Customer Reviews

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

5 star:		(32)
4 star:		(21)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

I bought this product and it works great. I had previously bought the ATI TV wonder pro remote control edition, and had to return it because they software wouldn't work right with my computer. I exchanged it for this one and am very glad I did. the WIN-TV PVR does everything I need it to do, and seems to have a little better quality than the ATI one, even though it still isnt nearly as good as TV quality. The software works great; however there are a few problems I have found:

1: I haven't figured out how to open the videos and make them work with programs other than the program they give you. I've tried changing the record format, but it doesn't change it. Therefore, I can't record a show while I'm watching one I've already recorded.

2:The TV guide is online and is a pain to try and get it to work with the program scheduler because it requires that you download a file and doesnt work all the time.

3: Sometimes when I am watching a recorded show, I will pause and then hit the Play button, but then it will reset the video back to the beginning, and I can't figure out what I'm doing wrong. It doesnt do it all the time though, and if it does it it's not the end of the world because I can just drag the slider back to where I was.

Other than these minor problems, the recorder works great, and I would recommend it to anyone looking for a PVR.

I tried to set up a PVR using my computer on the cheap on my less than state of the art computer (Pentium 4 2.2ghz). I experimented with a cheap tv card and half a dozen freeware software applications. I wish I could have the time back trying to set up all those lame products. The first thing that's essential that the cheaper tv cards don't have is an onboard chip to encode the video. Software encoding-how the cheap cards work- totally bogged down the computer. Tying together all the bits and pieces--cable box, remote, drivers, software can be a major headache. The Hauppauge card bundles a decent remote and ir emitter. This is a big plus. In light of that the $91 and free shipping made it a deal. This is only half the solution though as the software provided is not worthy of this fine hardware. I tried all the software out there for Windows-except for the expensive Windows media center-the only thing that works is Beyond TV. No other software is even close. The Beyond TV software is designed to work mainly with the Hauppage products. The IR emitter did not work satisfactorily for my Motorola cable box, but luckily I was able to control that with a serial cable connection. The TV picture is better than what I got directly from my cable box, though there is sometimes a slight, almost imperceptible, jerkiness. A Hauppage card, Beyond TV and your computer will bring you an excellent PVR experience. With a big Harddrive and a video card with tv-out, you're there.

Have had this card for about a year now and outside of a known issue of the recording audio being loud (I can live with it)it has been a dynamite tv card for me. I have a shuttle MB (Athlon 2.6Ghz)1Gb mem, 120GB HD. I select the TV shows via TitanTV (included - card works directly with it), it records it to the HD, then I watch it on my TV via my GoVideo network DVD player. If I don't want the commercials in the recording I edit them out with VideoRedo Plus. Works very sweet indeed....

I just received this tuner several days ago and it works great. Although this isn't the "Media Center Edition (MCE) " version, it is very compatible and allows me to watch TV through MCE along with all of the other features available through MCE (pause and record live tv, transfer to disc etc..) The only problem is that the remote is not compatible with MCE. I didn't read everything thoroughly and should have ordered the MCE kit that comes with a MCE certified remote. I don't want to be stuck with a remote that doesn't work. I was going to keep this tuner and just order a new MCE certified remote separately but the remote itself runs for a min of $40. So, I'm sending this tuner/remote back and ordering the WINTV-PVR-150 MCE Bundle which comes with the MCE remote and also has an FM tuner.

I don't wish to disparage Hauppage lightly, because I love the concept--recording TV on the PC! And, Hauppage definitely has a good idea and a decent implementation. I am also in awe of the many positive reviews I have read. I did watch TV (sdtv is the only possible reception with this unit; not hdtv) and can say the picture and tuner worked OK.

I just got a bad unit, perhaps. The remote control never worked on my fully updated Windows 2000 PC. I adjusted the card and the cable, fiddled with the software, updated all the drivers from the Hauppage web site, read the manual, read the online tips and advice, and rebooted Windows many times. All of this was in vain, because I got the same error over and over again: "Failed to initialize IR remote hardware." In addition, the light for the IR receiver never came on.

Without a remote control, this unit is at best cumbersome to operate as a television tuner, so it was an easy decision to make a return, which was expensive to me not only in money, but more so in time. Overall, I lost about 12 hours researching, purchasing, receiving, installing, uninstalling, and returning the Hauppage PVR-150.

I would consider very carefully your needs before making the plunge with a PC-based PVR recorder. Even disregarding my problem with the remote control, it was apparent to me that the technology at this time is far from plug-n-play and requires substantial "fiddle-time". Perhaps if you are unemployed or a student then time is not a primary concern.

This is the first TV card I've bought and I must say I am very pleased with its quality and the simple/stable software that comes with it. However, my primary reason for buying the card was to hook my video game systems to it. After using it, I found by the hardware's very nature, there is a percievable 1-2 second lag between the signal going into the unit and the signal being displayed on screen. This is no big deal if you're just watching TV or other non-interactive media, but for gaming this just won't do. There is hope however! While you cannot ever completely eliminate the lag, it can be significantly reduced by a simple adjustment in the registry. This info is straight from Hauppauge tech support:

Go to the registry by clicking on start/run and type regedit; browse to the following location HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\hauppauge\hcwtvwnd\ look for LivePreview, double click it and and change the Value Data to 1. Hit OK and your done. WARNING: Be careful that you ONLY adjust the registry data specified unless you know what your doing; messing with your registry can cause undesired operation of windows.

Following these steps did not completely elimate the lag on my computer but it reduced it significantly. As a test I watched WinTV alongside a real television and found that I could only hear a slight echo effect, meaning the signal speed on my computer was indeed much faster.

If you can deal with that slight lag, go with WinTV; if you want to play your game system in true real-time on a computer monitor you'll need RCA to VGA converter (sometimes called a VGA box), make sure the box you buy supports S-Video inputs and that you have an S-video cord supported by your game system (the MADCATZ Universal Game System S-video/audio Cable has served me well) because using S-video noticably reduces blurred colors on a monitor. You can expect to spend around 50 - 60 bucks on a decent vga box, tho there are more expensive high-end versions floating around. Make sure you read reviews to get the best video quality for your buck.

Finally, I know the Xbox 360 has a cable specifically made for it that allows you to directly hook it to a monitor, and I believe the Playstation 3 will have a special-made cable available as well. If you have those systems, getting those cables will likely be your easiest option.

After researching various capture cards, I decided to go with this one, as the ATI cards seemed buggy and the other Hauppauge cards were out of my price range. Overall I am satisfied with this product.

Initially, I followed the advice of a video help website and avoided using the software that came with the card, and opted instead to install the newest drivers and programs found on the website. This was a mistake. After hours of hassle, I decided to give the CD a try, and it made the card work.

Video quality meets my needs. The card seems to be rather incompatible with programs that capture in AVI format (notably Virtualdub), although I have been able to configure VirtualVCR to capture in a variety of AVI compressions. However, I may opt to capture in MPEG format using the software provided - it looks pretty good, and you can capture in a variety of MPEG formats (MPEG-2 for straight to DVD, or lower levels of quality for size and editing considerations).

The card comes with software that allows you to easily edit your captured MPEGs (like for cutting out commercials). It also comes with a program that allows you to schedule future recordings ala Tivo, which is very neat.

I have not yet hooked the card up to a VCR, although I plan on eventually backing up my home movie collection to digital media with this card.

Overall, I recommend this card.