Hauppauge-WinTV-PVR-USB 2.0 TV Tuner/Personal Video Recorder

by Hauppauge

Product Details

• Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B0000AL8XX
• Item model number: 941
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (40 customer reviews)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: March 3, 2004

Product Description

From the Manufacturer

Watch and record TV or home videos over USB on your PC or laptop. Burn your TV shows onto DVD or CD!

• Watch and record TV on your PC or laptop, in a window or full screen!
• Pause TV with instant replay, or listen to FM radio!
• Turn your PC or laptop into a Digital Video recorder. Record TV or home videos to disk using our high quality hardware MPEG-2 compression!
• Burn your videos onto DVD or CD. Includes Ulead DVD MovieFactory to create DVD disks!
• Plugs into your PC or laptop's USB 2.0 port (or USB 1.1) for easy installation. Also includes remote control.

WinTV-PVR-USB2 Also Includes These Great Features:

• 125 channel cable ready TV tuner for TV in a window (or full screen). Surf the net while you watch TV on your PC screen!
• No need to open your PC: Works best with USB 2.0. Will also work with USB 1.1.
• Composite/S-Video and audio inputs to connect to VCR, camcorders or satellite receivers.
• Built-in hardware MPEG-2 encoder. Record TV or videos to disk using from 1-2 Gigabytes of disk space 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. Over USB 2.0, the WInTV-PVR-USB2 can record at up to 12MBits/sec. On USB 1.1, recording is limited to 6MBits/ec.
• Turn your home video tapes into MPEG movies, then burn them onto CD or DVD! Includes composite/ s-video and audio inputs to connect to VCR or camcorders.
• Pause live TV with instant replay, fast forward and rewind.
• dbx-TV stereo decoder, for great TV sound.
• WinTV-Scheduler: schedule your TV recordings on a daily, weekly or once only schedule. Also supports TitanTV, the on-line electronic program guide.
• WinTV-Editor: trim your videos without losing video quality.
• Ulead DVD MovieFactory: Make DVD's from your video recordings. Add chapters, make DVD titles, then burn. You can also make VCD or SVCD's.

System Requirements

• Pentium III processor 733 MHz or faster, 128 MB RAM and 10 GB disk drive minimum recommended
• Microsoft Windows XP/98SE/Me/2000
• Available USB 2.0 or 1.1 port (works faster on USB 2.0)
• Sound card
• Optional: CD-RW or DVD writer for burning your videos or TV shows onto Video CD, S-Video CD or DVD

What's in the Box

WinTV-PVR-USB2 device with 125 channel cable ready TV tuner, FM radio receiver, MPEG-2 hardware audio/video encoder

Remote control transmitter

Wall mounted power supply

1 meter USB cable

FM radio antenna

WinTV-PVR-USB2 CD-ROM includes:

• WinTV application for Live TV on your PC screen, plus Pause and Record
• WinTV-Scheduler for scheduling your TV recording, with link to the TitanTV on-line electronic program guide
• WinTV-Editor to edit your home videos or TV recordings
• Ulead DVD MovieFactory 2 for creating and burning DVDs, VCDs and S-VCDs

Product Description

Hauppauge Computer Works (941) WinTV-PVR-usb2

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

40 of 41 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Quality and functionality overshadow bugginess, May 31, 2004

By 

C. Church "dagmar" (West Hollywood, CA United States) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Hauppauge-WinTV-PVR-USB 2.0 TV Tuner/Personal Video Recorder (Personal Computers)

