HDHomeRun Premium TV was a unique paid streaming television service that was announced last year. We called it the ultimate cord-cutting solution because it offered a single interface for watching and recording both OTA and premium channels. After a few rocky months, today SiliconDust announced that they are ending the service completely.
In December, the service hit its first bump in the road. HGTV, Discovery, and six other networks went dark during a contract dispute. Some channels came back, but others were removed a few weeks later. That is when it came to light that SiliconDust was likely using Omniverse as the provider of their television streams. It became more obvious once Omniverse was sued by a collection of TV studios claiming that Omniverse didn’t have the rights to distribute their content.
As the lawsuit continued SiliconDust faced other obstacles. Some app stores, including Amazon, removed the HDHomeRun app from their listings.
That lawsuit is still ongoing, and the entire process has left many HDHomeRun Premium TV subscribers wondering how long the service would last. Unfortunately, that end is very near. Subscribers received notice via email today that once their current month of service ends their contract won’t be renewed.
The HDHomeRun DVR service will continue to work for users who have OTA or CableCARD tuners. Speaking of CableCARD, hopefully this will allow SiliconDust to make the HDHomeRun Prime 6 their primary focus.
