Reviews for Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-1850 Hybrid Video Recorder For System Builders

Works great! ...mostly.

Strengths: PCI express! Inexpensive.

Weakness: Included software SUCKS!

The previous poster has no idea what he's talking about. The "censorship of motion" is an MPEG COMPRESSION ARTIFACT, and is completely controllable by the user! (Bigger files = fewer artifacts.) So don't judge the card by that idiot's review.

Now, on to me...

I'm using a HVR-1800 for Myth TV, and it works GREAT right out of the box! I'm doing HD 'over the air' and have been able to give my crappy cableco the boot. So right there, it paid for itself in under a month. No problems whatsoever! (There is a bug with mythTV that it says all channels have 0% signal strength, but don't let that put you off.)


With that said, DON'T buy this card if all you plan on doing is using the included software under Windows XP. IT'S GARBAGE! No, really, THE INCLUDED SOFTWARE IS JUST GARBAGE. At random times while changing channels, it'll lock up your machine. It'll lock up so tight that even if you try and shut the machine down IT NEVER SHUTS DOWN. And that's using the FIXED software from December 2007! If you don't update the software, it's even worse.

So if you're going to use this under windows media center, you're OK. If you're going to use this under Linux via myth TV, you're OK. If you're going to use *only* the included software, stay far, FAR away!

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www.pricegrabber.com

Strengths: The good thing is that it captures the OTA HDTV signal; at least most of them, Fox channel is blank. The radio tuner works fine.

Weakness: I would suggest you try another TV-tuner. One that has a good picture.

I bought the WINTV-HVR-1800 PCIE card for primarily the HDTV, currently have Angel II MPEG for analog for cable TV. I found a hack that allowed me to use all three analog encoders plus the HDTV in Microsoft Vista Media Center. Unfortunate I soon discovered that the encoder of the WINTV-HVR-1800 is of poor quality. The primary problem and one I tried to resolve with the support (Brice W.) from Hauppauge, is censorship of movement. If you are like me when watching a show, you like to see the action but this TV-tuner censors action; wherever there is movement in the picture that area becomes granulated (square blocks almost as if it is being censored). A secondary, less annoying issue is color, this encoder dulls out the color comparing it to the other one I have. I have been looking at this company for some time now, been interesting in making a DVR, using MythTV, currently use windows media center, still plan an making a separate DVR but will not use a tv-tuner from Hauppauge and suggest you look else were as well.

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not what I'd hoped for

Strengths: pcie card works in vista

Weakness: kind slow funky software

After installing, it worked for a while, but then somehow vista media center messed it up. also, i was trying to digitize an old movie (who has VHS on the AV system now?) but I guess this picks up macrovision in the driver and it just flat refused to record it. even the cpu usage was higher than i'd wanted. sent it back.

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Dual Tuner Vista Compatible TV-Tuner

Strengths: Dual tuner, Hardware MPEG-2 Encoding, FM-Tuner, PCI-e

Weakness: Terrible software, requires Windows Media Center or SageTV or equivalent to use, no FM-Radio Support

Awesome card as far as quality and performance goes, can encode a show - digital or analog without burdening your CPU as it has onboard hardware MPEG-2 encoding. This model adds PCI-e 16 support up from the 1600 model as well as a FM-Tuner. The FM-Tuner however runs only off of Hauppauge's old tuner software and it is buggy. WinTV is terrible and the scheduling service through TitanTV doesn't even work anymore. However if you have SageTV or Windows Media Center this card works like a charm, don't expect to get much out of it otherwise.

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Hauppauge WinTV HVR-1800 PCIe

Testseek.com has collected 3 expert reviews for Hauppauge WinTV HVR-1800 PCIe and the average expert rating is 75 of 100. The average score reflects the expert community’s view on this product. Click below and use Testseek.com to see all ratings, product awards and conclusions.

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