HDHomeRun VIEW

Experiences and questions about WMC on your iPhone, Droid, WP7, and more.
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chrisdfw

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HDHomeRun VIEW

#1

Post by chrisdfw » Fri Jan 31, 2014 2:46 am

HDHomeRun VIEW

Cant believe someone has not posted about this.. IT plays DRM content just like the PS3!!!!

https://play.google.com/store/apps/deta ... st.mg.upnp

COMPATIBLE DEVICES:
• Android 4.0+ (Ice cream sandwich or higher)
• A NEON compatible ARM processor

COMPATIBLE HDHomeRun DEVICES:
• HDHomeRun® PRIME (HDHR3-CC)* [US Cable TV]
• HDHomeRun® PLUS (HDTC-2US) [North American ATSC Antenna / US Unencrypted Cable TV]
• HDHomeRun® 4DC (HDHR3-4DC) [Unencrypted DVB-C in supported markets]
• More compatible models and global markets to come…

REQUIREMENTS:
• Reliable Wi-Fi network
• NEON compatible Android device
• Compatible HDHomeRun device. (From List above / legacy devices NOT supported.)
• CableCARD™ Inserted and Activated to allow streaming of protected US Cable TV when using HDHomeRun PRIME**
• Windows PC to run initial or subsequent channel scan
• Note: Viewing Content with Non-Transcode HDHomeRun devices is recommended in Standard Definition for better performance.


SiliconDust is bringing Premium Cable TV and Free to Air TV viewing to your Android devices. Finally, watch all your favorite shows on your Android phone or tablet. Watching Premium and Free to Air TV has never been easier. With the HDHomeRun® VIEW app you can access your Cable TV channels and your free to air HDTV channels on your Android device. The number of TV viewing screens in your home just got larger and more mobile. Watch Food Network in the kitchen, Discovery Channel in the garage, relax on the porch while catching up on MSNBC, and don’t miss a second of the game just take it with you, anywhere around your home network. HDHomeRun VIEW will even access your premium subscribed channels like HBO, Showtime, Starz, and Cinemax.


FEATURES:
• Live Cable TV and Free to Air TV viewing on your phone or tablet
• QAM cable channels, even Premium Content such as HBO, Showtime, & etc. *
• No external player needed to download
• Fast Channel changes
• Pinch / Zoom to adjust channel list
• Volume, Brightness and Zoom controls on screen with a single tap
• Menu access to switch between HDHomeRun servers (for those with both Cable and Free to Air devices on the same home network)
• Does NOT require an always on computer

www.hdhomerun.com
HDHomeRun View forum: www.silicondust.com/forum

* Requires subscription

** Current version supports Standard Definition channels only

richard1980

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#2

Post by richard1980 » Fri Jan 31, 2014 12:47 pm

chrisdfw wrote:IT plays DRM content
To clarify, it can play copy-protected live TV. It does not play the recordings on your PC that are protected by WMDRM.

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Scallica

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#3

Post by Scallica » Fri Jan 31, 2014 1:24 pm

richard1980 wrote:To clarify, it can play copy-protected live TV.
I thought PlayReady was the only technology that can be used with copy-protected recordings. Does this app use PlayReady or is there something else?
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bob_p

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#4

Post by bob_p » Fri Jan 31, 2014 1:46 pm

Note the current restriction is to Standard Definition only.

If they can get the HD copy protected support working (and certified by CableLabs) - could they take the next step and provide DVR support???

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UCBearcat

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#5

Post by UCBearcat » Fri Jan 31, 2014 2:58 pm

@ Scallica - I wonder if they're using DTCP-IP to deliver the stream, which would effectively allow the protected content to be viewed. Similar to how they deliver it to a PS3, SmartTV, or BluRay player. I'm sure others here could expand on this.

@bob_p - I don't think the copy protection is the limitation of the app for HD streaming. I believe it is the ability of the app to handle the stream properly. From what I saw on the silicondust forums, folks can tune an HD channel, but the stream is choppy... which is probably why it is currently unsupported.
Note that the Transcode model supports HD streaming. I would imagine it is due to the way it delivers the video stream compared to how the CC version does.

In any case, I'm pretty stoked to see how this app develops.

richard1980

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#6

Post by richard1980 » Fri Jan 31, 2014 3:57 pm

UCBearcat wrote:@ Scallica - I wonder if they're using DTCP-IP to deliver the stream, which would effectively allow the protected content to be viewed. Similar to how they deliver it to a PS3, SmartTV, or BluRay player. I'm sure others here could expand on this.
That is correct. It's up to the OCUR to use one of the approved DRM schemes, and the HDHRP works with both PlayReady and DTCP-IP.

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UCBearcat

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#7

Post by UCBearcat » Sat Feb 01, 2014 5:43 pm

I wasn't planning on buying ver 1.0 of this app, but for 2 bucks I figured 'why wait?' So far, I've loaded this on my generation 1 Nexus 7, and my LG G2 phone.
I'm still running f/w 20130328, which was the last stable release prior to the one they just released about a week ago. That said, the performance of the app is okay. I would imagine a f/w update on the Prime is in order to get the full benefit of the app. I'm waiting until AFTER SuperBowl Sunday to do the f/w upgrade... just in case something doesn't go well w/ the f/w update. 8-)

Right now, only the copy freely channels are showing up in the apps list of channels. Of these 40-ish channels, a few of them won't come through when tuned. The Prime shows that they're locked by my device, but they never stream. The channels that do come through work pretty well. HD channels are definitely choppy at best, and when you tune an HD channel, the app even tosses up a banner stating HD is not supported with my device.

