Hauppauge 1178 WinTV-HVR-1600 Internal Hybrid TV Tuner/Video Recorder Reviews

• 100% Compatible With Vista's Media Center

  
  By A25R83MUEU9OPH on 2007-03-18
  Strengths: FAST channel switching, Vista compatible, Remote works with Media Center, Dual tuners for analog and ATSC content
  
  Cons: No HDMI input, Card is pretty wide - may not fit in some narrower cases
  
  After upgrading my PC to Vista Home Premium, I discovered that the tuner on my All-in-Wonder wasn't working in Media Center. With a bit of research, I quickly learned that ATI/AMD has no intention of providing Vista driver support for AIW's. Splendid.
  
  After further research, I decided to give this card a try, and was not disappointed.
  Based on my previous experience with the AIW, I was anticipating having to jump through hoops to get it working in Media Center. I was pleasantly surprised.
  
  I popped the card in, booted up, downloaded the drivers from Hauppauge's website, and loaded Media Center. It immediately picked up both the analog and ATSC HD tuners.
  
  The picture quality from my analog cable feed is highly satisfactory - equal to if not better than my AIW's performance in XP MCE.
  
  This card also features an independent tuner for over-the-air ATSC HD content up to 1080i. This is strictly for over-the-air digital HD content for which you will generally require an amplified antenna. It is not QAM enabled, so you cannot plug in a digital feed from your cable/satellite provider. There is, however, an S-Video port which you can connect to your set top box. This is useless though for HD content above 480p, which leads me to wonder why there is no HDMI port.
  
  I was also very pleased to discover the included remote works flawlessly with Media Center.
  
  Recommended? Absolutely.
  
  
  

• Great value

  
  By A1KZMSXC9JOI7Q on 2007-06-07
  I don't write many reviews, but I thought I'd put in a good word for this product. This is an excellent tuner, especially for the price. I doubt you'll find a better tuner capable of HD at this price range. It handled a SD signal very well. While watching SD television, I could have several other programs running at the same time without a problem. The card handled a SD well enough that the CPU was free to do other things. At one point, just to put it to a test, I had a DVD playing on my television, a youtube video playing in my internet browser, and the tv playing. They all ran fine.
  
  HD was a slightly different story, but that's to be expected. As long as I was only watching the television, everything was fine, but I could forget doing a lot of multitasking. I could run other programs at the same time, but only if they weren't too demanding. My computer's over a year old though, and was hardly a high end supercomputer when I bought it (AMD 3400+ processor). I haven't tested it out myself, but if you've got a newer PC with a dual core, you should see much better performance.
  
  A couple of warnings though. I would NOT get this as a substitute for a true HD television. Even on a very good monitor, the picture just isn't quite up to par with a decent HDTV. The same is true when it comes to recording. It does the job, but its a little crude compared to a DVR like, say, TiVo. There are other little shortcomings too, like a half second delay between the signal and the picture showing up on your screen. Not a problem for television, but it makes playing games nearly impossible. Don't plan on hooking up your console to this thing.
  
  Also, plan on doing a little tweaking when you install it. This is not a plug and play device. I'm not an A/V expert, but I do have some experience installing PC hardware, and it took me a couple of hours to get the drivers and the settings straight. Plan on going to the company's website for drivers and troubleshooting guides. It got me through the install without too much aggravation.
  
  These shortcomings are things you'll experience with nearly any TV tuner, unless you plan on spending a small fortune. They aren't due to flaws in the product. The technology just has some limitations at this point.
  
  Overall, an excellent PC TV tuner. Even on a computer that was far from high end, it ran very well.
  
  

• Hauppauge WinTV HVR-1600 (Vista Premium)

  
  By A33TY2F5PPLVS6 on 2007-05-13
  Card and software installation was fine, under Vista Ultimate 64-bit. However, the WinTV application just doesn't work well under Vista--I have 4GB of fast RAM and a GeForce 8800GTX--the fastest card you can buy today. Half the time, I get no picture or sound, 40 percent of the time, picture and sound are jerky. Ten percent of the time, everything is great--but don't even think of multitasking.
  
  Coming out of sleep mode or hibernation, WinTV2K simply WILL NOT WORK: A system reboot is required.
  
  I much preferred my WinTV USB2 PVR to this card; however, my USB2 PVR isn't supported under Vista64.
  
