Hauppauge 1120CN WinTV-HVR-950 Hybrid Video Recorder
by HAUPPAUGE
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Our Price: $299.99 Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Category: CE See more product details |
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Customers in the UK,
Buy this product at amazon.co.uk
for British Pounds
Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Hauppauge 1120CN WinTV-HVR-950 Hybrid Video Recorder
Customer Review: Big disappointment
Summary: 1 Stars
This is the first product I have returned to Amazon, I have been a customer for about five years. The tuner seems very much like a beta product, rushed to market without much thought to reliability or ease of use.
Perhaps the problem is user expectation. I am used to a TV working almost instantly when I press 'ON.' With the HVR 950, pressing 'ON' did not yield results after four-hours of set up. The first problem was that the HVR 950 does not support Windows Vista out of the box. There is no inkling of this problem until you Google PVR 950 Vista and download the new drivers. After much tweaking I got it to scan the cable channels but then discovered that if I want to use Windows Media Center, I was SOL...no support for that either--I downloaded a patch, but it did not work. So I used the native interface to choose a program to record went away (leaving the laptop on of course) and got home to watch the program only to be greeted by an error message.
After the next two days I got the HVR 950 to work once, all of the other times I just got the title screen with the Empire State Building on it. I am not sure what was wrong. Of course I could not test it using Over the Air signals because the PVR 950 instructions recommend that you do not use the included antenna for OTR setup--Why include something and then basically say it is probably not going to work? This instruction is another indication that this product is really a beta release and has long to go before it is as easy to use or as reliable as a conventional television.
Customer Review: works great with Linux!
Summary: 5 Stars
Purchased this unit four years ago to explore digital broadcast tv reception on desktop and notebook computers. This usb tuner stick came with a handy small portable antenna and several CDs of software for Windows (which I promptly threw away).
This tuner stick will work out of the box under Mac OS X using the EyeTV software client. But even better, there is good support for this stick under Linux using the Video4Linux driver suite and KDE's Kaffeine media player. Simply extract the stick's firmware from a driver file (available on-line), copy the firmware file to /lib/firmware, then download, build, and install the latest v4l source from linuxtv.org. Next, launch kaffeine, select the stick dvb device (which appears as an LG Electronics dvb frontend), scan for your local channels, save your channel file, and start watching TV!
I don't know why this unit is currently listed as $6 more than the newer 950Q (which supports viewing of cable clear QAM stations) or $10 more than the other 950 model with remote control - curious pricing structure!
This stick is a good investment for a Linux-compatible device, and can also help save you money if you can only afford OTA broadcast TV. Many other free software packages can be used with this stick to build inexpensive media centers, set-top boxes, or personal video recorders (I currently use my hvr-950 on my Asus Eee PC 1000 to watch digital TV - works great!).
Customer Review: A skeptic, I was...
Summary: 5 Stars
I've been looking for a USB HDTV Tuner mainly to watch TV from my laptop and I came across this one. I was choosing between this Hauppauge WINTV HVR-950 or the Pinnacle PCTV HD Pro Stick. The PCTV seems to have more accessories as it includes an A/V adapter cable and a Mini remote control. It also seems as good as the WINTV HVR-950 in terms of performance, basing that opinion solely on Amazon and CompUSA reviews. However, the price difference swayed me to take the plunge and try the WINTV HVR-950. The A/V adapter cable and a Mini remote control would have been nice BUT I did not think it was worth the extra cost.
I wasn't expecting much from this USB Tuner but it blew me away! It is awesome! I connected this tuner to a 1.6MHZ Intel Centrino M with 1GB of RAM. I was expecting the picture to be choppy but it pulled in 31 digital over-the-air channels in my area and stations broadcasting in HDTV came in very clear. The tuner is software-based and there is a noticeable lag when switching channels. Since my expectations were not very high, this wasn't an issue for me. It would be sweet watching HDTV from the airport while waiting for my next flight. Overall, I'm extremely impressed with this product and I recommend it.
Customer Review: Very Good for High Def, Not so good for Analog
Summary: 4 Stars
The antenna provided can pick up a fair number of ATSC channels in the Greater Boston area. The picture quality for those channels -- especially the HDTV broadcasts -- on my laptop is stunning. The programs I have recorded also look very good, though I can notice dropped frames here and there -- which is probably due to limitations of my laptop as well as antenna reception.
When I connect the coaxial cable from my Comcast Digital box, the picture quality is worse than what I get directly on TV. I wouldn't recommend it for recording Cable Channel programs using this device or software.
The WinTV software that comes with the product is very basic. I downloaded trial versions of softwares from Beyond TV and SageTV, and had better experience with them. I also noticed better picture quality for analog cable channels when I used Beyond TV software instead of WinTV.
For better experience with this product I would recommend: (a) More powerful HDTV antenna, and (b) Better PVR Software like Beyond TV or Sage TV.
I have a dual core laptop (XP Home) with 1 Gig memory and a decent ATI graphics card, so I didn't face any major performance issues -- except perhaps when recording.
Customer Review: I did not expect much and was amazed
Summary: 5 Stars
I was recently thinking about getting cable for our HTPC/Projector setup. Until recently, we were just watching DVDs, but that does not allow for high-quality live TV, like sports. However, I was not interested in the additional 150+ channels of nonsense, clunky hardware, three additional remotes and price that comes with cable or dish. So I saw this gadget and thought ok, lets give it a try for $100... I only set it up with the small antenna it comes with on a 2.8GHZ pc and a 1280x1080 dlp projector. The results were better then expected, to say the least. Now we got 25 digital channels, all the HD programming of the major and local networks and the reception is great. It is way much better then anything on ntsc, including cable or dish! If you think about getting an HDTV receiver for cable, better try this first. We are three miles from a TV Tower, but with an external antenna, you probably get good results even from a distance.
I just got the unit this weekend, so I am still learning about aspect ratio, resoultion, etc. The documentation is unfortunately very basic.
We had friends over for the footbal game this weekend and they were all impressed to see HD on a 7 x 5' screen with 5.1 speakers.