From what I've seen on the Silicondust forums, the f/w update and a channel scan will probably fix most of my issues.... I'll report back when I've had a chance to play around w/ it a bit more.
I'm interested to hear if anyone else on TGB has tried this app.

jjwatmyself

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#8

Post by jjwatmyself » Mon Feb 03, 2014 12:24 am

It's the first Android app released by Silicondust ever. This is a huge deal IMO.

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UCBearcat

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#9

Post by UCBearcat » Mon Feb 03, 2014 11:29 pm

F/W updated with a fresh channel scan.
My thoughts on the app are mixed. The channels that it will tune work pretty well. A couple of the channels seem to have a bit of a audio/video sync issue, but not so much that it drives me nuts. HD channels are choppy at best, but this was to be expected.

My disappointment - Several of my local channels will not tune at all. Go figure - the non-DRM channels don't work, but all the rest of the DRM'd channels do.

All in all - for 2 bucks and a f/w update, I'm pretty pleased with the app as it stands now. I look forward to future updates and improvements.

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#10

Post by IownFIVEechos » Thu Feb 06, 2014 5:05 pm

Weird that they are charging 2 bucks for this. How many people can actually be out there trying it out? Meaning how much revenue are they really going to make off this. Even if 50k people bought it (and that's a HUGE stretch). Is that worth it to a company that size? I will wait till HD is fully working, one would think you want as many people slamming this product to get the best beta test? Someone who pays for it and has an unpleasant experience will probably bad mouth it more than if it was free? Just my opinion obviously. I am all for supporting the programmers, this one just seems odd to me. Penny wise pound foolish?

As I look it says 100+ downloaded so far.

jjwatmyself

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#11

Post by jjwatmyself » Thu Feb 06, 2014 5:21 pm

The issue with HD, more than likely is hardware related. Smartphones have small antennas and are more suspectable to interference due to frequent changes in position. This may be less of an issue with tablets which have larger / better antennas. 17 Mbps is a typical birtate for HD on a US cable provider (Mpeg2). SD is a fraction of this, running at 1-2 Mbps (mpeg2) for a US cable provider. Combined with the fact that most homes have poor WiFi coverage outside the room where the access point is located. This leads to a poor experience as is a live, unbuffered stream. If the sending hardware had the necessary logic to drop frames and optimize the codec and bitrate dynamically, most of these problems would go away. You find this type of implementations with most video conference systems, and streaming sites. E.g. Skype. That's why they 'just work'.

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#12

Post by barnabas1969 » Thu Feb 06, 2014 8:42 pm

No, the issue with HD is the type of encoding. Most channels in the USA are encoded as MPEG-2. Most mobile phones and tablets do not handle MPEG-2 video very well. They are designed to play MPEG-4. So, if you have an HD HomeRun tuner that is capable of transcoding the MPEG-2 stream to MPEG-4 on the fly, then you can watch HD on your phone/tablet. Otherwise, you're stuck with SD.

barnabas1969

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#13

Post by barnabas1969 » Thu Feb 06, 2014 9:05 pm

I figured for two bucks, what the heck. I'll probably never use it... but why not. I have a Samsung Galaxy S4. HD is very choppy. SD works OK. The interface for changing channels kinda sucks. To change channels, tap the screen and then swipe left/right to scroll through TINY little icons at the bottom for each channel (several hundred of them in my case). It would be nice to see more options and features.

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mcewinter

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#14

Post by mcewinter » Thu Feb 06, 2014 9:16 pm

I'm able to watch HDTV with success with this app...

http://www.instatv.org/client-pro.html

...usually on my iPad but I can say the same watching on my Samsung S3. I purchased HDHomerun view because it was only two bucks but prefer instaTV for the time being.

jjwatmyself

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#15

Post by jjwatmyself » Thu Feb 06, 2014 11:18 pm

barnabas1969 wrote:No, the issue with HD is the type of encoding. Most channels in the USA are encoded as MPEG-2. Most mobile phones and tablets do not handle MPEG-2 video very well. They are designed to play MPEG-4. So, if you have an HD HomeRun tuner that is capable of transcoding the MPEG-2 stream to MPEG-4 on the fly, then you can watch HD on your phone/tablet. Otherwise, you're stuck with SD.
You forgot to mention that the a MPEG-4 Part 10 stream (h.264) is at a significantly lower bitrate too. I believe 5 Mbps at H.264 would be more than enough to preserve the quality of the transcoded MPEG-2 1080i steam. None of this is to say that H.264 uses less, but because the compression is so much better, a lower bit rate can be used to achieve the same result. Bluray (h.264) runs at about 45 Mbps, hence the superior image quality. I still place much of this on the performance of the Wi-Fi. Even on a laptop, WMC will struggle over WiFi on HD channels if the WiFi is not pristine and hardware built for higher throughout.

Note, I'm pretty much discounting the audio as Dolby digital 5.1 audio uses about 0.5 Mbps.

BTW Great discussion! :)

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