Customer Reviews

Hauppauge 1183 WinTV HVR-1600 Internal PCI Dual TV Tuner/Video Recorder Media Center Kit

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

The installation instructions were abbreviated...a little too abbreviated. The drivers didn't install properly and I was afraid I had made a mistakein buying this card. I downloaded the newest software from the website, and in the process figured out what the problem was with the original install. Once I had that done I started to receive some channels, but not all. It was through a trial error process I was able to figure out that in order to receive all TV channels and FM radio I needed an antenna connected to all three inputs. It's not an easy trick because of the limited space between the connectors. It also makes the back of the PC a little messy. The instructions for the operation software were also quite brief and very vague, and that took some time to work through as well

But I eventually figured everything out and I'm glad I did. Using a P4 2.99 ghz and XP Pro SP 3 and an HP 2207h HD monitor the picture is as clear as it is on my large HDTV. I am very impressed. I've used the record function and it works very well, as does the screen shot feature. Now that it's up and working I think my wife could sit down and watch TV on it with little or no instruction from me, so that learning curve is very short.

Don't expect to stick this card in and be up and running in 5 minutes. And don't buy this card if you are a computer or a/v neophyte - you'll be disappointed. But if you know your way around software installs and enjoy fiddling around with something like this and the satisfaction of getting it working it is does a VERY good job.

This was my first MythTV install, Mythbuntu 8.10, in a leftover P4 system. The HVR-1600 worked like a champ out of the box. The only thing I needed was an external channel changing script to control the IR Blaster for changing channels on my cable box.

I bought this tuner to put in my Windows 7 computer. I have basic analog cable and this tuner is perfect for it. The install was easy, windows media center found the tuner right away. The tuner discovered all my cable channels. Now my computer is my DVR. It is amazing how flawless this works. It is a must have.

I'm usin git right now. I'll tell you this; it took me around 15 minutes total to install and configure it with Windows Media Center 7. The picture quality is excellent, it picks up about all the channels our expensive HDTV can get (using the same type of antenna), and it just generally works great. Um, this works well with Windows 7 if you're wondering. I downloaded the latest driver from hauppauge's site (about 1.1 MB) and voila. Here're my system specs:

Core i7 920 @ 2.66 GHz
WD 640 GB Caviar Black
HD Radeon 4870X2
6 GB of tripple channel DDR3
Intel DX58SO Motherboard

I dont know what has happend with TV card makers but they just cant seem to get it wright.

I owned some WinTV cards back in the old Windows XP early days and they worked perfectly.

Lets start with the installation.

Installed included software on Vista. The driver did not get installed properly and I would get an error each time I installed the software.

I went to the manufacture web site and got the latest software and installed it. What a mess. two different apps fighting. Any way after a system restore (I allways create a restore point now) I install the new software. OK it worked kind of. The Docs stink and the overhead the software has for HD is crazy. With a Dual 3Ghz system with Nvidia 9300 graphics card the thing eats 50-80% of the CPU. This is a sign of very poor Vid capture system. I have tried others and the same video will eat 15% of the CPU.

Lots of lock ups and very poor docs. I took it back. Skip this one if you are smart.

I am very pleased with the HVR-1600 Media Center Kit. I initially had trouble with the analog picture quality (Very grainy w/ bad color) and almost returned the card but decided to do a little checking around on google. I eventually found the answer to my problem. I had used the included Composite to S-Video adapter to feed the composite signal from my satellite box into the S-video port on the card and when setting up the card in media center I chose S-Video as the source (because I was feeding the composite signal into the S-Video port via the adapter). It turns out this was a mistake and the cause of my woes. I went back into media center and set up composite as the source and now the analog picture is excellent. I wonder how many others complaining of poor analog picture quality with this card have made the same mistake.

Everything I read on Amazon said this card works on XP and does exactly what I wanted, especially the Clear QAM channels. Unfortunately when I got the card it says right on the box that XP doesn't support Clear QAM channels! Why is that not on the technical specs for this card on Amazon? It could have saved me the frustration and us both the trouble of shipping it back. If your buying this for a Vista PC with Media Center it is probably a good card but don't bother on XP.

While their tech support answered my question within a day, this card did not work out for me. Installed easily enough, but could not get to work with any of my video editing software programs. It would seem that it either only works with their software, or it has not been tested on any 3rd party software. I have two programs for capture/editing and it would not work with either telling me the video capture driver was not functional. I think these companies should either work on making devices to work with some of the video capture programs out there or at least test it with some of them to let the customer know what they are buying instead of putting the burden of testing on the customer. This ended up being a waste of time for me. However, if you want a capture/tuner card and are OK with only using their software, I'm sure it would work out fine for you.

There is almost no support at all on their web site, only the updated drivers. The only recourse you have is emailing them if you have a problem. If you install this card and have a problem getting it to work, you're pretty much on your own.

I wouldn't recommend it only because I have not seen it work. It is being returned.

Got this to upgrade my video on my Microsoft Media Center PC. The card installed without any issues, followed the advise of others and downloaded the latest drivers from on line. The only issue I found after installing and updating the drivers which loaded without any issues, was when viewing live video I noticed the video would stutter after a few min of viewing. To make a long story short, after your drivers have been loaded and you go into MCE to update your system for the new turner card, MCE has to download/sync the guide with the card. I found out the hard way that my internet connection was down and the system kept displaying that the MCE could not download the new guide, I paid little attention to this because I thought the guide was up to date any ways so I did not think it was a big deal. Wrong, I found after I got the internet connection backup and running and completed the new tuner card installation in MCE with a download of the guide, that all my problems cleared up. No more video and audio stuttering. I was very happy. My video quality is as good as my old Hauppauge TV card.

I installed this with Vista 64 bit system running 6G of DDR2 memory on an E6600 processor, downloaded the latest drivers and the media center setup package from Hauppauge, and it works perfect. With it's on board Mpeg encoder, it only uses about 10% of the processor for live tv and runs smoothly. Make sure to use an actual S-Video cable from your cable box, and not the included S-Video to RCA adapter. With S-Video cable, the picture is near HD quality, as I comppared them side to side with my HD TV. I would highly recomend this card.