|
Still the Silicondust HDhomerun has a better quality signal. But we may have to change to Ceton if Comcast encripts their signals as is being reported. It is better (Comcast Cable feed) and sees a lot more channels and HD channels as well. UPDATE 11/23/09 - Now have Windows 7 64 bit and can tune Clear QAM signals. One can hope.I have this unit tied into a new Samsung B750, the judder it creates running in Media Center is incredable. maybe Windows 7 will help this unit function better. Thankfully I have a Homerun HD which proves the hauppauge just does not cut it. No big judder effects on recorded sports.
I mean studying, was ideal. It was a great decision because it took up so much less space than having a dedicated TV(and was cheaper too), and being able to record my favourite shows while I was out partying. Being able to pause live tv makes it even better, along with all the other DVR features (being able to get live sport scores, view online media, extend media to XBOXs etc). I bought this tuner card to use with Windows Media Center on Vista (and subsequently Windows 7). The hardware support is excellent (Windows 7 will put in the proper driver from Hauppauge on it it's own, not sure about Vista).I bought it to use on a second monitor on my computer in a college dorm room. I strongly encourage any parents out there who think they'll need to buy a TV for the childs dorm room should look into buying another cheap monitor and this card to use.
I purchased this new tuner to upgrade to HDTV, but it's not capable of doing the same off broadcast HDTV. I'm better-off using my old setup on analog cable tv. A free trial version of "Ulead MovieFactory 6" is still available on the www.corel.com website. The recorder software is a stripped out trial version of Corel's "Ulead MovieFactory 5". The tuner is very good, especially for HDTV, but the recorder software fair for analog TV only and it is useless for HDTV. As the other reviewers have said, this product has good to great hardware and very poor software. The two are just not matched up to work together. The selection of pci tuner cards is limited.I had been using an older TV tuner card and old DVR software in my pc to record favorite TV shows and movies, edit out the commercials, and burn to dvd.
Can't watch a show on one station and record on another station. Does not record sound when recording live TV. You can find cards for cheaper that have better package software.
Others are PCI-express, which I don't have. Since I was intending to use the setup with Sage Media Center, the WinTV software was just for testing anyway, so that was OK (though more usable software would have helped). The 1600 lives in the same system with a Hauppauge 950Q, on a WinXP dual-core system. Though it recognized both tuners, it wouldn't let me do anything useful with them and was overall pretty buggy. You have to be careful about the antenna-orientation or you get unwatchable video, but if it's set up right, the HD video is beautiful. The analog cable tuner works fine, and I can record 3 shows at once with the 1600+950Q combination. WinTV 6 has trouble tuning the digital stations and won't handle multiple tuners (i.e. Hauppauge has a newer version of WinTV that is supposed to handle multiple tuners.
The tuner on the 1600 seemed somewhat less sensitive than the tuner on the 950Q, which makes a difference, since only one station brodcasts loally, while all the others are about 30 miles away. Since I sometimes need to record 4 shows at once, I may buy an additional 1600.There are a few other dual-tuner products, but this was the only one that was a PCI interface. I'm setting up a PVR to gradually take the place of my multi-VCR system, and to be able to record some of the broadcast digital HD channels. the 1600 + the 950Q). I have an attic antenna, not a large rooftop one.
|
