HD-PVR – An In-Depth Review
It has been several weeks since the release of the Hauppauge HD-PVR. A quick review was posted here – and several websites have provided their insights.
To begin, and to outline the limitations of this review, the software that accompanies the HD-PVR is absolute garbage. If you intend to use the HD-PVR out of the box, you had better already own some PVR software. Packaged with the 01212 (the HD-PVR model number) is Arcsoft’s Total Media Extreme, Arcsoft Media Converter, WinTV scheduler and Hauppauge’s own IR Blaster software. Now when I say the software is garbage I mean it is not truly usable on a day to day basis as a functional PVR. The Total Media Extreme Software did actually record well and produce a very good HiDef video file, but is best suited to manual recording tasks. However, to use Total Media Extreme software in combination with the WinTV scheduler is a nightmare and is not user-friendly at all.
The Arcsoft Media Converter application does only one thing well – it crashes with predictable regularity and has yet to complete a conversion. I know that software can indeed add to the cost of the total package – but Hauppauge really needs to revisit its decisions as far as the bundling of the Arcsoft applications. Even if it were to offer an option to purchase the HD-PVR with additional software at additional cost, it would be an improvement. I know that it is not very descriptive to say that an application is unusable – but that is really the only way to describe it.
This is certainly an instance where 1.0 software and drivers causes users some problems. The drivers the shipped with the HD-PVR do not allow the use of the S/PDIF 5.1 input. Hauppague assures users that a driver update will implement this functionality. More on my experience with the drivers below.
The fact that the software is miserable should not denigrate the quality of the hardware. It performs as promised and produces a recorded picture that is extremely close to the original HD source. Some have reported overheating problems, but I have not experienced any such problem. Also, as said previously, to appreciate the device you really need third party PVR software. For this review Snapstream’s BeyondTV was used.
At first, the HD-PVR and BeyondTV did not play well on my installation. For whatever reason, the provided drivers did not take. This may have merely been a quirk of my particular setup. I used Hauppauge’s HWClear.exe software to remove all traces of the driver and then reinstalled. As far as the drivers were concerned that did the trick.
Next, I had to configure BeyondTV. When using the configuration wizard for Beyond TV, once you get to the tuner section, the wizard reports an error that it is unable to create the graph. Don’t worry, just power through the error, the tuner will be added anyway. Once it was up and running it produced a great picture and offered the best of what PVR hardware can provide. In combination with BeyondTV there is almost no disappointment. One final note: the blastcfg software intended to use the built-in IR blaster seems a little buggy as well. This could be operator error, but since all of the other bundled software is problematic, it is probably the software. I used a USB UIRT to control the Sony HD-200 directv tuner. The combination of the HD-PVR and BeyondTV is hard to beat.
Conclusion
The Haupaugge HD-PVR is a great piece of hardware hampered by the bundled software. To release this butterfly from the cocoon, use a third party DVR software package. Soon BeyondTV will release version 4.9 of its software which will officially support the HD-PVR. First adopter blues seems to dog this package, but the hardware is great and will set the standard for packages to follow. I would not hesitate to take the plunge on this product as it is clear that Snapstream intends to support it. In addition to BeyondTV, Sage TV supports the HD-PVR as does GB-PVR. GB-PVR is a freeware PVR program (it is not open source) and offers a way to use the HD-PVR without additional purchases.
For Pictures and Video – Click Here.
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