My USB DVB-T stick seems to be on the fritz (Leadtek WinFast DTV Dongle H). Negotiations are continuing with the supplier, but I suspect I will end up having to buy a replacement. From searching on Geekzone, there are some rave reviews for the SiliconDust HD Home Run unit. However, this is a network unit rather than USB. I see that one of the listed advantages of this is that you can use it on multiple computers to watch live TV, but frankly I never watch live TV so streaming recordings to other computers isn't a problem.

Are there any other benefits to the HD Home Run that make it worth the $185-ish investment? Or am I better off just getting another relatively cheap USB stick as a 1-for-1 swap of the existing unit? I already have another USB stick TV tuner which has been going strong for a while, so a single tuner USB stick will be fine for multiple channel recordings.

If it helps, an oldish re-purposed laptop is running MediaPortal as a client and server, with recordings to a NAS. Watching on the TV, I use MediaPortal on the laptop as a client, but for streaming from the NAS I tend to use VLC (no point in going NAS --> Network --> MediaPortal server --> Network --> MediaPortal client). Possibly not the most elegant solution, but it works fine for me. I've long since worked around remote control and number of free USB port issues, so they should not be a real factor.

At some stage I will probably build a dedicated HTPC using a NUC or mini-ITX, but that is probably a fair way off.

I'm probably leaning towards just another USB stick just from a cost perspective, but keen to hear any other views.