[mythtv-users] ATSC tuner advice wanted

[James Linder]

> On 21 Aug 2021, at 11:00 pm, Rod Smith <mythtv at rodsbooks.com> wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 
> Long story short: Because of recent changes made by Cox, I'm planning to
> cut my cable TV service and switch to a combination of streaming and OTA
> recording. For the latter, I need an ATSC recording solution, but I'm
> afraid I'm having difficulty navigating the sea of options, given
> outdated Web pages, contradictory online information, confusing model
> references, etc.
> 
> I'd like something that can record at least two independent channels
> (not just two on the same transport stream), and I prefer something that
> connects via USB or Ethernet, rather than as a plug-in card. I live far
> enough away from the broadcast towers that signal strength is likely to
> be weak on at least some stations, so if a tuner is known to have
> problems with weak signals, I'd prefer to avoid it. (Would a 2-tuner
> device be a better choice than a 4-tuner device for this reason?) I'm
> currently running Ubuntu 20.04 on my main MythTV backend, but I may need
> to run the tuner on another system that's running Ubuntu 21.04.
> 
> I've looked at a few tuners, but am uncertain about most of them:
> 
> * HDHomerun Flex Duo and Flex 4K -- These are both new enough that
>  I can't find any definitive information on whether they're supported
>  by MythTV.
> * HDHomerun Connect Duo and Connect Quattro -- These seem to be the
>  predecessors to the above and the MythTV wiki claims they're
>  supported, but they're discontinued. I do see some available on
>  eBay, though.
> * Hauppauge WinTV-quadHD USB -- Hauppauge's support page[1] specifies
>  that there's a PPA with drivers, but not for Ubuntu 21.04; and
>  online discussions I've found all seem to refer to the PCIe product
>  with a similar name, not the USB version, so I'm not confident it
>  really works.
> * Hauppauge WinTV-quadHD PCIe -- This one at least seems to be
>  supported by Linux/MythTV, but as I said, I prefer an external USB
>  or Ethernet device, if possible.
> * Hauppauge WinTV-dualHD -- There seem to be several versions of
>  this one with differing part numbers and varying support levels in
>  MythTV, which makes it hard for me to know if what I buy would
>  work at all.
> 
> At the moment, I'm leaning toward getting an HDHomerun Connect Duo or
> Quattro on eBay; but if another option would work better (either from
> the above list or something else I've overlooked), I'd appreciate some
> guidance on the matter.
> 

Long story, and long ago - so It *may* have changed - but I got a homerun quatro and found I had 4 channels only, I could not config 4 virtual channels extra. I ended up using 2 haupague WinTV dual dongles giving me 8 channels. But the homerun could be used for other apps on the network.
James