Hauppauge's WinTV-HVR-950 hybrid ATSC / NTSC TV tuner

[nanook105]

Originally Posted by yle

I'd love to hear how good (or bad) the card and the included antenna works. It's interesting because of the size and portability of this vs. the alternative.

The supplied antenna only works up to 10 miles and I'm closer to 30 so I won't be testing the antenna. I did a quick test in my attic with a laptop and the win2000 app connected to a small Turk antenna and it worked pretty well. I'm going to attach it to one of my BTV servers and my rooftop antenna next to see how it goes.

[nanook105]

I am happy to report that the HVR-950 seems to be a winner at this point (fingers crossed).

• Installation was easy/brainless.
• BTV had no issues with setup wizard.
• I've been watching college football and baseball playoffs all afternoon/evening with no issues

Given the form factor of this tuner, hauppauge seems right on the money with this device

[yle]

Glad to hear it works well. Were you watching on the computer or on a television? How does the included antenna look? My house is supposedly 8.6 miles from the tower for NBC, ABC, CBS and Fox.

I know I keep asking questions, but you know how that HD bug gets. If I could get away with the included antenna this would make sense, otherwise it looks like the FusionHDTV Gold USB bundle wins.

[nanook105]

Originally Posted by yle

Glad to hear it works well. Were you watching on the computer or on a television? How does the included antenna look? My house is supposedly 8.6 miles from the tower for NBC, ABC, CBS and Fox.

I know I keep asking questions, but you know how that HD bug gets. If I could get away with the included antenna this would make sense, otherwise it looks like the FusionHDTV Gold USB bundle wins.

Watched directly on the PC for a while and then on the HDTV. The antenna is very small. The base looks like a hersey kiss and the antenna portion is about as thick as a toothpick and about 4-5 inches long.

I know the HD bug (which is why I ran out to get this). I'm not sure why the antenna is driving the decision for you

[yle]

Not really driving the decision, but since I may use this in two places, one of which is less than 10 miles from the transmitter, I could leave the included antenna there, and get a better one for my other place.

Has anyone tried it on a laptop, and is there any reason why this (or any HD USB tuner) wouldn't work well on a laptop?

[rakeshagrawal]

As all of you have already discovered, the HVR-950 works well with Beyond TV. Just wanted to mention that we officially added it to the list of supported HDTV/ATSC devices for Beyond TV earlier today:
http://www.snapstream.com/products/beyondtv/sysreq.asp

And there was a brief post made about this on the SnapStream Blog:
http://blogs.snapstream.com/2006/10/...ith-beyond-tv/

[btvfreak]

Originally Posted by nanook105

Sure enough, I had to go to two different Circuit Cities, and the second had one (just one). Snatched it up and am going to play with it this afternoon.

Man nanook, always all over the latest toys. Very tempting.

[btvfreak]

Well, after reading about it I had to join the fun. I picked one up at my local Circuit City last night.

For some reason when I tried to install the drivers from the included CD my machine could not find any driver and it would not install. I tried to manually point the install wizard at each place I thought there was a driver on the CD, but still no go. I then ran a driver updater program on the CD, which worked. Strange.

Other than that it worked without a hitch. I ran the BTV setup wizard, added the HVR-950 as a new tuner, and was watching HD with it in no time. This now gives me 3 HD tuners (2 Fusion5 USB, 1 HVR-950). Thanks to those who took the early plunge!

[Initri]

My two cents.

This thing works great! I found one at CompUSA for $99.95 or whatnot.. plugged it in, loaded the drivers, added it to BeyondTV and 3rd tuner ready to go. I'm going to grab a couple of these and ditch my PCI based cards! It even seems to tune/start-up faster than the ATI HDTV Wonder and ADS Tech cards that I have in my system now.

- Matthew

[Rich A]

Originally Posted by Initri

My two cents.

This thing works great! I found one at CompUSA for $99.95 or whatnot.. plugged it in, loaded the drivers, added it to BeyondTV and 3rd tuner ready to go. I'm going to grab a couple of these and ditch my PCI based cards! It even seems to tune/start-up faster than the ATI HDTV Wonder and ADS Tech cards that I have in my system now.

- Matthew

Matt, I know it's not easy to do a comparison without same captures and side by side examples, but in your estimation, how does that thing work when compared to your ATI HDTV Wonder? Quality is of course not an issue as both devices just record the OTA Transport Stream as is, BUT I wonder if you could comment on any possible difference in receiving over-all. Like does it look like it's giving better results with weaker signals?

I suspect (but have nothing to compare) that the ATI card is a little weak on the receiving end of the tuner.

[btvfreak]

Hey Rich - I used to have an ATI HD Wonder, and I can say that in my area the Fusion5 and Hauppauge tuners give me better reception by far.

[Rich A]

Originally Posted by btvfreak

Hey Rich - I used to have an ATI HD Wonder, and I can say that in my area the Fusion5 and Hauppauge tuners give me better reception by far.

Thanks. That's encouraging. Last night I found a yet un-used gift card for Circuit City and promptly put it to good use. Maybe this weekend I'll have a chance to play with it.

[Eric3a]

I finally took the HD plunge... though I haven't plugged it in yet since I need to rewire the house slightly to bring the antenna signal to the BTV server.
Thanks also to the early adopters for their feedback.
Eric

[Crunch]

Opps I didn't look at which forum I was in so have moved my problem with HVR950 to

http://forums.snapstream.com/vb/show...128#post217128

Thanks

[av2]

Has anyone tried it on a Windows 2000 based OS?