HDHomeRun Duo - Reception Issues

[jonboyuk]

Hi all!

I've just bought an HDHomeRun Duo, to complement my recent Emby setup because I love the idea of having live TV on tap throughout my house. Unfortunately in our new build house, there were no provisions for TV cabling anywhere so I figured this would be the easiest option.

I have a high gain 4g filtered antenna in my roof, which connected directly to one TV via coax. I know outside would be ideal but it's restricted where I am. Anyway the connected TV works fine - No signal issues, no degradation (even in poor weather), it just works fine. I'm in the UK by the way.

So, I figured I could just take it out of the TV and plug it into the HDHomeRun Duo. Alas, it's not really working properly at all For the record, the ethernet is plugged into a Powerline port which goes to my router. It does give me a consistent 100Mbit output though which I can't imagine any SD mpeg stream needs more than.

The scan picks up hundreds of channels as expected, however when I stream them I get a very mixed bag. A high proportion of the channels are there but won't start and ones that do are very glitchy. A couple work okay-ish, but still have random glitches and grey rectangles. I have checked the signal and it seems alright, but as you can see below it's not right. This is on one of the few okay-ish channels.



I tried a booster https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07G3QVQXS?psc=1 which takes the signal strength to a consistent 100% but doesn't much help the stream. Incidentally some of the channels that did work a little bit almost drop off entirely!

I've also had issues with Emby just locking the channels up which is also frustrating meaning that I had to constantly reboot the device. So I'm hoping I can sort all of this out with your help because I would rather not send it back.

Many thanks

[Pueblo]

Hi,
I'm in the London area (Crystal Palace TX), and I too had many problems at first, that I narrowed it down to my powerline adapters. I've tried two different makes, but they both perform very erratically with my HDHomeRun Quattro. All appears fine with all other types of streaming all over the house however. In the end I went to a Motorola MoCa coax system to connect to the router, and use WiFi for everything else connected to the Quattro. The poweline adapters just about work ok for SD channels, but very badly for HD.
'Hope that helps,
Geoff.

[jonboyuk]

Thanks for your reply! Well I haven't tried a direct connection to my router sadly because it's 2 storeys down!

Can I plug the ethernet from the HDHomeRun > into a laptop to test, or must it go into a router first?

Bit strange though, as you say. My adapters allow me to stream 4K footage on other devices at 60Hz without issue.

[signcarver]

I would definitely test without the powerline adapters. Streaming "live" tv is a lot harder on the network than streaming something already recorded and some even have trouble streaming such even if the content was all the way down to 1Mbps when "files" "happily" stream close to 100Mbps. In some cases if you can put the DVR machine at the same location (thus eliminating power line adapter between tuner and storage) it can make a difference. Though I tend not to recommend wifi for most connections to the device, I have seen good wifi outperform many powerline adapters.

The other thing I would look at for your area is a high pass filter/braid breaker though you may wish to enable sending of diagnostics data and run a channel scan and report the DeviceID so SD can take a look at the results and see if such may help.

[jonboyuk]

Thank you signcarver.

I'll start my process of elimination with Aerial->HDHR->Router, removing the booster and Powerlink to see what happens. If this fixes it then fab, I'll let you know. Failing that I might have to try some diagnostics with SD. After that will I buy another item to try and fix it (hp/braid breaker) but don't want to spend much more if I just have to end up returning it all.

Thanks again though, I'll post the outcome soon.

[jonboyuk]

Okay thanks to those who've helped so far. I have an update, albeit not a very good one!

So I've removed the Powerlink from the equation so the HDHomeRun is directly plugged into the router.

I've also retested my TV to make sure the aerial is working okay, which it is.

Sadly it's exactly the same. When looking at the diagnostics, you can see the signal almost going on>off>on>off>on.

I've made a small YouTube video so you can see what I'm talking about.

Anyone seen this behaviour before?

https://youtu.be/TDP6bGbv1HI

[signcarver]

To me that sounds like the issue requiring the braid breaker... but it would probably be best if you turn on sending of diagnostics data, run a channel scan, and post your DeviceID so the folks at SD can take a look as I would hate for you to go out and buy such just to see if it will work when SD can somewhat tell might be the issue. The item they have been referring to is the first item at https://www.kcb.co.uk/contents/en-uk/d70.html but I don't have any personal experience with it or that company, only have read from many in the UK that it has worked for them. With SD recently releasing an LTE filter for use in the US, perhaps they may be looking at releasing their own filter needed for the UK but not sure of the demand for such.

Also the devices tend not to like too hot a signal so if they report 100% strength you may wish to attenuate that signal a bit as you don't know how much above 100% it is.

[jonboyuk]

Thanks - do I need to post that in here, or do I need to contact SD directly?

[NedS]

Thanks - do I need to post that in here, or do I need to contact SD directly?

I can see your diagnostics already, and it does appear to be the low RF interference issue that we've seen before in the UK (hard to tell 100%, but it's very likely). The filter that signcarver mentioned is what we normally recommend to fix that.

[jonboyuk]

Thanks! I will look at getting this. However, given that my normal TV works fine, is this an issue between UK broadcasting and the HDHomeRun specifically? As you can imagine, I don't want to unnecessarily waste money. How can I look at my own logs by the way?

[jasonl]

Most people in the UK don't have issues, but when people do have an issue, like 90% of the time it's that issue. No one is entirely sure what causes it, just that adding the filter fixes it. It's pretty much unheard of anywhere else, even in other countries in Europe that use the same broadcast systems.

[jonboyuk]

That is very random. Sadly I can't seem to find one anywhere. That KCB link no longer has stock, and Moonraker (the makers of it) don't either. Do I have any other options, or just wait until stock is replenished?

[Pueblo]

What you might need is :
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B085S4SP11? ... ct_details

[jonboyuk]

Thanks! Just before I buy, is that the same as a high pass filter with braiding?

[Pueblo]

I think the braiding issue is to do with isolating the coax outer (common mode) from input to output - I'm not sure of the benefit of that in your case.
I use that low-pass filter to block 5G and 4G signals causing occasional problems. This has been bad in the last year, and affects my TV sets too. There has been an expansion of new phone towers around here in E Herts. I'm 25miles from C Palace, so the local phone interference can be serious. I would still look at your connection to the router though.