SiliconDust DVR app experiences?

ryanjg11

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Aug 16, 2002
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I have been using a home-made Windows 7 HPTC running Windows Media Center for a couple of years. I live in Comcastland (don't we all) and currently use a Hauppauage WinTV-HVR-2250 CableCard tuner to decrypt the digital signal from Comcast (I am not using OTA signals).

My relationship with MCE is complicated. When it works, it's great, but I continue to have glitchy technical issues around (a) downloading updated media guides, (b) CableCard or tuner issues, and (c) random bugs inside MCE. It's obvious Microsoft has moved on, and we all know MCE isn't supported in Windows 10 and beyond. So, I'm looking for the next step.

For those who want to use their CableCards, it seems the only viable route is to go with SiliconDust. I know they're working on their own DVR app right now. Has anyone had any experience with it? Is it an adequate replacement for MCE?

I don't mind springing for the tuner (plus I'll get a third tuner = less family conflict) but I'm not so hot on paying $60 for the DVR beta access... Any idea on the upcoming release date?
 
Stick with WMC (for now at the very least). While their tuners are the best out there IMO - the DVR software is a letdown to say the least. You can see many complaints about just the general design/execution/features or lack thereof (like no grid epg, the fact if their server or your internet goes down you have no guide data and recordings will not record after a certain amount of time without a connection - whereas WMC all the guide data/recording schedule is cached - so everything continues to function if you net goes down) as well as persistent bugs (like the record engine randomly stopping thus not recording). Plus their communication/support is severely lacking and a major complaint too - the Channels app devs for Apple TV had to cease integration of the SD DVR with their product and have decided to develop their own because even they were getting the short end of the stick when it came to communication/support from SD (that was the main reason, lacking features was another reason given by them).

I ended up having to do a chargeback to get my money back from the Kickstarter due to all the broken promises/details and features left omitted/lack of support/communication.
 
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I ended up having to do a chargeback to get my money back from the Kickstarter due to all the broken promises/details and features left omitted/lack of support/communication.

Wow, that's great to know! I won't be buying into the beta any time soon. I was noticing a distinct... lack of updates and communications from them. It's actually a bit underhanded in my opinion, to have a for-profit company asking for us to fund a Kickstarter when the capability is inherent to their own survival. They need a replacement to WMC or else their tuner revenue disappears - I won't be lining up to "invest" in their software development any time soon.
 
i have been using it daily without issues.... my wife and 3 year old use it also.

we use it on Amazon FireTV and Window 10

So i have not felt the same as others who have posted here......

just wanted to add
 
Get yourself onto Windows 8.1. All the issues you are experiencing will be a thing of the past. I had all the same problems as you, worked great for a long stretch then problems if you so much as looked in its direction. All of it due to a deprecated version of play ready that they stopped maintaining on Windows 7.




I have been using a home-made Windows 7 HPTC running Windows Media Center for a couple of years. I live in Comcastland (don't we all) and currently use a Hauppauage WinTV-HVR-2250 CableCard tuner to decrypt the digital signal from Comcast (I am not using OTA signals).

Question for you. When you plug your coax directly into your TV. Do you get a video signal or does it notify you that the signal is encrypted?

I ask because we cut the cord and the option is either OTA or FIOS with Local TV only, but plugging the coax into the TV doesn't yield any TV. They say I need to get a STB from them to watch TV. Wondering if the Happauge card gets around the STB requirement somehow. OTA is cheaper by far, but still, I am curious.
 
Question for you. When you plug your coax directly into your TV. Do you get a video signal or does it notify you that the signal is encrypted?

I ask because we cut the cord and the option is either OTA or FIOS with Local TV only, but plugging the coax into the TV doesn't yield any TV. They say I need to get a STB from them to watch TV. Wondering if the Happauge card gets around the STB requirement somehow. OTA is cheaper by far, but still, I am curious.

With FiOS (formerly Verizon and now Frontier in TX) my local channels are all in the clear from 465mhz to 531mhz. I can plug coax into anything with a QAM tuner (including TV's) and pick up these channels. I believe there is a local channel plan for ~$10/mo or so that gives you access to these so you don't have to use OTA.
 
So to the original OP question - I spent a few hours upgrading my main HTPC to Windows 10 to test out the HDHR DVR application, and well.... I'm going back to WMC on W7.

I sincerely hope SD develops it into a more robust solution, but it's no where near WMC in functionality at the moment. No DD/AC3 bitstreaming, poor remote control implementation, clunky interface, channels sometimes take 15+ seconds to change, MPEG2 1080i channels play back poorly. Granted, it's not a finished product, but I couldn't imagine using it as a primary frontend at the moment.
 
I've ben using two HDHomeRun's on our home network for a few years now and I've had no problems. I use them only on WMC though (Win 7 and Win 8.1) and it all works perfectly. I never really gave their DVR software a try. It didn't look couch-friendly enough for me to buy in comfortably knowing my non-techy wife would be using it as well.
 
So to the original OP question - I spent a few hours upgrading my main HTPC to Windows 10 to test out the HDHR DVR application, and well.... I'm going back to WMC on W7.