  

• Fast tuning... great signal sensitivity, robust & stable

  
  By A22BZ12FVR5YE on 2007-09-06
  I build Media Center PCs as a hobby for the past 2 years and I've played with a fair share of tuners from Avermedia, Divico, Hauppauge, EMuzed, ATI, nVidia, etc. As I rebuilt my Sony XL-1 CE-EPC, I wanted to swap our the OEM card and an old ATI HDTV Wonder card I put in with something more stable than the OEM analog + HDTV wonder that also fit the XL1 chassis. After using the HVR-1600 for the past 6 months, I'm pleased to report that ATSC tuning/channel change is quite fast, it has good ATSC signal sensitivity and most importantly, stable while running Windows Vista Ultimate Media Center app. I do get a glitch on occasion switching between analog and digital channels with a MCE 'video error' message. I can't target the problem but I will say the OEM analog card + the HDTV Wonder card also exhibited similar issues when switching between A & D channels.
  
  Last but not least, image quality, I find the analog channel has good brightness and decent color saturation (most analog tuner cards have problems with color balance anyways). The digital tuner as expected didn't degrade the ATSC signal and does a great job with brightness, contrast and color saturation as well.
  
  In short, a good balance of price, quality and stability. I even bought it for a friend and he notices improvments over his previous solution.
  
  

• Maybe I got a bad one

  
  By A1SIU9349ILUIZ on 2007-03-22
  I'm getting too old to screw with stuff for hours if it doesn't work when it comes out of the box.....But I still do occasionally, as with this..I had a confirmed good jack and cable and for some reason the reception on this was horrible ! I tried many different settings for the cable format, but to no avail...the reception was that bad...then I ran the cable into a TV...and perfect reception.
  Some reviews I read bashed the software....not that bad..a little slow, but I didn't think it was that bad, but note: THE DOCUMENTATION IS VERY BAD...you won't get a ton of info from it.
  
  As I said, after repeated attemps of switching cables and jacks and such - no change. So I returned it...too bad.. I live only a few miles from the company I would have liked to patronize them, but you don't get a 2nd chance to make a 1st impression.
  
  
• Perfect Vista Tuner
  By A3STQ45XNMV62B on 2007-04-26
  Getting the Tuner to work was as easy as pointing driver installation to the drivers folder on the included winTV disc. After Installing three different remote apps on the disc, along with a vista mce patch, the remote now works perfect with Vista's MCE. The picture looks great, and the remote is pretty good.
  
  I now need a bunch of HD Space though due to my recordings with MCE. Which is only 90 hours with my 400 Gigs... I love the quality of this sound card, it is great. But of course there is no documentation... the only down side. On vista, click cancel on the prompts. open the cd manually and run setup. It should run the Vista Installer automatically. If something goes wrong, just do what i did and click every remote app till your remote works! heh. Also, The silver IR Receiver works with the remote . The other one is for changing channels on your cable box when using the s-video in.(again, no documentation)
  
  I would definitely buy again (I might buy one more for dual HD tuners in MCE if they support it).
  
  
• No compatibility issues, but bad picture
  By A1RG4WKNMPYS4X on 2007-12-03
  I've been using this card for about 6 months, but I admit that I don't use either the remote control or the WinTV application. The reason I don't use the remote is because I use the HP remote that came with my system. I have no problems controlling this card with that remote. The reason I don't use WinTV is because I find it more convenient to stick with Windows Media Center instead of using a third-party app that doesn't have a way to access my other Media Center apps (like My Music, My DVDs, Online Spotlight, etc).
  
  This card is the second card in my system. My HP (WinXP MCE 2005 edition, 32-bit version) came with a Hauppauge PVR II (OEM part for the HP that I think is equivalent to the PVR 150). I wanted the extra card to allow watching and recording on two separate channels. This card works just fine for that purpose. In fact, sometimes I am recording simultaneously on both cards when I am not watching anything on the PC. I had no problems with the install at all. I literally turned off the PC, installed the card, booted back up, and everything was rosy. No conflicts at all. I have not tested this on a 64-bit system or on Windows Vista so I can't say it works for those systems.
  
  The reason I give this card only a 3 is the following: I had used the one Hauppauge card the PC came with for over 6 months and was able to receive all of my local basic analog Comcast channels. I have a very simple hook-up with no cable box and I only get about 30 channels. I am actually able to get a channel that is on the fringe of my availablity with the PVR II that my bedroom TV can't get (I can see the channel in B&W, but the sound is staticky). When I installed this second card and tried to view that same channel (the Hallmark Channel), the 1800 gets the same picture as my bedroom TV and the same staticky sound. This told me that the tuner was simply not as good.
  
