| Amazon.com Product Description With the Hauppauge 1192 WinTV HVR-1950 External USB HDTV Tuner/Video Recorder, you can turn your PC into a virtual television and personal video recorder, or PVR. By simply plugging this video recorder into one of your computer's USB ports, you can watch, pause and record live HDTV or cable TV directly on your computer.  | The Hauppauge 1192 WinTV HVR-1950 External USB HDTV Tuner/Video Recorder offers: - USB 2.0 port for easy connection to computer.
- Support for NTSC analog cable, over the air TV, ATSC Digital over the air HDTV, and Clear QAM digital cable TV.
- On-board MPEG-2 encoder that allows your PC to run at full speed while recording.
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The WinTV application offers an elegant interface to watch TV in a window or full screen. View larger. | | 
Watch, pause and record live HDTV or cable TV directly on your computer with the Hauppauge HVR-1950. View larger.
View front connections | 
Plug this video recorder into one of your computer's USB ports, and turn your PC into a virtual television and PVR. View larger.
View rear connections | Watch Analog, Cable and Digital TV on your PC
The WinTV HVR-1950 Tuner/Video Recorder lets you watch NTSC analog cable, over the air TV, ATSC digital over the air HDTV, and Clear QAM Digital Cable TV directly on your computer, either in a window or on full screen. Why miss your favorite sitcom or the deciding playoff game just because you have work to do? This unique tuner supports NTSC analog cable, over the air TV, ATSC Digital over the air HDTV, and Clear QAM digital cable TV. NTSC is the analog cable TV standard, and ATSC is the over-the-air digital HDTV standard for North America and typically requires an antenna for reception. Clear QAM digital cable allows you to watch unencrypted HDTV stations from your cable TV provider without a set-top box. The tuner also features a built-in 125 channel cable-ready TV tuner, allowing you to watch Analog TV and Clear QAM Digital TV by connecting to your cable box. For analog cable TV reception, you need an analog cable TV connection. If you have a digital cable set-top box or a satellite box, the WinTV-HVR-1950 can connect via either Composite or S-Video inputs. For ATSC over-the-air digital TV reception, a high-gain antenna is recommended. (To check the ATSC TV broadcasts in your area, go to TitanTV.com and enter your postal code. Note: depending on the strength of your antenna, you might not be able to receive all broadcasts listed at TitanTV.) Schedule and Record your Favorite Show
With the on-board MPEG-2 encoder, which allows your PC to run at full speed while recording, the WinTV-HVR-1950 lets you record analog cable TV while allowing your PC to operate at full speed while recording, so you won't sacrifice any performance. Digital TV programs are recorded in their original video quality, so 1080i programs are recorded at 1080i, and so on. With WinTV-Scheduler software installed, you can also turn your PC into a virtual PVR and schedule and record your TV shows automatically. Analog TV recordings typically consume 1.5 GB of disk space per hour using Hauppauge's SoftPVR for Windows XP and Media Center. High-definition TV recordings typically consume 5 GB of disk space per hour. Other features include a Dolby-TV stereo decoder for Dolby-quality audio, and a remote control that lets you control satellite and TV set top boxes for the ultimate in convenience. The WinTV-HVR-1950 is compatible with Windows Vista, Windows XP, and Windows Media Center.
What's in the Box
WinTV-HVR-1950 USB 2.0 External Box, USB cable, Hauppauge Remote Control (with batteries), IR blaster cable, WinTV installation and utilities software CD-ROM, Ulead DVD Movie Factory Software on CD, and quick installation guide. |
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 Great with Media Center... |
| Review Date: December 20, 2008 |
| Reviewer: B. Walters, Concord, NC United States |
This is my second tuner and far exceeds the 'average' tuner I purchased at a local electronics store. Hauppauge provided excellent customer service helping me decide which tuner was best for my computer and my needs. I have a new HP system running Vista 64-bit and wanted a tuner to run with the Media Center already installed. It did not come with a TV tuner. The HVR-1950 model 1192 comes with an external MPEG-2 encoder which doesn't draw resources from the computer. Great for watching TV while working in other programs simultaniously. It also comes with it's own viewing program (WinTV V6) which I find relatively user friendly but I prefer to use Media Center for TV viewiewing, recording, and scheduling. The USB connection makes installation easy. Setup in Media Center was simple and picture quality and sound is as good as fatory installed Hauppauge tuners.
The package also comes with an FM radio antenna, remote control, and IR Blaster to control channel changing on cable or satellite boxes.
