New Tuner from Silicon Dust

[alhaunts]

Silicon Dust is poised to release a new quad tuner to replace the HDHR5-4K. It's called the HDHomerun Flex 4K. Just got my hands on one today. Seems identical to the Connect 4K except it sports a USB for DVR storage to disk. Working great so far.

[Moderator note: topic moved]

[Gripweed]

What type of USB?

[alhaunts]

Full size type A USB port. Silicon Dust say it can handle up to 10 TB of HDD.

The plastic inside the connector is black, so I'll guess it's USB 2.0

[Gripweed]

I'd be more worried about the speed of the USB 2.0 than how much storage it could handle. It's been ages since I was thinking of using a USB 2.0 tuner but even then most people recommended using Firewire instead (which I did get at the time). Maybe SD has figured out a way to make it work better now but I would prefer to see USB-C 3.2 in the device.

[alhaunts]

I'm only basing my guess on the looks of the port. I don't have a use for the feature yet anyway.

[stuartm]

Two things. This is posted in the wrong section of the forum as this really does not have anything to do with EPG123 (there is a specific sub forum for HTPC hardware, including tuners). 2nd. Even a USB 2.0 is theoretically capable of handling 4 HD data streams. Typical for e.g. broadcast MPEG2 is 20 Mbits/sec and 4 streams would be 80 Mbits/sec. USB 2 theoretical max is 480 Mbits/sec So well within the spec'd capabilities a USB 2.

[StinkyImp]

Even a USB 2.0 is theoretically capable of handling 4 HD data streams.

I have an old Win7 system with two Hauppauge WinTV-dualHD Tuners (four tuners) plugged into two USB 2.0 ports.

I can confirm that I can record four simultaneous 1080 HD programs with no issues. I can also record three simultaneously and watch a live channel with no problems.

[Markinsac]

The Flex 4K does have 4 tuners - two are compatible with the now-emerging ATSC 3.0 data. Most ATSC 1.0 tuners will be obsolete in a few years.