An ex girlfriend is living (temporarily) in a guest house on my property. My original plan for her (and it) was to buy a second Tablo and set it up on a Guest Network on the wifi. This way, she would have her own two tuners to record & watch whatever she wants, without interfering with what I record, watch and want. Plus which, I don’t want her to see what I’m recording, etc. Once she’s moved out, I’d put that Tablo on the same (primary) network and have four tuners between them.
Then, I decided to install the HD Homerun system in there instead, as the money had already been spent and it was just collecting dust (as was the server I bought for it). A Tablo on the Wifi would have been a lot easier to set up, but once set up, hard-wired and configured with the “channels” app again, the HD Homerun actually looked pretty good to my eye. I spent an hour or two exploring around with it and had a lot of fun.
The best part of all, is that this experience reinforced my first impressions on the HD Homerun versus Tablo. The fact that it is a great product, but that overall, the Tablo is (in my view) much better, simpler and more polished. As a secondary system the Homerun is fine and I’ll probably leave it there, once my ex girlfriend is gone. As such, it won’t get much mileage but will be great for a secondary system, one that will be used sparingly.
Never able to leave well enough alone, I’m going to install a dedicated rooftop antenna over there this afternoon, to replace the Channel Master (Smartenna +) leaf-style antenna I used to set up the HD Homerun. Who knows, I might end up spending a night or two per week out there (once my ex girlfriend is out).
Tablo is the best product at the $140 price point. At the BestBuy, on sale, price of $99, it was hard to beat.
If you are a digital hoarder and like to terrorize your friends and relatives about your ultimate collection of Rin Tin Tin and The Rifleman episodes, there is even a ripper.
Since I’m not a hoarder I turned off my Nvidia Shield with plex and now only use my hdhomerun to watch all the OTA stations live. Even the ones I would never record or add to tablo. Every once in a while you have to have a few beers at night and watch Lucha Libre. And I speak zero Spanish.
Exactly. At $140 (a very fair price) the Tablo is worth every dime. I did pick up a few at $99 during the sale, to be used as Christmas gifts. I also agree on the idea of using the Homerun to watch Live TV, rather than to record it (also use my Channel Master Stream + for that).
Very small and easy to install. Because of my previous experience with Antop, decided on going with them again and it gave me an opportunity to try something completely different. Perfect all around, it picks up all the channels / stations as the 400BV in my primary residence.
I’m really sold on this company and their product. This (secondary) setup was thrown together as a temporary arrangement, results have been so good, I’ll probably adopt this as a permanent solution.
Here is some additional info about the Antop company and product:
The 400BV antenna is manufactured by a company in China - Qiaohua. The 400 antenna line used to be known several years ago as the “Eaglestar” (when I first encountered it around 2015) and also as the “Marathon” (depending on who the distributer in the US is). Qiaohua also builds antennas for American companies such as Solid Signal.
Removing the front cover, one finds a dual, vertically stacked cavity backed slot antenna for UHF along with basic dipoles for VHF.
A “slot antenna” consists of a metal surface, usually a flat plate, with one or more holes or slots cut out. When the plate is driven as an antenna by a driving frequency, the slot radiates electromagnetic waves in a way similar to a dipole antenna - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slot_antenna
The wires you see are those leading to the Smartpass preamp embedded inside the enclosure. This preamp which I have has a built-in LTE filter.
That’s a very clever and remarkable approach to “folding” an antenna into a small, beautiful, molded rectangular box. I’m getting the same excellent result from the 360 UFO antenna. Pretty much sold on Antop. For the next antenna or project I find myself involved in, I might check out Winegard, Lava or one of the others, just for the fun of testing and learning something new.
It’s a refurbed HP EliteDesk 800 with Core i-5 processor, 8 GB RAM and a 480 GB SSD Drive. It’s practically perfect, for Plex purposes (for my use, anyway).
My only problem with “micro” form factor desktops is the lack of USB ports. I prefer a SFF or larger just because you get a ton of USB ports, which means more expansion possibilities (bus powered USB drives, so no need for a “gob” of outlets and cords, etc.).
Trying to figure out how many ports you need for a simple Plex server. Of course it depends upon individual needs. In this case, it’s two more than I need.
