An HDHomeRun app for Windows

Add your tuner

1. Get Theia, free, from the Microsoft Store or the download page.
2. Click Add an antenna tuner in setup. Later, it’s Find tuners in Settings > Sources.
3. Click Add next to your tuner. Theia lists each one it finds on your home network, then checks the one you pick and shows what it found. Click Add source.

Not listed? Check that the tuner is on and on the same network, then click Look again. You can also type its address, such as 192.168.1.50. Theia only searches your home network. A TV server at home that works like an HDHomeRun is added by its address the same way.

A guide for your antenna channels

HDHomeRun has a free guide for its tuners, three days ahead. It’s off until you turn it on: choose Use the HDHomeRun guide in the Guide step of setup, or later with Set up the guide on the tuner’s card in Settings > Sources. That guide comes from SiliconDust, the maker of HDHomeRun, which sees your IP address and your tuner’s ID. More in the privacy policy.

If you have a guide link (XMLTV) of your own, Use a guide link takes that instead.

Channel numbers and tuners

Antenna channels keep their numbers, such as 4.1, everywhere Theia shows one. To jump straight to 4.1, type 4, then a dot, then 1.

Each tuner in the box plays one channel at a time. Theia reads how many your box has and shows it on the source’s card, such as 2 tuners. Previews, multiview tiles and recordings each use one, and so does any other screen in the house watching the same box. When they’re all busy, Theia says All tuners in use, and when a channel won’t play, the player says why, whether it’s a weak signal or a copy-protected channel. Antenna tuners has the full list.

Free, with recording in Premium

Windows Media Center has been gone since Windows 10. Theia gives the PC live antenna TV with a guide again, free and with no ads. A tuner counts as one of the free version’s 2 sources, so there’s room for a playlist too.

Premium records to your PC, with no server to set up, and shows up to 9 channels at once, as many as your tuners allow.

Premium is $1.99 a month, $19.99 a year or $34.99 once. Free and Premium