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HDHomeRun Windows Client

The HDHomeRun Windows Client is a simple tool to tune a channel on the HDHomeRun, then launch VLC to view the MPEG2 stream.  It does it's job, but don't expect any frills.  There is a very simple tuning interface, signal strength indicator, and a button to launch VLC.  There's also a section to update the HDHomeRun Firmware.

I knew to have low expectations, but was still surprised by how unpolished it was.  Is it functional?  Yes.  Is it optimal?  Certainly not.

Because I was hooked up to my local Time Warner Cable feed, rather than a over the air signal, most of the digital channels were encrypted.  The encrypted channels, as well as the analog channels, are not able to be watched through the HDHomeRun. 

The largest issue I had with the windows client was actually figuring out which channels were available for me to watch.  It's not possible to filter out the unwatchable channels.  So channel scanning mixes all the unwatchable ones in with the watchable ones. 

Especially with a cable signal where the digital channel numbering don't match up with the local broadcast channels numbers, it's difficult to "channel surf" the watchable channels.  The scanning will stop on each digital signal, and you have to click on the "Program" drop-down to see if there are any unencrypted streams on the channel.  It's a labor intensive process unless you've memorized the channel mappings.

It would be a much more watchable interface if the tool could scan all the channels, then offer a list of the watchable streams.  It would be better still if it could save the channel scanning information between application launches.  As a programmer myself, I would not expect functionality like this would take much effort to implement.

If I were using an over the air signal, rather than the cable company feed, this problem probably would not have been such an issue.  Still, it's an issue that indicates the overall functionality level of the application.

It's quite clear to me that this tool has not received very much attention.  However, I would expect that most HDHomeRun owners would be using the device with media center software such as MythTV, which would mean they would not be using this client on a regular basis anyway.

Learn more about the HDHomeRun