My only complaint was over the initial setup. Although the instructions are fairly complete for XP and Vista OS they do not address Vista-64 issues thoroughly. For Vista-64 users only, if you receive a message about "No device attached or no driver installed" even after going through the driver installation, you need to download the driver specfically for Vista 64 bit OS for the HVR-1950. http://www.hauppauge.com/site/support/support_hvr1950.html. I had to hunt this down on Hauppauge website but once that driver is downloaded, setup completed perfectly and installation was complete. It was a little work but well worth the results. I love the tuner and my Media Center! |
AMAZING!!!!
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| Review Date: July 4, 2008 |
| Reviewer: Thomas Burm Jr., |
This product exceeded my expectations with quality and functions. Not only is it a clear picture the remote supplied works flawlessly with Media Center (Vista). Your able to record tv, play movies, it even pulls up all the information up for a movie that you recorded on tv. If your going to purchase any tv tuner this is the one. With built in radio that you can record off of too. But you need to use Vista in order to use all the functions.
Good luck |
Does well under windows, but for MythTV, need patience
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| Review Date: April 14, 2009 |
| Reviewer: defilm, New York, United States |
This unit runs well under windows w/ Media Center. I have a Dlink DSM512 and hate it. I purchased a ITX Motherboard (7"x7"x3") installed, with a intel dual core 2 1.80Ghz CPU, 1 GB Ram, and Slimline DVD. (Nice for STB's),
(http://www.cappuccinopc.com/pandora-965-dr.asp). Comes all together, and I picked it up with a 320GB drive for under $400. I dropped this Hauppauge tuner on the USB, and loaded windows XP, and MS Media center. Runs fine.
But what I want is a PVR that gives me Music, Photos, Video, youtube, News, Weather, Streaming.... like free MythTV for Linux. (There is a mythtv for each distribution). I installed the actual MythTV, which is pretty manual.
A better way is to install mythbuntu 8.10. This is a simple download, burn the CD, install, configure a few things and you are running. However to watch TV you need to have a bit of patience and you will need to install the pvrusb2 driver, and extract the firmware from the windows drivers that the pvrusb2 driver looks for so it can decode the mpeg2 video stream. I will give you some links. If you follow Mark's instructions carefully, you will have a full working mythtv implementation in about an hour. (I basically installed this because I went from DirectTV to FIOS TV, and my PVR on DirectTV could record about 50 hours of Hi-Def. The Fios PVR can't get in more than 18-20 Hours Max, and both the FIos PVR and DIrectTV PVR have a 160GB Drive... In this way, yea, I have to say FIOS sucks compared to DirectTV, but the bundle is saving me $1200 a year.). So I now only record the Hi-Def Broadcast channels (OTA, Over the Air) series on my new mini-PVR. The ATSC OTA content is about 6.5-7MB/Hour. So if you do the math you can get nearly 40 hours on there. So Fox, NBC, ABC, series go on the MythTV PVR, and things I like on Discovery, or TLC, I record on the FIOS PVR. So to get you started you need: www.mythbuntu.com, and you should download the latest windows drivers for the HVR-1950 as you will need them. Getting the mythtv installed is pretty easy. TO compile the driver and get it installed is not too bad either. (here is the link for the PVRUSB2 driver and instructions: http://www.isely.net/pvrusb2/pvrusb2.html ). Mile Isely (The author of the driver and all around guru) describes how to extract the firmware from the windows files since the pvrusb2 driver needs this firmware to decode the mpeg2 video. This is the hard part, but he wrote a perl script to make it easy, and he has great instructions. But it is not for the non-technical I must admit. Here is the driver setup link (http://www.isely.net/pvrusb2/setup.html). Here is also a decent overview of the process from mythtv (http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/Hauppauge_WinTV-PVR-USB2).
Once you get it working, you will love the extra features and power of the MythTV PVR. You can add your own content through the on screen interface, You can even use your phone, read RSS feeds, latest news. Nice.
I did see some complaints that you can't record one and watch another.
That is because the HVR-1950 only has one tuner. For those that say "I will get two!), the other limiting factor is the USB2.0 Bus. If you run two simultaneously you exceed the USB 2.0 bus capacity. :(
The Hauppauge HVR-1950 is a nice Tuner when you can't drop a card in the PC... |
Media Center Finally Works? 14 Months Later!