I sincerely hope SD develops it into a more robust solution, but it's no where near WMC in functionality at the moment. No DD/AC3 bitstreaming, poor remote control implementation, clunky interface, channels sometimes take 15+ seconds to change, MPEG2 1080i channels play back poorly. Granted, it's not a finished product, but I couldn't imagine using it as a primary frontend at the moment.

Go to windows 8.1. I know you dont want to, but trust me on this. If you are using windows media center, you owe it to yourself to get on Windows 8.1 for the latest play ready alone.
 
My windows 8/8.1 keys don't have the media center option, and I've heard the only way you can get one now is to beg on thegreenbutton since MS no longer sells them.

This is also the first I've heard about WMC being better on 8 - I've always heard the experience is identical.
 
Right now to be honest its garbage. They are no where near where they said they would be at release for October 2015. Stick with WMC for now. If you tried to use it coming from WMC you would be very frustrated.
 
My windows 8/8.1 keys don't have the media center option, and I've heard the only way you can get one now is to beg on thegreenbutton since MS no longer sells them.

This is also the first I've heard about WMC being better on 8 - I've always heard the experience is identical.
The interface on WMC on Win8 is identical. IIRC, almost everything about WMC was almost as if they copy-pasted the code from Win7 and put it in a separate installer package. The issue was other things installed on the backend like the PlayReady DRM and any other Win8 OS optimizations in play that affect the overall responsiveness of the software. Playready was a separate download for WMC and it forced you to get it before you used the TV app.
 
Right now to be honest its garbage. They are no where near where they said they would be at release for October 2015. Stick with WMC for now. If you tried to use it coming from WMC you would be very frustrated.

Must be just my usecase but I haven't had any real issues with it.

We use it all the time with Plex very similar to how we used WMC and MediaBrowser in the past.


Our house has it all working on a W10 AIO, HTPC, Windows 10 tablet, Amazon FireTV

The DVR app works well enough at recording TV series, then comskip, and into Plex


I love that I finally get a unified recording engine!

My wife open the app on the tablet. Goes to discover, movies and sets recordings for the HTPC all the time!


That was the holy grail for WMC that never happened.
 
Must be just my usecase but I haven't had any real issues with it.

We use it all the time with Plex very similar to how we used WMC and MediaBrowser in the past.


Our house has it all working on a W10 AIO, HTPC, Windows 10 tablet, Amazon FireTV

The DVR app works well enough at recording TV series, then comskip, and into Plex


I love that I finally get a unified recording engine!

My wife open the app on the tablet. Goes to discover, movies and sets recordings for the HTPC all the time!


That was the holy grail for WMC that never happened.
That is amazing, but until they get copy-once drm working on some form of windows client I'm not giving them a dime. After all, it was one of the original kickstarter goals. I'm one of the unfortunate TWC customer's that has everything flagged as copy-once.
 
That's a bummer. Yeah I have HBO and such but just use the apps

Everything else on my comcast is not flagged.

Guess I am lucky​
 
My windows 8/8.1 keys don't have the media center option, and I've heard the only way you can get one now is to beg on thegreenbutton since MS no longer sells them.

This is also the first I've heard about WMC being better on 8 - I've always heard the experience is identical.

The only legal way, maybe.

As far as the experience goes, it is identical. But as Captnumbnutz said the back end components are new. Specifically, the play ready version. Windows 7 stopped at 2.1, Windows 8 gets 3+ which is a lot more reliable.
 
The only legal way, maybe.

As far as the experience goes, it is identical. But as Captnumbnutz said the back end components are new. Specifically, the play ready version. Windows 7 stopped at 2.1, Windows 8 gets 3+ which is a lot more reliable.

Can you elaborate on a lot more reliable? Is there any tangible evidence of this or more detailed discussions on the web? W7 WMC has been pretty stable for me over the past 4 years.

Most of the quirks I've had with it, are on DRM channels using Intel GPUs and the 29/59 bug. My Skylake NUC is not playing nice, and if there is a chance the newer playready may help, I might be willing to go through the hassle of getting it.
 
Can you elaborate on a lot more reliable? Is there any tangible evidence of this or more detailed discussions on the web? W7 WMC has been pretty stable for me over the past 4 years.

Most of the quirks I've had with it, are on DRM channels using Intel GPUs and the 29/59 bug. My Skylake NUC is not playing nice, and if there is a chance the newer playready may help, I might be willing to go through the hassle of getting it.

The first thing I noticed that improved was the initial setup. On Win7 I always had issues getting through the play ready setup. On Win8, no such issue. Worked the first time, flawlessly. The second issue I had was, sometimes I would get a message saying something like "this device does not support playback of protected content". I would then have to Alt+Enter to minimize and maximize the window several times for it to handshake. Win8, never had a single issue like this.

I also think it tunes the protected channels faster than Win7, but that could just be because Win8 is faster overall then Win7.

In summation, the entire thing just felt like it had less quirks.
 
Thanks for the info. I've luckily haven't had issues with any of those in a while, so I think I'll stick with 7 for now. Channel changing greatly sped up since I moved over to SD hardware - it used to lag on everything with my Ceton card.
 
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