HDHOMERUN Premium Channels Question

Channels DVR Server
#1

Does anyone know if the HGTV channel will be added back to the Premium channel lineup?

I just installed a new HDHomerun Quatro based on Silicondust's previous channel lineup only to find out the HGTV among others has now been dropped. My wife requires HGTV, so I now have two HDHomerun products and a Channels DVR subscription that no longer meet my minimum channel requirements. Was really looking forward to finally have one remote and one channel guide.

My apologies if this post is in the wrong section. I've also contacted Silicondust but so far no response.

Thanks

#2

Only SiliconDust knows the answer to this, and so far they have not given a clear indication of what we can expect.

You can read more on their forums here: https://forum.silicondust.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=129

#3

Thank you for the always excellent support and response times.

Does CHANNELS have any plans to integrate any other streaming services with your Channels Guide and DVR, e.g., Sling TV, Hulu, or others? Such a great solution being able to combine streaming channels with the OTA programming.

Thanks again.

#4

I recently signed up for Premium TV on 1/30/2019. I had been following the situation for a while. It is my experience that SiliconDust has decided to go DARK on this subject and no one outside of SiliconDust knows when that will change.

If you want to take action on your own you may want to do what I am doing and that is to subscribe to Philo ($16 or $20) per month in addition to OTA Locals and Premium TV. It is a pretty good interface and was something my "wife" could live with. Not sure which platforms it is available on.

#5

Unfortunately none of the other streaming services make this possible. Even if we found a way, it would violate their terms of service and they could change their servers to block us out at any time. That's the great thing about HDHR Premium, they have a public API and encourage third-party apps to integrate with them. Unfortunately, that might also be why they're having such a hard time getting Discovery channels back.

#6

Interesting take on the reason for the problem. I did not think about that.

I have seen often this problem is with Discovery. But Hallmark Channel was also dropped which is the channel my wife wants. And as far as I know Hallmark is not related to Discovery.

#7

My main goals were to get to a single remote control and one user interface / channel guide for both live and recorded shows. With my U-verse subscription we have to use separate remotes to switch to Netflix or other streaming service. Plus I end up having to manually change my AVR HDMI setting every time we use the Apple TV remote. Not very user friendly and I really don’t care to setup a Harmony remote or comparable.

Seems the major streaming companies continue to have problems offering ALL the major OTA channels for a local area. In my area only DirecTV offers all four major OTA networks, but their current DVR is limited to 20 hours which is totally useless for our requirements. Plus ATT controls the offering, so you know prices will go up every year. I’d likely given DirecTV or comparable streaming service a try if all the channels were available along with a decent DVR solution.

Also seems that Amazon with their Recast box along with others are beginning to potentially compete with Channels or at least moving in that direction? More entities seem to be seeing the advantages of offering OTA with the short list of premium channels.

Would Channels ever consider offering a turnkey OEM Hdhomerun ‘box’ with your own API that was compatible with the media companies? That solution might allow you to better manage your own destiny versus being exposed to changes by both Silicondust and their media partners.

I still really like your solution as the most polished and user friendly at this point. Hopefully Silicondust can get their Premium channels stabilized.

Thanks again. My apologies for the long post.

#8

We are a software company and have no hardware experience. Creating a new hardware product would require years of R&D, and we're so small that none of the major media companies would ever take us seriously. Contracts with cable content providers require millions of dollars and a huge legal team, and we have neither.

#9

Correct. Hallmark was removed 2 weeks before the Discovery channels were removed. The reason for Discovery going offline (contract dispute with their upstream provider) has finally been acknowledged, but in the case of Hallmark its status has been lumped with Discovery, so I'm not sure if there was ever a definitive determination that it was a similar contract issue.

(It should also be noted that the contract dispute is with the upstream provider, meaning Silicon Dust has no real say in the issue as they are merely a downstream client. Whether they give up on their upstream provider is anyone's guess. Also, until they get their quality up, they still have an uphill battle to remain relevant. Their only real selling point is the integration with their tuners … which as time goes on starts to feel more like a hindrance.)

#10

Update: The following Discovery network channels have been restored:

Discovery, HGTV, TLC, Food Network, Animal Planet and Travel. OWN remains down due to the partial channel outage.