  In fact, when I added a DVD-RW/VCR to my bedroom set-up, that device ALSO was able to pull in channel 27. I believe the DVD-RW/VCR and the PVR II both have the better analog cable tuners in them. Now the only way I can watch channel 27 in my living room is to start recording something on another channel and then tune to channel 27. This is because the 1800 took over as the default tuner. In other words, I am automatically watching the 1800 by default, but forcing the 1800 to record makes the PVR II be used as the TV tuner I am watching. If, however, I preset a recording, this recording defaults to using the PVR II (as if the 1800 is left in reserve for me to watch while the other tuner is recording).
  
  The 1800 also has a worse picture on the channels it DOES receive. The picture tends to be not as crisp or clear as when I am viewing with the other tuner. I tried upgrading the drivers directly from the Hauppauge site, but this did not change the picture quality. I believe it's just not a great analog tuner. Since I do not have digital cable yet, I can't say whether that tuner would work better. I suspect more effort was put into the digital side than the analog side for this card.
  
  
• Warning to Verizon FIOS users
  By A1LKW51P24PMLW on 2007-11-08
  The included IR Blaster does not work with the Motorola QIP-2500 STB.You can only record from the channel you are watching.This seems to be just fine and dandy with Hauppauge.Apparantly Hauppauge does not consider FIOS customers worthy of support and don't really want to hear from them.
  Haupauge support states that there is no working code.They also state that any resulting inconvenience is the fault of the customer for failing to verify that this" state of the art" device works with current technology.How foolish of me to assume it worked with a small,rinky dink, bit player like Verizon.
  Hauppauge does not have any support at all on their USA webpage.There is a UK page that has a good forum, but nobody over their has FIOS so there is really no support.
  Hauppage phone support consists of them arguing with you.Email support is non- existant.They just deny any problems or blame the customer.You cannot get past the stonewalling.Even leaving messages for the USA distribution companies owner doesn't work- they just don't call back.
  This is definitely a company you want to avoid.
  
  
• Awesome HDTV card
  By ADB9JDG9XMXGV on 2007-05-26
  This card works very well and produces a good HDTV picture. The only problem is the software that comes bundled is worthless so expect to use 3rd party software such as Microsoft's Media Center, SageTV, or BeyondTV. I personally purchased SageTV to compliment the card for a full feature home theater PC.
  
  
• It works... barely
  By A6OT14VKILI4X on 2007-08-17
  After reading reviews here and other places, I bought this tuner in hope to watch TV, and plug my PS2 via S-Video to play some games. ATi would've been my choice except that ATi seems slow to provide Vista certified products, so this was about the safest bet I thought it was...
  1. Installing the card was snap.
  2. Turn on my PC (Vista Home Premium), OS recognizes the card, then asks for driver to be installed (usual "search from internet/have cd/choose your own location").
  After installing the card driver, I installed WinTV2k. And that's where everything fell apart.
  3. Installation of WinTV2k took only 2 seconds, rather too short to believe. After the completion, I click on WinTV2k, and I was greeted with "Missing .dll" error.
  4. I hunted down the .dll in question, move them to the folder where WinTV2k resides, and I had to repeat twice more for two more "Missing .dll" error.
  5. Finally WinTV2k opens up, but blank screen. I click for channel scan set up, and I get another error message and it crashes.
  6. Repeated attempt at installing/uninstalling WinTV2k failed. So I gave up on WinTV2k, and used Windows Media Center to set up TV.
  7. WMC downloads the guide, sets up the signal accordingly, and picture appears in matter of few minutes. Hassle free. But very grainy visual. Far worse than AIW Radeon I've been accustomed to.
  8. WMC still has 1-second delay, and sometimes it's jerky (and my pc is Q6600 with 3GB DDR2 RAM!!!). And needless to say, setting WMC to accept S-Video seems like a task I cannot handle.
  9. I abandoned WMC to watch TV, and settles for DScaler. After few fiddling, picture is in-sync, with less graininess.
  
  Few quips. In order to input sound from composite source (white and red cable), you must buy an adapter (two composite females to one 1/8" [ipod type] male. It is not included in the box, and that's rather ridiculous.
  
