the device work was sending it a "Grand Slam" which essentially resets the cable card and helps the channels come through correctly.

Overall Review: All in all, I'm glad I purchased the device. Setup isn't for the faint of heart though, expect to spend at least 4-5 hours on the phone with your cable company.

Pros: I was tracking the HDHomeRun Prime for several months before I decided to purchase it, and I’m glad I did. I have owned the device for over a month, and would highly recommend it. The unit works very well with Windows 7 PCs and Xbox 360s (I’ve experienced the lost tuner a couple times, but no major issues). HD content streams at about 13Mbps and standard def at about 5Mbps. I recently got the unit to work with Windows XP, Android tablets, and original XBOXs in my house (details in “Other Thoughts”).

Cons: Setup through Comcast was as other reviewers portrayed – be ready to dedicate a couple hours to spend on the phone. The initial Cablecard-M activation through Comcast was actually very easy, but it will only initially show basic cable (the technical rep I spoke with did not have the permission to get my premium account settings correct). It took me some time before I found someone in billing who knew how to correct the issue, and get all the premium stations (HD content, HBO, etc).

Overall Review: My only initial disappointment was that I could not use this on my android devices or older PCs. I actually just managed to fix this by using XBMC. This is a good option for non-standard devices, although you don’t get copy protected content. The trick is getting the .strm file format correct (which took some time – not a lot of good instructions out there – I’m going to try to post details in the HDHomeRun Forums if I get a chance). I now tune TV through all of our Android tablets using XBMC which was just released for Android (I use an HP Touchpad w/4.0, and a Kindle Fire). I’m actually most excited that I got this working on a couple old modded XBOX’s that I’m running XBMC on (that took some work – I got it working by replacing a bad hdhomerun.dll file in XBMC4XBOXv3.1), but this is a great option to have a couple extra tuners around the house. All in all I’m very happy I turned in one of my cable boxes and replaced it with this unit (it offers SO much more than a dedicated c