WinTV HVR-1600 PCI Tuner Review



The WinTV HVR-1600 is a combo analog and digital tuner from Hauppauge. Like the AverTV Combo (M780) this is truely two seperate tuners (1 analog, 1 digital) that can record concurrently.

PROS:
  • Runs under SageTV, BeyondTV, Microsoft Media Center (Vista & 2005),and WatchHDTV as well as it’s own software.
  • Works well with other digital and analog tuners
  • Included remote works with the Microsoft Media Center application (IR Blasters will not however)
  • Hardware encoder (less CPU overhead)
  • Works as an analog and digital tuner in MCE 2005 and Vista Media Center
  • Included application works with TitanTV Electronic Programming Guide(EPG)
  • Pulls in over the air digital signals with the best

CONS:
  • Drivers support only one HVR-1600 per PC when using Hauppauge application (multiple's supported in MCE, SageTV and BeyondTV)
  • Application software somewhat confusing to install and setup
  • No digital cable/QAM support*

* Some of the newest cards do support QAM. However most of the ones currently available do not. Go here for more info.

COST: Around $100


COMMENTS:

This tuner features a hardware encoder for quality analog TV with minimum processor usage. The HVR-1600 has an excellent digital/HDTV tuner that is great at pulling in weak and multi-path over-the-air signals.

Check prices for the WinTV HVR-1600 here

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System requirements:
  • Processor requirements: 2.2 GHz P4 or equivalent (minimum) required for displaying ATSC high definition TV.
  • Microsoft® Windows® XP Home, Pro or Media Center Edition 2005. Also Windows Vista Premium certified.
  • Graphics with 64 MB memory (or greater)
  • Available PCI slot
  • Sound card.

Included in the box:



  • WinTV-HVR-1600 PCI bus card with 125 channel cable-ready TV tuner, ATSC receiver, hardware MPEG-2 encoder, dbx-TV stereo decoder, S-Video/composite and audio inputs.
  • IR remote control receiver.
  • IR Blaster (infra-red remote control transmitter), to control satellite and cable TV set top boxes.
  • WinTV-HVR-1600 CD-ROM includes:
    • WinTV2000 application for TV in a window plus TV recording, pause and playback.
    • WinTV-Scheduler for scheduling your TV recording, and with link to TitanTV.com*.
    • WinTV MPEG editor for high quality cutting and pasting of your standard definition video movies.
    • Ulead® DVD MovieFactory™, to create your own videos on DVD or CD*
Software download site: http://www.hauppauge.com/pages/support/support_hvr1600.html


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