I've had my Connect Duo for years - it works perfectly fine. It even had a firmware update.
It got me thinking. Aside from the additional (2) tuners and ATSC 3.0 potential, would upgrading to the Flex 4K improve my Channels DVR experience significantly enough (performance-wise) to an upgrade worth it?
I don’t think you can really justify it at the moment. Most atsc3 channels are DRM depending on your location. If I were you I would let the DRM debacle play out and see where the government, broadcasters, and SD land with atsc3.
If you were new to cutting the cord of just need more tuners, my first stop would be FB marketplace and then a new atsc3 hdhr if nothing is around on the used side. There is no “performance” gain with the new tuners beyond atsc3, atsc3 reception range, and tuner count.
You can check how many of your local atsc3 stations are DRM here
I have 4 HDHR's. 2 ATSC3 and 2 of the old 2 tuner models. I have had 3 failures with the ATSC 3 HDHRs. Each time they sent me a warranty replacement but I'll tell you, the old 2 tuner models will not quit. Never had 1 issue...
Kind of what I thought.
Yeah, the ATSC thing, - in wait and see mode. If there's no significant performance upgrade with 4k Flex, then I'm good.
Appreciate the response. Thank you
I really think it depends on where you are. As Rice mentioned, DRM is an issue, but you also find out which stations broadcast in HDR and Dolby Atmos, because that makes a noticeable difference.
I have two HDHR Extends for Channels DVR, but I also have a ZapperBox that handles DRM. In the SF Bay Area, FOX, NBC, and CBS are DRM, and ABC and CW do not have DRM and can be tuned by the Flex 4K. Only CW and NBC broadcast in HDR and Dolby Atmos, and these are the only two stations that I think look noticeably better than their ATSC 1.0 counterparts. FOX, CBS, and ABC look pretty similar in both ATSC 1.0 and ATSC 3.0, IMO. So for me, it is not worth it to get a Flex 4K just to record CW with better picture and sound quality. I do occasionally watch/record NBC using the ZapperBox, but I use Channels DVR and the HDHR Extends for almost all my OTA recording/viewing.
If you have any stations that you enjoy watching that are not DRM and broadcast in HDR and Dolby Atmos, you would might enjoy having a Flex 4K. Otherwise, I would wait. It's possible that we might see the FTC allow stations to start broadcasting ATSC 1.0 using MPEG-4, which might result in better picture quality with your existing tuners. At least that is the prediction at the end of this excellent recent video about how the ATSC 3.0 transition is going.
Like you've been shown it's a nice box, I have one of the kickstarter ones with the DEV option and it worked great, TILL all the atsc 3 channels were encrypted by the big networks. The 1 channels are still open but they are pushing to be allowed to shut them down.
Silicon dust has a decryption setup that was cleared and then they have refused to allow them a license to enable it.
They want to treat OTA like cable and charge you 5 bucks a month for every network channel etc.
Hopefully eventually they'll be allowed to enable the encryption but they don't like anything being able to be shared on a home network and all that and that's one of the reasons I have ALL of their tuners now. The HD HomeRun still works on my cable feed except for a few streaming channels, for now, and the Flex does all the OTA.
My Sony Z9K 8k TV has the encryption and tuners built in and it was released and I bought it in 2022 way before the 3.0 stuff went online. It's the only device I own that fully supports all of it.
You are lucky that your TV has a ATSC 3.0 tuner. I purchased a 77" LG G4 OLED TV 18 months ago and was disappointed that LG dropped the ATSC 3.0 tuner that they had in the G3. The video I posted above mentioned that Samsung is dropping ATSC 3.0 tuners too.
If the prediction in the video that the FCC will shortly issue a draft decision dropping the requirement for duel ATSC 1.0 and 3.0 transmissions and allow MPEG-4 in ATSC 1.0 transmissions, it is possible that we will see many ATSC 3.0 stations go away, as least in the short term. This is another good reason to not invest in a Flex 4K right now.
The killer argument here is no DRM on Cable TV feeds to subscriber homes. The DRM inconvenience is only for the OTA users.