Hauppauge WinTV-PVR-150MCE Personal Video Recorder (1042)

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Product Details

Supplementary Guide [177kb PDF]

• Item Weight: 2.9 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B00064GI2O
• Item model number: 1042
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (73 customer reviews)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: September 23, 2004

Product Description

From the Manufacturer

WinTV-PVR-150MCE brings live TV, FM radio and TV recording to Windows XP Media Center Edition

Add TV and FM radio to your Windows XP Media Center Edition PC with the Hauppauge WinTV-PVR-150MCE. The WinTV-PVR-150MCE has the best video quality of any Media Center TV tuner, plus adds FM radio.

Use up to two WinTV-PVR-150MCE's in a Media Center 2005 system
Watch one TV channel while recording another by installing two WinTV-PVR-150's in a Media Center system. If you already have a Media Center system with a Hauppauge WinTV-PVR, you can add a second WinTV-PVR.

The WinTV-PVR-150MCE also runs with third party applications like BeyondTV and SageTV, too.
You can also use the WinTV-PVR-150MCE under Windows XP to watch TV in a window and record your TV shows by using applications like SageTV and BeyondTV. These applications are great if you already have a Windows XP system and would like to add TV watching and recording.

For Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 users

• Watch TV with the MyTV button on Media Center Edition. You can install up to two WinTV-PVR-150MCE's in a Media Center 2005 system.
• Use the Media Center Edition TV scheduler to record your TV shows to disk
• WinTV-PVR-150MCE's built-in hardware MPEG encoder allows you to continue to use your computer while recording. Listen to music, watch digital pictures or play a DVD movie while recording!
• Listen to FM radio while you work on your PC
• Record your home videos to disk. WinTV-PVR-150MCE includes audio/video inputs to connect to VCRs and camcorders
• Note: the WinTV-PVR-150MCE does not come with a remote control or a software DVD decoder. If you are building Media Center systems, please check with Microsoft for a list of MCE certified remote controls and DVD decoders.

For Windows XP users

• Compatible with third party applications like BeyondTV, SageTV and Showshifter for watching and recording TV on your PC
• Note: there is no remote control included with the WinTV-PVR-150MCE

WinTV-PVR-150MCE includes

• 125 channel cable ready TV tuner, NTSC or PAL
• High quality MPEG-2 video and audio encoder based on the Conexant -416 MPEG encoder
• Composite/s-video plus stereo audio inputs to connect to VCR, camcorders or set top boxes
• Auxiliary A/V header on-board for connecting to an audio/video input set
• dbx-TV stereo decoder (Nicam stereo decoder in Europe)
• FM radio receiver
• Note: There are two models of WinTV-PVR-150: one for NTSC television and one for PAL television. The PAL model supports PAL I, PAL B/G, Secam and PAL D/K.

MPEG record specifications

• MPEG2 record datarates: 2 Mbps, 4 Mbps, 6 Mbps, 8 Mbps, 12 Mbps. Selections for DVD Standard play (8 Mbps), DVD Long Play (4 Mbps) and DVD Extra Long Play (2.5 Mbps)
• NTSC format at 29.97fps: Full D1: 720x480
• PAL format at 25fps: Full D1: 720x576, MPEG1: 352x288
• Audio capture formats: 44.1/48 KHz, 16bit stereo, 192/224/384Kbps
• Video digitizer: 10 bits
• Chroma sampling: YUV 4:2:2
• Four line adaptive comb filter for both NTSC and PAL to remove dot crawl
• Fast video locking for security camera applications
• Video file format: .MPG
• MPEG file tested compatible with: MediaStudio 6.0, MyDVD and DVD MovieFactory DVD authoring applications

System Requirements

• Processor requirements: Pentium IV processor 1.2GHz or faster for TV pause with full screen playback
• Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005, Windows XP Home or Windows XP Professional Note: when using the WinTV-PVR-150MCe with Windows XP, you need a third party TV application such as MythTV, SageTV or BeyondTV
• Free PCI slot
• Sound card
• VGA card (PCI or AGP) with Media Center 2005 certified driver
• DVD decoder certified for use with Media Center 2005

Product Description

Just plug the WinTV-PVR-150 MCE into an open PCI slot in your PC, install the Media Center driver, and you can watch TV with Media Center's MyTV button!WinTV-PVR-150 MCE allows you to upgrade your Media Center PC or laptop by adding a TV tuner and FM radio. Record your favorite TV shows to your hard disk, or pause live TV and create your own instant replay!The WinTV-PVR-150 uses a hardware MPEG-2 encoder, so you don't slow down your PC while recording. With MPEG data rates from 2 to 8Mbits/sec, you decide how much hard disk space your videos will consume (the lower the data rates, the less disk space your videos will consume, but with lower video quality).

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

128 of 128 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Low Cost Option, November 1, 2005

By	Harvey Ramos "Geek" (Springfield, VA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This is among the least expensive hardware capture cards on the market (if not THE least expensive). The video quality, performance, and usuability are great with or without Windows MCE. I happen to use this card on my XP Home system and did not have any problems during installation or otherwise.

