This is my second tuner and far exceeds the 'average' tuner I purchased at a local electronics store. Hauppauge provided excellent customer service helping me decide which tuner was best for my computer and my needs. I have a new HP system running Vista 64-bit and wanted a tuner to run with the Media Center already installed. It did not come with a TV tuner. The HVR-1950 model 1192 comes with an external MPEG-2 encoder which doesn't draw resources from the computer. Great for watching TV while working in other programs simultaniously. It also comes with it's own viewing program (WinTV V6) which I find relatively user friendly but I prefer to use Media Center for TV viewiewing, recording, and scheduling. The USB connection makes installation easy. Setup in Media Center was simple and picture quality and sound is as good as fatory installed Hauppauge tuners.
The package also comes with an FM radio antenna, remote control, and IR Blaster to control channel changing on cable or satellite boxes.
My only complaint was over the initial setup. Although the instructions are fairly complete for XP and Vista OS they do not address Vista-64 issues thoroughly. For Vista-64 users only, if you receive a message about "No device attached or no driver installed" even after going through the driver installation, you need to download the driver specfically for Vista 64 bit OS for the HVR-1950. http://www.hauppauge.com/site/support/support_hvr1950.html. I had to hunt this down on Hauppauge website but once that driver is downloaded, setup completed perfectly and installation was complete. It was a little work but well worth the results. I love the tuner and my Media Center! Hauppauge 1192 WinTV HVR-1950 External USB HDTV Tuner/Video Recorder
I've read a lot of the reviews on this product with the majority of them bad mouthing it. I really like this product and I'll tell you why, but before I do, I'll give you some information on myself: 20 y/o male, currently residing in Greenbelt, MD right on the border of D.C., somewhat tech savvy running Vista Ultimate-32bit and use plain old rabbit ears from an old (and I mean an OLD tv).
Installion was a breeze, as easy as 1-2-3. You connect everything to HVR-1950, plug in your USB cable and vista does the majority of the work for you. The tuner comes with a driver/program cd that Vista will ask you to pop in after not being able to find the drivers online. At this point you can pop in the disk or go to the support site and download the latest version of the driver (which you should have done before hand anyway). Once its installed you can setup Media center or Wintv. I like media better so I can't say anything for Wintv because I haven't used it. Media center TV setup is so Barney style my 7 year old brother could do it on his computer if I'd let him. You follow the steps, read the screens, and push the pretty buttons. Once you've configured the device for MCE, and found all the channels your antenna, cable, or top set, and downloaded the t.v. guide your ready to watch some tv. Now here's where I'm seeing a few people get mush for brains, some stations are still broadcasting in ANALOG (usually the lower channels like 2,4,6,etc. at least in my area)!!! So your not going to get digital clarity from those channels!!! Its going to be fuzzy, have ghosting, etc. The higher channels are DIGITAL!!! So just go through the edit channel menu and delete all those nasty ugly analog channels cause you don't need them.
I was so impressed with the clarity and quality of the digital channels that I actually watched American Idol and Dancing with the stars because it looked that good. The sound was crisp and clear. The only thing I don't like about this thing is I can't record one show and watch another or record two shows and doing something (Like most DVRs let you do) that kind of upset me so I took a star off for that. Also when you record something it makes you watch that channel. If I wanted to watch it I wouldn't be recording it! lol. Even with those minor flaws the thing is amazing and I'm glad I spent the money.
This product exceeded my expectations with quality and functions. Not only is it a clear picture the remote supplied works flawlessly with Media Center (Vista). Your able to record tv, play movies, it even pulls up all the information up for a movie that you recorded on tv. If your going to purchase any tv tuner this is the one. With built in radio that you can record off of too. But you need to use Vista in order to use all the functions.
Good luck
I would like to base my review based on a fully functioning product but this is not one. The hardware seems excellent. The software is horrible. I have owned the HVR-1950 for six months now and I still can't get there software to work properly. The WinTV v6 software it came with seemed like a hodgepodge of unfinished buggy programs. It crashed or froze routinely. Then a few attempts at upgrades. Even the installer is buggy causing multiple partial installs and uninstalls. Then they came out with WinTV v7. The software was a leap forward but still buggy, and you lost the feature to schedule using web based TitanTV. Then came WinTV v7 1.2b. Don't ask about the numbering. The installer asks for the install disk, but I downloaded the software so I don't have one. I put the original install disk in and point to it. Error. I tried pointing to where the files are on my hard drive. Error. ( Side point, the dialog box say click the OK button when done but there is no button named OK ) I tried contacting support, email only please. It says they will get back in about 2 days. Its been 10 days with no response. Maybe others are using other software to make this box work but the Hauppauge software is worthless. Maybe in a couple years they will have the bugs worked out. I have seen similar complaints on other web sites. Bottom line, the software is virtually worthless. A bad purchase on my part. - Hdtv Tuner - Usb - Hdtv - Tv Tuner'
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