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: Poor Tuning Quality
Summary: 1 Stars
i bought this with the thought of having a higher quality tuner card for DVR purposes. I already have a $20 Sabrent that i use for broadcasting to pick up the signal from the internet. The Sabrent actually blows this tuner away. For some reason the Hauppauge does not have the power to convert as clean a signal as the $20 Sabrent. I will be returning this item.Digital camera Review: Poor product, poor support
Summary: 1 Stars
I bought a Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-1600 last year. It works, but very poorly. Using an indoor HD antenna I can pick up only three local HD stations. The high definition picture is decent, but nowhere as good as on a HD television. I would like to point out that I am using a high-definition Samsung monitor with my computer.
Meanwhile, analog stations, coming in through cable, are much, much worse. The picture is fuzzy, expecially when watching in full-screen mode.
But my main gripe is that I can't pick up any digital stations through my cable provider, Comcast. The Hauppauge card with its QAM ability is supposed to let you do this. But I pick up zero digital stations through this card. However, I have a Toshiba HD television and it picks up many digital stations from my cable.
A year ago I wrote to Hauppauge to complain about this and I received a reply saying, "Our engineers are aware of this problem with Comcast and are working on it." Well, a year later I wrote to them asking for an update, and other than an initial e-mail asking me what software I was using, I have not received another response from Hauppauge support, even though I have written them many times.
It is clear to me that they do not want to take any responsibility for their defective product. I will never buy a Hauppauge product again.
Digital camera Review: Prodcut is unable to work with qam regardless of its description
Summary: 1 Stars
Our old Replay TV (Lifetime membership) is still working strong. The only problem with Replay TV is that it won't take a digital Qam signal (or any digital cable/OTA signal). Our goal when buying this card was to timeshift the HD locals.
We tried intensively for four days using the enclosed software, BeyondTV and then SageTV. Although we are computer literate, we could not get this card or the programs to work correctly on XP Pro with AMD 64 x 2 5000 chip. The video card we have installed is also heavy duty.
My little Vizio TV received Qam with no effort and takes 2 minutes to scan. But this card,,,,ugh....took 60 minutes to scan for analog and Qam. We did have the cable split. We did everything right.... but it constantly froze or was unable to map correctly.
After a point we looked at ourselves and said..."All this work just to timeshift the locals on HD?"
Better to watch the shows on the internet. They are there 24/7 and its free. Darn. Tivo is also out of the running since it won't take Qam and map it correctly either.
I have to say that the engineering is just not there yet for what we wanted. Maybe in a year or two when the demand is there, Hauppauge will develop a better product.
I wish Replay TV was still there and I would upgrade to a digital Replay TV in a heartbeat.
Digital camera Review: QAM is an addition, sensitive to SNR, video streaming an issue
Summary: 4 Stars
The card is for ATSC/Cable (NTSC), but if the hardware level matches a certain version you can download an update from the manufacturer's web site and QAM is made available. This is good since in 2008 the transition to digital will happen. However, not sure whether this is my cable company's fault or the QAM drivers, but I do not get more than 13 QAM channels. Having said that, the card works perfectly with ORB 2.0 and I was able to set a show to be recorded from overseas. I just hope QAM gets better, but even without it, the card is worth it.
UPDATE 10/09/2007: Some incompatibility with ALL video streaming software I tested: WINDOWS VIDEO ENCODER, VNC, etc. When Video shows up, no audio. ORB seems to be the only video streaming method that works. If you try to serve the signal directly from your computer, it seems to not work.
The good news is that the QAM issue is resolved, many QAM channels including HD are working now. Video accelerator settings are key to get it right. The only issue still worth to note is that the card is more sensitive to the SNR signal than the Set Top box or the built-in TV tuner. Anyhow, this is still a good buy !!!
Digital camera Review: Simpy not impressed
Summary: 2 Stars
maybe Windows 7 will help this unit function better. One can hope...
I have this unit tied into a new Samsung B750, the judder it creates running in Media Center is incredable. Thankfully I have a Homerun HD which proves the hauppauge just does not cut it.
UPDATE 11/23/09 - Now have Windows 7 64 bit and can tune Clear QAM signals. It is better (Comcast Cable feed) and sees a lot more channels and HD channels as well. No big judder effects on recorded sports. Still the Silicondust HDhomerun has a better quality signal. But we may have to change to Ceton if Comcast encripts their signals as is being reported.