This is a "Hardware-based" capture card. Which means that the card comes with hardware onboard that handles all of the processing to convert your TV signal to a file on your computer. Software-based cards use your CPU for this. The advantage is that with a hardware based card you can actually use your computer while recording as the CPU usage is minimal (I actually don't see any CPU usage on my machine), compared to a software card which uses almost all of your CPU. This also means that you can use an older or slower computer to watch/record TV without suffering any performance issues. In the past, software cards were much cheaper than hardware, but Hauppauge's line has brought the cost down so that now there really isnt a reason to choose anything but a hardware card.

The MCE version of Hauppauge's PVR-150 differs from the "regular" non-MCE version because it does NOT come with *ANY* software other than drivers and it adds an FM radio tuner. The regular version comes with a remote and software to control the PVR-150, but no FM radio. There is only one TV tuner so you can only watch or record one channel at a time.

Since the 150MCE doesn't come with any software, you will have to control it with another program. Windows MCE can do this, but if you have XP Home or Pro you will need to use 3rd party software like BeyondTV and SageTV, or free ones like the open source MediaPortal. Since the card outputs MPEG2, you need to have installed a DVD player like Intervideo WinDVD or Cyberlink PowerDVD in order to watch TV (decode MPEG2). If you have an Nvidia card, you can use Nvidia's PureVideo Decoder which gives probably the nicest picture. Note that decoding (watching TV or your recorded movies) does take up some CPU, about 10% on my computer. If your computer came with a DVD player or burner you likely already have this software. And if not, most DVD burners come with it, so if you don't already have one you can get a DVD burner for around $50 and get the software thrown in.

For those with quality issues, check with the software you are using and try to increase the bitrate. This will lead to less "artifacts" (looks like a bad JPG), and smoother video. Obviously the filesize will increase per recording, but hard drives are so cheap now that you can afford to get a bigger drive to accomodate. You will have to adjust the settings to find what is an acceptable compromise between filesize and quality. Just for reference, I usually record with a variable bitrate with an average of 5000 and a max of 6000 which lets me fit about 2hrs on a DVD. In your decoding software adjusting the interlace method also gives good results (choose from bob, weave, or both). I rank the decoding software as Nvidia PureVideo, WinDVD, PowerDVD from best to worst as far as quality goes, but it is really a matter of personal taste.

Other options to consider are obviously the regular PVR-150 which adds software and a remote (but you lose the FM radio), and the PVR-500 which comes in both regular and MCE versions as well. The PVR-500 has two tuners so you can watch one program and record another or record two shows at the same time which is very nice. Just like the PVR-150MCE, the PVR-500MCE comes without software or remote control, but adds an FM radio. FYI, the PVR-500 is essentially two PVR-150 tuners on the same board, so quality is the same. There is also a low-profile version of this card.

34 of 39 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars very good picture quality, November 16, 2004

By	David (southern California) - See all my reviews

I'm using the pvr 150mce with my home-built computer with p4 3.0, ati radeon 9600, win xp mce 2005. i connected my analog cable TV signal into the pvr 150 ... and i could not get a picture. then i went to the hauppauge website to download the latest driver (which has support for win mce). then there was an error saying that i didn't have the dvd decoder software. i downloaded power dvd 5 and windvd 6 to see which offered better picture quality. finally, i could watch tv and play dvds on the computer. windvd 6 gave better quality, making the picture quality about the same as cable tv on a regular tv.

in summary, if you don't mind tinkering a bit (eg, downloading drivers and installing new software), you'll be very happy with the end result. i also have tivo downstairs with a regular tv. mce 2005 is very slick, in some ways the menus and interface is slicker than tivo. however, tivo is still a bit more user friendly. for example, when fast forwarding past commercials, then hitting play, tivo will automatically start playing at a point several seconds before you stopped fast forward, knowing that people will overshoot the commercial. mce 2005 doesn't have this important feature.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Card, June 1, 2006

By	Eyal Kattan (Jersey City, NJ USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

PROS:
Installed under Windows XP MCE in less than 10 minutes.
Picture quality is pretty good (using S-Video feed from my satellite set-top box).
Drivers installed with no problem at all and I was able to pause live tv as well as record TV programs.

CONS:
As an audio fanatic, I hold great value to good quality of sound and unfortunately, this is where this card failed my criteria.
As a satellite subscriber, all my audio is wired with optical cables and coax cables. This guarantee the delivery of digital audio accross the entire system as satellite is 100% digital.
for some reason this card (and actually all TV cards) offers 2 RCA inputs for audio. This means that whatever you record is converted to 2 analog channels - NO DOLBY DIGITAL
I wonder why they are not using the audio card on the pc as a resource for the audio. most pc's today comes with digital audio input.

CONCLUSION:
While I would love to see TV cards with digital audio input I think for this price this card is an excellent value.

There's another detailed review by "Harvey Ramos" named: "Great Low Cost Option, November 1, 2005" that you may want to read as well.

P.S: This is the Windows XP Media Center Edition version of the card. You must have all your hardware (video card, CPU, Remote control etc..) supported by Windows XP MCE, otherwise this card will not work correctly.
Also this version comes with no remote control (the assumption is that you already have one) and a fairly simple installation guide.