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| Review Date: May 23, 2009 |
| Reviewer: Michael Zdyrko, Camden, DE USA |
| I purchased a Dell XPS "Red" One desk top system in March 2008. Right from the beginning, the Media Center TV would not work properly. I either got a snowy or grainy picture or was unable pickup the TV tuner card. I worked with Dell who told me after numerous efforts that I was not getting enough power to tuner card. So I purchased an amplifier and got slight improvements. After numerous efforts with Dell, I was told to contact Microsoft as it could be a Media center problem caused by SP1 update to Vista Ultimate. They sent me a new copy of Vista Ultimate and I cleaned installed. You can guess, the Media center could not find the card. In November 2008, after numerous efforts by Dell to correct, they sent a technician with a new TV tuner card. Guess what....still did not find the the TV tuner when booted up. I just gave up. Three weeks ago I did a clean install again with the hope of correcting the problem. The Media Center found the TV tuner card but I still got a red grainy picture. Contacted my Cable company and they came out to check the cable. They replaced the cable from the wall to the splitter and then the two cables from the splitter leading to the modem and the PC. Guess what...still a bad picture. He then brought in a TV and connected the from the cable from the PC to TV and got a perfect picture. I was frustrated. He then recommended I get a USB TV Tuner and check it to see of there was a problem with the tuner and mother board. I was going to get back with Dell but chose to search out on amazon.com and came up with this unit....the Hauppauge 1192 WinTV HVR-1950 External USB HDTV Tuner/Video Recorder. Why, if my Media center was bad or I had a bad PC lemon and Media Center did not worked, at least I could use WinTV to watch TV etc. I connected it as instructed, a very simple procedure. Loaded the drivers etc and booted up. To my amazement, it was recognized and loaded. Before I was going to load WinTv, I decided to check out the Media Center. Again to my amazement, the media Center recognized and picked up the USB Tuner....I completed all procedures and click on live TV. I was astonished as I got a crystal clear picture and my channels appeared in digital like clarity. I almost went through the ceiling with glee and joy. Everything is working perfectly for the first time in over 14 months. Yes I will contact Dell and inform them of what has happened. But I will not get rid of my Hauppauge no matter what. Do I need to go into the technical aspects of this unit, I do not think I have too. It works great. Do I need to load WinTV, I do not think I need to at this time. I will be connecting a wireless router and extender and adapter and connect to my large screen, and Blue Ray system to my PC and now use Media Center in my Living room as I always wanted. This USB Tuner sure beats PCI tuner cards (my tuner card is in my monitor). I highly recommend this unit over any other. I hope that by telling you my troubles that I had which were reconciled by the Hauppauge 1950 is a help to you. If it worked for me, it just might work for you and get you up and running like it did me. I am highly satisfied and over-joyed with the results. I think this just might be the best way to go....USB TV Tuner. |
Just minor issues
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| Review Date: September 19, 2009 |
| Reviewer: J. Cardenas, Oklahoma, USA |
This product is amazing. I had a Pinnacle DVD recorder (DVC 100) that I bought for $50 and worked once. It was for Win XP and I had Vista. There were "drivers" for Vista but did not seem to help. The after doing some research I found this device and I love it. I currently have Windows 7 Professional (I got it before the release thanks to my university) and the installation was painless. Unlike other reviewer I didn't have a problem finding the drivers on the manufacturer's website, but just in case. http://www.hauppauge.com/site/support/support_wintv7.html
This devices work perfectly with Windows Media Center. But if you're going to record something through the composite (RCA) inputs, you need to download/install WinTV. The one that comes in the CD is version 6. I didn't install it. I downloaded version 7 instead.
I did have some problems since I installed the drivers and used it with Media Center first, then I downloaded WinTV and just installed the application without reinstalling the driver. This caused WinTV to keep crashing. I uninstalled it, re-installed the drivers (from the downloaded file) and then installed WinTV and no problems.
There is lag when recording through the composite inputs but you just need a few splitters and problem solved, the recorded video was smooth although when there is no sound you can still hear a little static, kinda like an old tube TV but it's not very noticeable. Still I think this is is an awesome product and highly recommend it.
OS Name Microsoft Windows 7 Professional
Version 6.1.7600 Build 7600
System Manufacturer Dell Inc.
System Model Inspiron 1420
System Type X86-based PC
Processor Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU T7500 @ 2.20GHz, 2201 Mhz, 2 Core(s), 2 Logical Processor(s)
Installed Physical Memory (RAM) 2.00 GB
Hard Disk Drive 115 GB of 148 GB free
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