Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-1600 Hybrid Video Recorder

Great hardware when coupled with 3rd party software.

Strengths: Flawless OTA HDTV.

Weakness: Remote takes some getting used to.

I am only reviewing the digital tuner here as I don't have a cable outlet in the bedroom where this is being used. That said, the ota hdtv performance has been perfect since I installed a small outdoor antenna. At first I used an indoor Silver Sensor type antenna with poor results. Of course this will depend on where you are situated relative to the broadcast towers. With the outdoor antenna, I...

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Great Dual Tuner for HDTV and Cable

Strengths: - Works in many other PVR Apps such as Windows Vista Media Center, Beyond TV, Sage TV, and Others - Very fast channel switching - Hardware Decoding

Weakness: - Does not have QAM support

I was surprised with the upgrade from my old Leadtek Winfast xp Deluxe to the Hauppauge WinTV HVR 1600 TV Tuner. I first used Beyond TV 4.6 (4.6 is needed to enable the dual tuner support) and it was great. Remote that comes with the card works perfectly in Beyond TV. You can record a HDTV OTA channel and watch a different regular cable due to the dual tuner support. I then tried it in Vista's...

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WinTV-HVR 1600 TV Tuner

Strengths: Easy to install, offers analog and HD tuners in one card.

Weakness: Packaged software is not very user friendly.

This card is replacing my ATI AIW 8500DV and so far I like it much better. The picture quality is superior to the ATI card. I'm using Beyond TV instead of the packaged software. Great deal for $60 after rebate.

Very NiCe Card

Strengths: HDTV supports 1080i and its also vista certified.

Weakness: no sigh on QAM yet

it uses PCI slot in your comp, which is better than some USB. I heard if you use USB you might run into some incompatibility problems. Pic quality is great, pickin up signal from OTA is easy. and its also great when combined with beyond TV software.

HVR-1600: Good hardware, crappy software

Strengths: The card itself is very good, easy to set up, and they actually have 64-bit vista drivers. It integrates instantly with vista media center.

Weakness: The software leaves much to be desired, but MCE picks up most of that slack. Only real problem for me is that while the remote works fine in MCE, for some reason the MCE setup will not recognize it.

I'm very happy with this purchase. Pretty cheap price, and very good quality. Recording looks great, and it's nice to be able to get both the regular cable channels and the HD channels on the air without having to mess with cables or anything. Their WinTV software is really bad so expect to find some third-party software that suits your needs.

good card if you can get it working

Strengths: analog and HD (OTA) tuners in one card, included remote, affordable

Weakness: sub par tech support, potential compatibility issues

I tried 2 cards and both exhibited same symptoms with my dual-core Opteron system: after installing the card and the drivers one of the cores shows 100% utilization and the system becomes unresponsive to the point where I can't kill a browser or cleanly shutdown windows. I was able to install the card into an older PC and it doesn't lock up but it appears to be too slow for this card (at least...

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HVR-1600

Strengths: Cable and OTA HD tuners, Inexpensive, easy to install. Tuner works well.

Weakness: Included software leaves much to be desired. Included IR blaster won't work with Windows Media Center.

I purchased this card just to play around with running tv to my computer. Installation and setup were fairly straight forward and the included WinTv software can get you watching television on your computer in short order. The card includes a remote as well as a IR blaster to send signals to your cable box. Unfortunately this IR blaster is incompatible with Windows Media Center so if you plan to...

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Hauppauge HVR-1600 PCI Hybrid Tuner

Strengths: Channel changes faster than Dvico Fusion and ATI650. East of installation.

Weakness: Very tall and big. If your HTPC case is on the slim side, this "might" give you trouble.

This card is now serving as my primary tuner in Vista Ultimate. It changes channel much faster than any other card I've tried. The picture quality is excellent (OTA). I also used this card to capture and digitize older videos on tape. It works very well. Right now I have a dual hybrid tuner setup: HVR-1600 and ATI 650. They both give me smooth playback and reliability. Best of all, this Hauppauge...

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HDTV Tuner PCI-Card works great with Windows XP...

Strengths: Easy to install; good instructions

Weakness: Klutzy remote; crappy software

I am setting up a new media room in my house, so decided to play around with using a digital HDTV tuner. I already have DirecTV, but this was mainly just to play around and see if I could go without the HD portion of the satellite service. I already had the excellent Silver Sensor amplified HDTV antenna, that I just plugged into the digital coax input terminal. After installing the latest...

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Great value

Strengths: Value: HDTV and Analog tuner plus remote controller for $76 after rebate

Weakness: Wire that connects remote control receiver to back of PCI card is way too short, limiting how far away you can place the receiver from the computer.

Popped the PCI card in, connected my analog cable to the analog connector and my over the air antenna to the HDTV connector, rebooted and installed the drivers. Configured Snapstream BeyondTV instead of the included WinTV2000 software. Scanned the channels and started watching HDTV and analog cable. Some HDTV channels have low signal strength - more a factor of my antenna placement, although the...

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