I originally bought a Tablo DVR but became frustrated with its lag and annoying quirks. I got this HDhomerun box today and I am so much happier with it. It’s a much better device, and only slightly more in price. Well worth the money in my opinion.

The **HD Homerun** stands out as the premier over-the-air (OTA) tuner I’ve had the pleasure of testing, surpassing competitors in both performance and user experience. Its effortless plug-and-play setup eliminates the headaches often associated with home entertainment systems, making it accessible even for those less tech-savvy. The companion app is a standout—intuitive, responsive, and refreshingly stable, especially compared to the Tablo app, which I found prone to frustrating crashes and lag during my testing. Channel changes are lightning-fast, mirroring the seamless experience of traditional cable, minus the exorbitant costs.When it comes to DVR functionality, the HD Homerun offers flexibility: Opt for the straightforward yearly subscription or integrate it with a **Plex Server** (requiring a Plex Pass) for a richer, more customizable recording experience. The latter option transforms your setup into a media powerhouse, complete with advanced features like skip-the-ads and multi-device streaming.On the topic of broadcast standards, **ATSC 1.0** remains a reliable workhorse, and this device ensures you’ll enjoy crisp, stable signals for years to come. In contrast, **ATSC 3.0 (NextGen TV)**, despite its 4K potential, is hamstrung by restrictive DRM (Digital Rights Management) policies and fragmented adoption, rendering it impractical for most users. The HD Homerun wisely sidesteps this gimmick, focusing instead on delivering what truly matters: consistent, high-quality TV without the hassle.At **$50 off** its usual price, this version of the HD Homerun is an absolute steal. Whether you’re cutting the cord or enhancing your existing setup, it’s a future-proof investment that excels where others falter. After weeks of use, I’m thoroughly impressed—this little box has redefined my expectations for OTA viewing. **Highly recommended!**

I get more clear, stable channels with this thing than I did with my TV's tuner, and I have a very good Sony tv that I love. That made me VERY happy, and even made me feel like my hard work setting up an antenna was actually worth it... I'm running it through my Firestick on the Sony, and also straight into an iMac, and even works on my iPhone. Have not tried it on my little Samsung TV that I have in the bedroom..... It's not really very hard to set up, but a complete lack of instructions caused it to be difficult and aggravating, when just a little bit of detail would have gone a long way. I spent time trying to figure out how to do a channel scan, when apparently the thing had already done it in a matter of seconds... All in all, I'm happy, and I would recommend this product. Bear in mind that you will have to hardwire it with the included ethernet cable, but it's really the best way to go anyway. I also found that the user interface had a bit of learning curve, and I don't find it to be as intuitive as my "You Tube Live" app, or "Peacock" app, for instance. I did not need human tech support, but again, I could have used better instruction on the website.

I research these thoroughly before purchasing this one. In fact I purchased the name brand first and was extremely disappointed; returning it not long after purchase. But at least that one came with instructions. This one did not; which made it very difficult even for someone who's been using computers over 45 yrs and OTA DVRs for 10 yrs. Now it may be that experience that had me thinking differently than most, but I have never run into anything remotely as difficult as this was. Written instructions would have been preferred, but even the online instructions were lacking. Since the manufacturers phone number is answered by a computer generated voice asking me to leave a message, I chose to email instead. While the emails were answered promptly, it took several emails back and forth, and a lot of sifting thru menus to eventually stumble upon success. That being said, once it was up and running, it worked great! Much better than the one we returned. So, here's what I learned in setup:1) The $35 annual subscription fee was the fastest way to get this up and running. Some features aren't available without it. So I wasted a lot of time trying to configure it ahead of time, and getting more frustrated by the moment. Fortunately that fee is refundable within 30 days, so it's not a big risk.2) Set up is easier thru the HD phone app. When formatting the external USB drive, use must your smart phone or tablet. You cannot do it from a Fire TV's internet app. I'm not sure about other smart TVs.3) Since you can watch TV from the app, I was nervous about pressing the format button in the HD app from my cell phone. So I got clarification that it will only format the external USB drive connect to HD Flex not, my phone's hard drive.4) From there, it's a matter of going into the app's set up feature and doing a channel scan. Then go to the Discover tab, type what you're looking for in the search bar and click Next. When doing it from the TV app pressing Next doesn't always make the keyboard dissappear. I've been able to hit the back button, then click on the show I want to record. I didn't have that difficulty setting things up from the phone app.Like I said, it may be my technical background that had me over thinking things a bit. But I'm sure I'm not the only one who would have these questions. So I figured I'd share the answers.

From fall to spring, 90% of the TV I watch is OTA TV on the primary networks that I record and watch later so I need a tuner that can pull in stations and works with Plex which is what I use to record them and play them back later when I have time to watch. Plex requires a tuner that it is compatible with and I initially went with a Happauge 4 tuner card that I installed in the Plex server. Where I had a problem is that there are some shows that the wife and I like to watch that are on PBS and that station is in a different direction than the rest of the stations we watch. The PBS station is west of us and the rest of them are south. If I set the antenna pointing directly south, all the stations but PBS would come in fine but if I set the antenna west, PBS and some of the other stations would come in but not all and even then, only under ideal weather conditions. Pointing the antenna somewhere between the two directions would sorta work but was not consistent or reliable. I finally came up with a dual antenna solution with one antenna pointing south and the other pointing west and while that worked well for the TV's tuner, Plex was still having an issue recording anything on PBS. It was obvious that the issue with the Plex server was the tuner it was using since the TV worked fine on the same cable.Doing some research on tuners compatible with Plex, it was clear that the HomeRun tuner was preferred and worked well so I figured I would give it a shot and ordered this one since I need 4 tuners at times. I was surprised on just how small this unit is when I got it. Hookup couldn't be any easier. Connect the antenna coax to it, plug it into your network switch, and plug in its power adapter and you are done. It does not have WIFI so it does need an Ethernet cable connection and need to be placed where it has access to your router or switch connected to your network.Since I am using this for Plex, I did not download any of its software so I will not be commenting on that but I will talk a little bit about how it works with Plex. One problem with the Happauge card is that even though it is a 4 tuner card, it is actually set up as 2 dual tuner devices so everything you need to do to set it up for the Plex DVR, you have to do twice, once for each tuner device. The HomeRun tuner is recognized as a singe 4 tuner device so you only need to do the setup once for all 4 tuners. The HomeRun tuner will most likely need to have its firmware updated but even then, there is no need to download or install any other software to do that. All you need is the IP address given to the device and enter it into your web browser. In Plex, when it discovers the tuner it will give you the IP address assigned to the the tuner but you can also get that directly from the router if you know how to log into the router and look at its table of connected devices.Once you enter the HomeRun's IP address into your browser, it will log you into the HomeRun tuners home page and if it needs a firmware update, there will be a button on it to perform that function. Just click on that button and confirm that you want to update and you are done. It will download the updated firmware, install it on itself and reboot itself with the new firmware installed and you are ready to go. Testing so far has been great. Plex now easily records every station I want it to including PBS so the tuners are better than the ones on the Happauge card and seem to be a match for the TV's built in tuner so we seem good to go. The final test will be to have Plex record 4 high def shows at the same time while playing back 2 other shows. The Happauge card was an internal card so the servers network interface is only used for output. The HDHomeRun tuner is an external device so the Plex server will use its network interface for both recording and playback and this test will just make sure that there are no issues or bottlenecks during what would be our maximum usage of the server. I don't see it being any real issue as the server has a gigabyte network interface but if there is one, I'll post it for any Plex users to watch out for. Otherwise, I am happy with the tuner and am looking forward to this falls TV season.