Hauppauge 1178 WinTV-HVR-1600 Internal Hybrid TV Tuner/Video Recorder by HAUPPAUGE
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Digital camera reviews of Hauppauge 1178 WinTV-HVR-1600 Internal Hybrid TV Tuner/Video Recorder
Digital camera Review: HDTV watch only, analog TV burns to dvd
Summary: 2 Stars
As the other reviewers have said, this product has good to great hardware and very poor software. The tuner is very good, especially for HDTV, but the recorder software fair for analog TV only and it is useless for HDTV. The two are just not matched up to work together. The recorder software is a stripped out trial version of Corel's "Ulead MovieFactory 5". A free trial version of "Ulead MovieFactory 6" is still available on the www.corel.com website.
The selection of pci tuner cards is limited.
I had been using an older TV tuner card and old DVR software in my pc to record favorite TV shows and movies, edit out the commercials, and burn to dvd. I purchased this new tuner to upgrade to HDTV, but it's not capable of doing the same off broadcast HDTV. I'm better-off using my old setup on analog cable tv.
Digital camera Review: Had some problems but am sticking with it anyway.
Summary: 2 Stars
I have a Window's Vista PC, and I primarily watch Over-the-Air broadcasts and do not have cable or satalite. I purchased this so I could pick up HD stations and after some work have found it does an excellent job with the digital stations. The channels all look great and I don't have any trouble getting them in with my $30 Jensen aplified antenna. That is why I'm keeping it.
I am actually on my second card. The first one I got was able to pick up analog channels and not digital. After I spent a couple hours messing with the software I figured it must be a hardware problem and returned it. The 2nd one, which I'm using now, I installed without changing the software at all. It is able to pick up digital channels, but not analog. I've also never got the remote to work on either.
My problems make it so I really can't recoomend this product. Which is sad because I love the features this card offers.
Digital camera Review: Hardware GOOD! Software NOT SO GOOD!
Summary: 4 Stars
Using this in a dedicated DVR computer in my living room. The quality of the encoding is great at standard DVD spec. Installation was a breeze, and the remote control is well configured.
The reason I'm giving this product 4 stars instead of 5 is because of the software. First, the box included an older version of the WinTV recording software that remained on the machine when I installed the already-available (and much improved) new version. So, I had multiple versions competing to record scheduled programs. Additionally, the WinTV software is hard (if not impossible) to read on a TV screen. Tried all available screen resolutions but no dice. Same goes for the very limited schedule recording application. Very small, very lacking in functionality.
It all ties in well enough to the TitanTV program guide, but that guide is also limited.
Browsing for recorded shows is difficult.
All tasks are impossible without the aid of a keyboard and/or mouse. In my scenario, that wasn't going to work well because I wasn't planning to use either. The remote control, however, cannot be programmed to navigate around the different buttons and icons on your screen.
Enter SageTV.
I downloaded a trial version of the SageTV application, and instantly my experience with this device went from "eh..." to "WHOA!!!!" The SageTV application is an all-in-one deal that works closely with this and other Hauppage cards for the recording, program guide and other functions of the PVR/DVR experience. All text and icons are clearly legible on the screen, and all functions can be accessed via the Hauppage remote.
Setup is easy, and if you set the SageTV app to launch upon Windows startup, you do not need a keyboard or mouse (sidebar - I'm trying out a wireless keyboard with integrated trackball right now, and it is nice for things like searching for content, renaming or editing labels on your recordings and so forth, but it's nice that using the SageTV application has freed me from feeling like I MUST have a traditional input device).
With that said, I will say that this Hauppage device is one of the finest tuner cards available and has a very nice remote, but is lacking in terms of included software to the degree that I will be spending $60 for a better software package. I would have preferred no software at all! Some places will sell you a combo 1600 card with remote and SageTV software, but I would recommending getting this unit first, then trying out the SageTV software to see if it is useful for your purposes - rather than throwing all that money down upfront.
Digital camera Review: Hardware great; software weak
Summary: 4 Stars
I'm setting up a PVR to gradually take the place of my multi-VCR system, and to be able to record some of the broadcast digital HD channels. The 1600 lives in the same system with a Hauppauge 950Q, on a WinXP dual-core system. WinTV 6 has trouble tuning the digital stations and won't handle multiple tuners (i.e. the 1600 + the 950Q). Hauppauge has a newer version of WinTV that is supposed to handle multiple tuners. Though it recognized both tuners, it wouldn't let me do anything useful with them and was overall pretty buggy. Since I was intending to use the setup with Sage Media Center, the WinTV software was just for testing anyway, so that was OK (though more usable software would have helped.)
The tuner on the 1600 seemed somewhat less sensitive than the tuner on the 950Q, which makes a difference, since only one station brodcasts loally, while all the others are about 30 miles away. I have an attic antenna, not a large rooftop one. You have to be careful about the antenna-orientation or you get unwatchable video, but if it's set up right, the HD video is beautiful. The analog cable tuner works fine, and I can record 3 shows at once with the 1600+950Q combination. Since I sometimes need to record 4 shows at once, I may buy an additional 1600.
There are a few other dual-tuner products, but this was the only one that was a PCI interface. Others are PCI-express, which I don't have.
Digital camera Review: Hauppauge TV Tuner
Summary: 5 Stars
This product worked as it states. No problem with install. Works with Vista Home Premium and works within Windows Media Center. I am pleases with this Product.