Review: HDHomeRun hits a triple
Posted by Dennis Sellers 
Jun 10, 2008 at 3:00am
Elgato’s US$199 HDHomeRun is a nifty little device that contains two over-the-air HDTV tuners to receive HDTV and then stream that HD content over your home Ethernet network. The dual tuners mean that you can watch or record different programs at the same time.
For example, I can watch Lost on my iMac while my daughter watches Gilmore Girl reruns on her MacBook. Which is pretty darn sweet.
The HDHomeRun tunes ATSC (over-the-air) digital TV via an antenna, as well as unencrypted digital channels over cable (known as Clear QAM). This lets you enjoy SD and HDTV programs that are broadcast on digital TV and cable. Because the HDHomeRun is a network device, you don’t need to have an antenna or cable TV outlet near your computer. You just locate the HDHomeRun tuner wherever you have a convenient antenna or cable outlet and connect it to your network.
The device is a bit tricky to set up. If your cable TV service’s coaxial line or TV antenna connection is next to your router, and your Mac is wired into the router, it’s not too hard. However, if your TV signal isn’t located near your wired or wireless router, you’ll need to run an Ethernet cable from the HDHomeRun (with TV signal connected) to your router.
You can watch output from the HDHomeRun over a wireless network, though this isn’t especially recommended. It will work somewhat on a 802.11n network, but this set-up isn’t officially supported by Elgato. HDHomeRun typically receives video streams between 19 and 38 Mbps. This means 100BaseT Ethernet (100Mbps) is the ideal network setup.
802.11 wireless doesn’t offer enough bandwidth—even the new 802.11n architecture doesn’t perform as well as 100BaseT. If you try to use HDHomeRun with a network not up to the task, then the video may not appear at all. If your network is filled with lots of other traffic, then that can also affect the performance of HDHomeRun.
The HDHomeRun for Mac package includes the HDHomeRun dual-tuner network device, two RG6 cables, an Ethernet cable, AC power adapter, and EyeTV software for two computers. In fact, one of the best things about the HDHomeRun bundle is the included EyeTV 3 software, one of my favorite Mac products. I won’t rehash what I love about it here. You can read my Feb. 28 review. HDHomeRun EyeTV comes with two licenses of EyeTV, and has features for configuring individual control of the HDHomeRun’s tuners. Extra copies of EyeTV can be purchased as needed.
If you just watch TV on one Mac, the HDHomeRun is overkill. You can get other Elgato (or Equinux or Miglia) solutions for a bit less moolah and in a smaller form factor (though at 11.2 ounces and 1.3×7 x 3.9 inches, the HDHomeRun is no bigger than a hardcover novel). However, if you wan to share over-the-air HD and SD TV between Macs (or even—gulp—PCs), it’s the go-to device.
System requirements: Mac OS X 10.4 or higher and a PowerPC or Intel based Mac with a display that supports 1280×768 pixel resolution or higher.
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Contributor
Dennis Sellers
Dennis has been a newspaper editor/reporter (seven years) and teacher (seven years). He has over 10,000 magazine, newspaper and online articles to his credit. He has also covered the Mac and tech industries for over a decade for such online publications as MacCentral, MacMinute and now MacsimumNews.
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