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pcdude
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I'm planning on buying a HDHomeRun tuner to use to watch live TV streams from an OTA antenna. I would like to integrate this into Kodi for viewing only (no PVR) using either the TV Guide addon or the PseudoLive addon. My question is which unit to get. The "Connect" version has no transcoding, while the "Extend" version supports transcoding. We currently have a mixture of Windows PCs and ATV2s running Kodi, and would like to access these streams from any TV (although I realize it would only support 2 at a time). All Kodi boxes are connected using hard-wired ethernet. I have heard that the ATV2s may have problems with raw MPEG2 HD streams with dropping frames and freezing, so transcoding may help in this case. I have also heard that the Extend version has problems with crashing and locking up while transcoding, and has gotten poor reviews on Newegg.
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2015-01-21, 21:14
(This post was last modified: 2015-01-21, 21:15 by Tobor.)
pcdude,
I have the Connect, it works great using uPnP straight to my 3 Kodi boxes. However, one of my single-core Ion devices appears to be too under-powered for HD material (although it plays Bluray .mkv's without a problem) and Kodi crashes within a few seconds. I suspect the ATV2 would have even less power.
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keith
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So without transcoding, the device you wish to playback would have to support MPEG2 decoding in hardware, or be powerful enough to do it in software.
The ATV2 does not have hardware MPEG2 decoding, so I would get the Extend one.
Tobor's ION works because there's hardware MPEG4 decoding (what i assume is the codec for the media in the .mkv container) but stutters on live streams because they are MPEG2 and thus requires software.
I'm not sure about the Extend locking up during transcoding. I have a unit and will be doing some testing. You can always turn off transcoding on the Extend version too, for maximum flexibility.
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pcdude
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So it sounds like I will need the Extend for transcoding for at least the ATV2s and possibly the Ion-based PCs. I wonder what the minimum requirements for playing the raw MPEG2 HD streams would be for a Kodi solution, assuming I will eventually upgrade the boxes. Chromebox/OpenELC? Intel NUC?
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2015-01-22, 11:30
(This post was last modified: 2015-01-22, 11:32 by Ned Scott.)
HDHomeRun makes tuners now with built-in transcoding. I highly recommend getting one of those over the older units.
http://www.hdhomerun.com/products/models/hdtc-2us/