As promised, this device turned my computer into a TiVo-like system. The quality of the video image is superb--as good as it gets until you move up into high-definition TV. Setup was quick and didn't require any tweaking of my graphics card or sound card. Running the video over USB2 doesn't seem to slow down my system at all (2.2GHz Celeron with 256MB RAM).
I have the same kind of "plug-unplug-and-play" problem on Windows XP Home that the other reviewer mkirpalani has; it's annoying but the thing is still fully functional after you unplug it and plug it in again. Hopefully this can be fixed with a driver improvement from Hauppauge--hello Hauppauge engineers?
The included TV and FM radio software work great, but they aren't completely intuitive. Once you learn how it works it's OK, but it definitely feels like an early version of the software. Again software upgrades should improve the user-friendliness.
The remote control unit works exactly like a TV remote, allowing me to lie in bed across the room and vegetate. The added bonus is that you can rewind and pause and fast-forward through live TV, and record stuff on the PC's hard drive too.
I think the speed and efficiency of the USB2 technology are the key to getting high-quality video and stereo audio from the WinTV, and this thing uses it to maximum benefit. Overall this is an amazing and high-quality device that just needs a few small software improvements.

22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Once installed it works great, July 12, 2005

By 

G. Russell "gruss" (Toledoish, OH) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Hauppauge-WinTV-PVR-USB 2.0 TV Tuner/Personal Video Recorder (Personal Computers)

First off, this thing really does do a nice job, high quality captures with the audio synched perfectly. Capturing at vcd quality from a cable feed is perfectly watchable, DVD quality even better. Programs are not exactly intuitive, but basic functions are obvious.
Getting the thing installed is a whole different experience. I'm an IT guy that is no stranger to gadgets and this is by far one of the hardest peices of equipment to get working I've ever tried. I've now managed to get it working on 2 different pcs, neither install was the same, to many difficulties to list here, but it is working, plan on 45 minutes to 2 hours per pc, depending on issues/knowledge.
Tech support emailed me back the next day with some helpful hints (In plain English) that got it working on the 1st pc so I'll give em credit for that.
All encoding is done "in the box" but on my aging pIII 450 384 meg ram(min requirements state PII 750 Yeah right) using as a TV is not happening, video is jerky and nothing I tried helps, BUT recordings (TIVO like) work perfectly now. As soon as the wintv2k prg is started processor is at 100% and the pc is useless for anything else. I'm going to try a slightly better video card and see if that helps since I dont want to fry my "file server".
Now on the Centrino/PM 1.4 notebook TV looks fantastic, and the pc is usable while capturing/watching tv. So its going to do exactly what I wanted, for the most part record programs on the seldom used older pc that I remote into most of the time and convert 8mm to DVD on the Notebook in the best quality I can. Its been a while since i messed around with vid capture stuff and having it create mpegs instead of the proprietary junk I used before is nice, recorded shows can be watched on practically any pc, you dont need to make a vcd/dvd if you dont want just grap the mpeg!
So I wish I could break it up:
Installation/Instructions: 1 star
Software/tech support: 3 stars
Product capability: 5 stars

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Solid product & easy to install, January 10, 2005

By 

John S. Luff (Irving, TX United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Hauppauge-WinTV-PVR-USB 2.0 TV Tuner/Personal Video Recorder (Personal Computers)

I initally bought the Avermedia MDVDEZUSB External Video Capture Device. That thoroughly depressed me with the concept of USB video capture since I couldn't really do anything with it.

I returned that, and then decided to spend a little more money to get this product. This thing took all of 10 mins for me to install, and in no time I was watching TV on my computer. The quality of the pictures was really good, even in full screen. I also transferred some footage from a VCR tape to the computer without trouble and then proceeded to burn a DVD - all of this was smooth and easy. I have USB 2.0 connections, which may have helped (the box says USB 1.1 will limit the ability of this device slightly).

The product is a little pricey, but you get what you pay for I guess. The previous product I got was just $50 or so, but since it didn't work at all, the extra expenditure in this case seemed well worth it.

I would definitely recommend this product.

UPDATE: Well, after 3 months of use the thing stopped working! The computer wouldn't recognize it anymore, and even trying to install it on my office laptop didn't work, pointing to a problem with the unit itself. I called tech support, and they asked my to mail it in. 5 days later, they called to tell me they are mailing me a new one. Despite the problems I had, I would give this product 6 out of 5 stars if I could, simply because of the excellent customer service.