Hauppauge WinTV-PVR-150 PCI TV Tuner with Remote Control (1045)

by Hauppauge

Product Details

Supplementary Guide [1.17mb PDF]

• Item Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B0006FS2IQ
• Item model number: 1045
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (73 customer reviews)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: July 7, 2004

Product Description

From the Manufacturer

Ever been called to the phone, had to answer the door, or went for a snack and missed part of the big match? With WinTV-PVR, you'll never miss the action again. Just click on WinTV-PVR's "One Touch Pause" button to pause your TV program, click again to continue watching where you left off. Then fast forward to catch up to the live broadcast. WinTV-PVR-150 puts TV watching under your control! Watch TV on your PC screen (in a window or full screen), digitally record your TV shows, or pause live TV and create your own instant replay.

Record your TV programs or home videos onto DVD or CD, and play them on your DVD player! If you have a DVD burner in your PC, use the WinTV-PVR’s MPEG files with the included Ulead DVD MovieFactory to author your own home DVD’s. Turn your TV shows or home videos into DVD movies!PEG-2 video is sent over the PCI bus, where it is stored on the PCs hard disk. The video can also be played back to the PC screen while recording.

WinTV-PVR-150 contains a high quality 10-bit video digitizer with 4 line adaptive comb filter to reduce video noise, plus a highly integrated MPEG-1/2 hardware encoder. WinTV-PVR-150 can record full screen TV or video at data rates from 2.5 to 12 Mbits/sec from TV, VCR or camcorder. The encoded MPEG-2 video is sent over the PCI bus, where it is stored on the PCs hard disk. The video can also be played back to the PC screen while recording.

Create your own Digital Video Recorder! The WinTV-PVR-150 turns your PC into a digital video recorder. Record TV program or home videos to disk, play them back to your PC screen or burn them onto DVD. With data rates from 4.4MBits/sec up to 12Mbits/sec (or as low as 1 Mbit/sec with VCD formats), you decide how much hard disk space your videos will consume. At DVD quality, a typical one hour TV show will take 2 gigabytes of hard disk space. Control your cable TV or satellite set top box with WinTV-PVR-150’s IR Blaster. Both WinTV2000 and the WinTV-Scheduler can automatically control the channel on your set top box, so you no longer need to manually change set top box channels.The IR Blaster cable is one meter in length. Position the infrared transmitter over your set top box's infrared receiver, and the WinTV-PVR-150 can send channel change commands to the set top box via the infrared transmitter. The IR Blaster has 300 different set top boxes it can control.

WinTV-PVR's pause feature gives you control of what you watch in your WinTV window. Get personal "instant replay" to stop the action when you want to analyze a key scene. Instantly rewind and replay the action again. You're in control with WinTV-PVR! WinTV-PVR-150 puts TV watching under your control! Watch TV on your PC screen (in a window or full screen), digitally record your TV shows, or pause live TV and create your own instant replay.

Features and Benefits

• Schedule your TV recordings on a daily, weekly or once only schedule With link to TitanTV.com, the on-line electronic program guide
• Record your TV shows to disk using the built-in hardware MPEG-2 encoder. Uses from 1-2 Gigabytes per hour of recorded video. While recording, the WinTV-PVRs' hardware MPEG encoder does all the work so your PC continues to run at full speed
• Turn your TV shows and home videos into DVD or CD. Includes Ulead DVD MovieFactory for disk burning
• Now with IR Blaster, to control set top boxes
• You can cut and trim your videos without losing video quality using WinTV-Editor

Product Description

For sale is a used but in excellent condition Hauppauge USA WinTV-PVR-150 PCI TV tuner recorder card. Note that only the bare card is for sale, there's no remote control.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

58 of 58 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Product - does what it says, March 26, 2005

By 

Skillset "skillset" (nj) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Hauppauge WinTV-PVR-150 PCI TV Tuner with Remote Control (1045) (Personal Computers)

I wanted to put a TV in my child's play room, which also had a computer. This device enables me to use the computer as a TV. It works great, my 4 year old has no problem using it.

I installed the device in my only PCI slot, hooked my cable coax into it, started my PC, and the drivers automatically loaded. I have XP SP2. The whole process took about 10 minutes. The software then starts and after about 5 minutes, goes through the cable channels to store the channels. Then, you are ready to go.

The unit is equipped with a remote. The remote points to an "eye". The eye is attached to a medium-sized small cord that is attached to the PCI card (under the coax cable). You are able to position the eye where you want it, although the cord the eye is on is not long. If you have a desktop sitting on the floor, it will barely reach the top of a computer desk. I taped the cord just under my keyboard shelf, so the remote needs to be pointed low.

The functionality of the software is great. You can change the channel with the computer or remote. There is a button to enable "full screen" on the computer, but not on the remote. The picture is excellent. The ability to pause live TV, or record ad-hoc or timed works extremely well.

This is a great product.

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Extremely FRUSTRATING lack of support, October 3, 2005

By 

Polo Guy (CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Hauppauge WinTV-PVR-150 PCI TV Tuner with Remote Control (1045) (Personal Computers)

I've had the PVR150 for several months. Prospective buyers should be aware of the following:

-- The card has audio problems. Audio levels, especially from the card's Line Input are too high, which results in clipped audio. And -- get this -- there is NO WAY TO ADJUST AUDIO INPUT LEVELS ON THIS CARD. Hauppauge has acknowledged the problem but so far (it's been 9 months) have been unable to fix it. In fact their "workaround" has been to install an audio limiter in their driver which automatically clips all audio at +6dB. A few months ago they were offering customers who complained about the issue free exchanges for PVR250's, which does not have the same problem as the 150. Not sure if Hauppauge is still offering this exchange.

-- The card's video also has substantial problems. Particularly with some graphics adapters (most notably ATI), at normal contrast levels whites are extremely overexposed. If one compensates by decreasing the contrast so that whites are properly exposed, darker colors are completely washed out and most detail is lost. And Hauppauge's tech support so far has been worthless trying to address (or even acknowledge) the problem.

-- Other problems exist, such as "judder" (constant skipping) when recording from VHS source and fast forwarding to a different part of the tape, or when the included capture software (WinTV2000) is paused or muted for too long. Hauppauge's "fix" is telling customers to revert from DirectX 9.0c to 9.0b, but as many of you know, this may require a complete reinstall of your operating system.

I believe this is a case where Conexant, the manufacturer of the PVR150's hardware MPEG encoder, brought a product to market well before it was ready. They attempted to combine the functions of separate video and audio controllers (which were in fact separate chips on the PVR250) into a single chip, with lower power draw and much lower manufacturing cost. In my opinion they fell short. I strongly advise against the PVR150.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars If they would send you the right card, April 3, 2007

By 

M. Williams - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Hauppauge WinTV-PVR-150 PCI TV Tuner with Remote Control (1045) (Personal Computers)

I am not the first person to have this problem. What I received was in fact a WinTv-HVR-1600. Which is not at all the same as a WinTV-PVR-150 because it does not have Linux drivers. Then I had to go to the trouble of calling Haupauge to get them to switch it out. Had to pay shipping to send them the 150. More than a week went by before I was able to build my MythTV Box.