Anyone using SiliconDust HDHomeRun Flex Quatro 4? (1 Viewer)

[errfoil]

I am currently using a Hauppauge WinTV QuadHD PCIe card on MP1 (1.37) for DVB-T, but 2 of the tuners have died. Thinking about trying the SiliconDust Quatro4 (SD) but after searching the website and looking at the Wiki I didn't see a lot of guidance. I did see some info and advice for ME2. The SD is also attractive for me because my router and antenna cable are in the same cabinet, however I don't see any instructions on how to install the tuner in the tuner section of TVServer. One last concern is that I'm currently running Win10 but it looks like I'll have to make the switch to Win11 sooner rather than later.

Any first hand experience or advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

[CyberSimian]

I am currently using a Hauppauge WinTV QuadHD PCIe card on MP1 (1.37) for DVB-T,

Your profile indicates that your home country is the USA, but I was under the impression that broadcast TV in the USA uses the ATSC broadcast standard, and not the DVB-T broadcast standard. Possibly the Hauppauge tuner is a dual standard card and you are actually using ATSC?

The SD is also attractive for me because my router and antenna cable are in the same cabinet, however I don't see any instructions on how to install the tuner in the tuner section of TVServer.

I purchased the UK version of the SiliconDust HDHomerun Quad DVB-T/T2 tuner in December 2025. Disappointingly, it does not work fully with MP.

In the UK, a DVB-T or DVB-T2 MUX is a single UHF frequency that carries multiple digital TV channels that are multiplexed together. The one-and-only DVB-T2 MUX carries 7 high-definition (HD) channels, while the various DVB-T MUXes each carry circa 15 standard-definition (SD) channels.

MP can perform the clever trick of receiving and recording multiple channels that reside in a single MUX, and use only one tuner while doing so. To achieve this result, MP asks the HDHomerun to send the entire MUX data stream down the network cable. When I looked at the network activity on the "Performance" tab in Windows "Task Manager", the DVB-T MUX data stream for a single tuner was a consistent 23 Mbits/sec, while the DVB-T2 MUX data stream for a single tuner maxed out at 40 Mbits/sec (it was a bit more variable than the DVB-T data stream).

If you reside in a country that has 4 or more DVB-T2 MUXes, the total data stream load would be:

• 4x40 = 160 Mbits/sec for 4 DVB-T2 MUXes
• 4x23 = 92 Mbits/sec for 4 DVB-T MUXes.

The problem is that the HDHomerun's network connection is "fast ethernet", i.e. 100 Mbits/sec.

I tried recording 4 channels simultaneously, each channel in a different MUX, with one of the channels being an HD channel. "Task Manager" showed the network link constantly around 97-98 Mbits/sec. But the real problem were the thousands of continuity errors in the TV Server log file, indicating a great number of dropped frames, making the recordings unwatchable.

So sadly my conclusion is that the HDHomerun is not really a quad tuner. If you have only DVB-T2 MUXes, the HDHomerun is a dual tuner. If you have only DVB-T MUXes, you are very near the limit of the capacity of the network connection, so it might work OK as a quad tuner. Treating the HDHomerun as a triple tuner would give you adequate safety margin for DVB-T MUXes. To address this problem, the HDHomerun needs to have a gigabit network connection, but such a version does not exist at present (and may never exist).

I suspect that the HDHomerun was originally designed with Windows Media Center in mind. WMC suffers from the limitation that it requires a separate tuner for each channel, even if those 4 channels all reside in the same MUX. There is a "WMC mode" that results in the data stream for only one channel being sent down the network cable for each tuner. In this mode, a 100 Mbits/sec connection is adequate. But in this mode you lose MP's ability to record multiple channels from the same MUX using only one tuner.

Annoyingly the HDHomerun does not allow a static IP address to be defined. This may or may not matter to you (it matters to me).

Once you have installed the SiliconDust config software, the setup will download and install the latest microcode for the HDHomerun. MP "TV Server Config" then simply finds it on the network, and you set it up just like a PCI or PCI-E tuner.

-- from CyberSimian in the UK

 

[CyberSimian]

After consulting Professor Google, I can provide some further details, which may or may not be correct.

(1) Professor Google claims that a DVB-T MUX in the UK has a MUX data rate up to 27 MBits/sec. This is somewhat higher than the value that I observed (23 MBits/sec), so I suspect that the channel that I was viewing resided in a MUX that was not full (but the MUX might become full at sometime in the future).

Four DVB-T MUXes operating at 27 MBits/sec would exceed the capacity of the HDHomerun's network connection, so this is not a usable configuration.

(2) Professor Google claims that a DVB-T2 MUX in the UK has a MUX data rate up to 40 MBits/sec. This is in agreement with the value that I observed.

Four (and even three) DVB-T2 MUXes operating at 40 MBits/sec would exceed the capacity of the HDHomerun's network connection, so this is not a usable configuration. In reality, the HDHomerun is usable only as a dual tuner for DVB-T2 MUXes.

(3) Professor Google claims that an ATSC1 MUX has a data rate of 19.4 MBits/sec.

Four ATSC1 MUXes operating at 20 MBits/sec could be carried satisfactorily by the HDHomerun's network connection, so this is a usable configuration.

(4) Professor Google claims that an ATSC3 MUX has a data rate up to 57 MBits/sec, although practical data rates are likely to be in the range 25 to 26 MBits/sec.

I don't know whether there is an HDHomerun for ATSC3, but the above data rate figures suggest that a quad-tuner ATSC3 device would need a gigabit network connection to be sure of not encountering data-rate problems.

-- from CyberSimian in the UK

 

[tarrow]

I currently have two Quatros running, one connect, one duo using OTA antennae, mostly UHF fringe area, mostly cat5 local network.

Hauppauge card retired long ago. I have also retired very early SD units, the Quatros seem to work much better than the older units.

Go to SD's support website and download and install the windows software. In addition to the SD viewer app it has both a gui and a classic style config app to find the Quatros on local network and properly install the drivers and devices to windows, update firmware, etc, etc. There is documentation on SD's website.

Then, when you run MP TV server config, under the server name you will find a list of silicondust tuners. MP wiki tv setup documentation is pretty good. Currently running MP 2.4.1, works on both win 10 and 11.