Hauppauge 1192 WinTV HVR-1950 External USB HDTV Tuner/Video Recorder by HAUPPAUGE
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List Price: Our Price: $96.10 You Save: $53.89 (36%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $85.00 (click here) Category: CE See more digital camera details and other models |
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Digital camera reviews of Hauppauge 1192 WinTV HVR-1950 External USB HDTV Tuner/Video Recorder
Digital camera Review: Good for what it does
Summary: 4 Stars
This is a good add-on for those of you who want to watch TV on your PC. It hooks up easily to the PC and cable (from the wall or through a cable box). It also has video capture for digitizing your old VCRs. However, its IR Blaster is not compatible with Microsoft MCE, so if you want to use a service like Orb to see your TV on a device such as an iPhone and want to control a cable box, you will need an additional IR Blaster. If you don't need to control a cable box via Orb, however, this product is all you need.Digital camera Review: Good hardware, not-so-good software
Summary: 4 Stars
I have a Dell Dual P4 2.8GHz, Nvidia 8500/512M, 4GB memory, Vista Ultimate. Sorry XP guys, never had a vista issue, but the supplied software with this (WinTV, Ulead Movie Factory) does not cut it. Unstable and even in XP compatible mode. Any/all updates applied. Luckily I have Roxio Creator 2009 and it sees the unit and does its thing. Don't depend on the supplied software. The hardware has been flawless. Copying old VHS and can't tell the difference in quality (I am not a good photog either). Check for updates at the vendor also. I would buy this again. Nice quality feel and looks. I had to have an external unit also. TV tuner works also w/ my antenna.Digital camera Review: Good quality Unit
Summary: 4 Stars
I had an older Hauppauge wintv mpeg 2 external unit and upgraded to this one for the digital tuner. It records well, but the tuner software is worse that with the older unit.
It has no still frame capture, and it wont pan so the video is full screen unless its 16x9 resolution. There are no video adjustments: brightness, contrast, hue, saturation, and no audio adjustments when recording, in case you want to correct all of this when you are capturing video from old vhs tapes or camcorders.
It comes with a very basic version of Ulead movie factory. Dont even bother installing the ulead software, I bought Corel Videostudio Pro X2 on e-bay for $45 and it works super. I wonder why some video editing is always worse than the version before. this has happened to me several times over the last 5 years, you buy the "upgrade" and its got less features and its harder to use. I dont get it. Hope this helps.
Digital camera Review: Good tuner but install instructions a little unclear.
Summary: 4 Stars
Installed mine on Vista machine and it works great. Good picture quality and the remote is nice.
The included instructions didn't seem to match up with the actual installation steps, so it made it a bit tricky to get it up and running. Took about an hour to get it all set up, so not too bad, but if you're not an experienced PC user it might get frustrating.
Digital camera Review: Great product, bad users!
Summary: 4 Stars
I've read a lot of the reviews on this product with the majority of them bad mouthing it. I really like this product and I'll tell you why, but before I do, I'll give you some information on myself: 20 y/o male, currently residing in Greenbelt, MD right on the border of D.C., somewhat tech savvy running Vista Ultimate-32bit and use plain old rabbit ears from an old (and I mean an OLD tv).
Installion was a breeze, as easy as 1-2-3. You connect everything to HVR-1950, plug in your USB cable and vista does the majority of the work for you. The tuner comes with a driver/program cd that Vista will ask you to pop in after not being able to find the drivers online. At this point you can pop in the disk or go to the support site and download the latest version of the driver (which you should have done before hand anyway). Once its installed you can setup Media center or Wintv. I like media better so I can't say anything for Wintv because I haven't used it. Media center TV setup is so Barney style my 7 year old brother could do it on his computer if I'd let him. You follow the steps, read the screens, and push the pretty buttons. Once you've configured the device for MCE, and found all the channels your antenna, cable, or top set, and downloaded the t.v. guide your ready to watch some tv. Now here's where I'm seeing a few people get mush for brains, some stations are still broadcasting in ANALOG (usually the lower channels like 2,4,6,etc. at least in my area)!!! So your not going to get digital clarity from those channels!!! Its going to be fuzzy, have ghosting, etc. The higher channels are DIGITAL!!! So just go through the edit channel menu and delete all those nasty ugly analog channels cause you don't need them.
I was so impressed with the clarity and quality of the digital channels that I actually watched American Idol and Dancing with the stars because it looked that good. The sound was crisp and clear. The only thing I don't like about this thing is I can't record one show and watch another or record two shows and doing something (Like most DVRs let you do) that kind of upset me so I took a star off for that. Also when you record something it makes you watch that channel. If I wanted to watch it I wouldn't be recording it! lol. Even with those minor flaws the thing is amazing and I'm glad I spent the money.