  So is it worth the price listed above? Absolutely not. It does it's job, but far from painless, and definitely marred by a terrible app. to watch TV.
  
  
• Hardware GOOD! Software NOT SO GOOD!
  By A30OB6Q4R30V2N on 2008-01-30
  Using this in a dedicated DVR computer in my living room. The quality of the encoding is great at standard DVD spec. Installation was a breeze, and the remote control is well configured.
  
  The reason I'm giving this product 4 stars instead of 5 is because of the software. First, the box included an older version of the WinTV recording software that remained on the machine when I installed the already-available (and much improved) new version. So, I had multiple versions competing to record scheduled programs. Additionally, the WinTV software is hard (if not impossible) to read on a TV screen. Tried all available screen resolutions but no dice. Same goes for the very limited schedule recording application. Very small, very lacking in functionality.
  
  It all ties in well enough to the TitanTV program guide, but that guide is also limited.
  
  Browsing for recorded shows is difficult.
  
  All tasks are impossible without the aid of a keyboard and/or mouse. In my scenario, that wasn't going to work well because I wasn't planning to use either. The remote control, however, cannot be programmed to navigate around the different buttons and icons on your screen.
  
  Enter SageTV.
  
  I downloaded a trial version of the SageTV application, and instantly my experience with this device went from "eh..." to "WHOA!!!!" The SageTV application is an all-in-one deal that works closely with this and other Hauppage cards for the recording, program guide and other functions of the PVR/DVR experience. All text and icons are clearly legible on the screen, and all functions can be accessed via the Hauppage remote.
  
  Setup is easy, and if you set the SageTV app to launch upon Windows startup, you do not need a keyboard or mouse (sidebar - I'm trying out a wireless keyboard with integrated trackball right now, and it is nice for things like searching for content, renaming or editing labels on your recordings and so forth, but it's nice that using the SageTV application has freed me from feeling like I MUST have a traditional input device).
  
  With that said, I will say that this Hauppage device is one of the finest tuner cards available and has a very nice remote, but is lacking in terms of included software to the degree that I will be spending $60 for a better software package. I would have preferred no software at all! Some places will sell you a combo 1600 card with remote and SageTV software, but I would recommending getting this unit first, then trying out the SageTV software to see if it is useful for your purposes - rather than throwing all that money down upfront.
  
  
• Had some problems but am sticking with it anyway.
  By A3LBZLI0FOL2YP on 2007-06-25
  I have a Window's Vista PC, and I primarily watch Over-the-Air broadcasts and do not have cable or satalite. I purchased this so I could pick up HD stations and after some work have found it does an excellent job with the digital stations. The channels all look great and I don't have any trouble getting them in with my $30 Jensen aplified antenna. That is why I'm keeping it.
  
  I am actually on my second card. The first one I got was able to pick up analog channels and not digital. After I spent a couple hours messing with the software I figured it must be a hardware problem and returned it. The 2nd one, which I'm using now, I installed without changing the software at all. It is able to pick up digital channels, but not analog. I've also never got the remote to work on either.
  
  My problems make it so I really can't recoomend this product. Which is sad because I love the features this card offers.
  
  
• QAM is an addition, sensitive to SNR, video streaming an issue
  By A29TOZWK44675K on 2007-09-04
  The card is for ATSC/Cable (NTSC), but if the hardware level matches a certain version you can download an update from the manufacturer's web site and QAM is made available. This is good since in 2008 the transition to digital will happen. However, not sure whether this is my cable company's fault or the QAM drivers, but I do not get more than 13 QAM channels. Having said that, the card works perfectly with ORB 2.0 and I was able to set a show to be recorded from overseas. I just hope QAM gets better, but even without it, the card is worth it.
  UPDATE 10/09/2007: Some incompatibility with ALL video streaming software I tested: WINDOWS VIDEO ENCODER, VNC, etc. When Video shows up, no audio. ORB seems to be the only video streaming method that works. If you try to serve the signal directly from your computer, it seems to not work.
  The good news is that the QAM issue is resolved, many QAM channels including HD are working now. Video accelerator settings are key to get it right. The only issue still worth to note is that the card is more sensitive to the SNR signal than the Set Top box or the built-in TV tuner. Anyhow, this is still a good buy !!!
  
  
• Buyer Beware - Unstable, Finicky Device - Don't Expect Much
  By A2CZGC8XJ1ZCFD on 2007-09-25
  I recently purchased this Hauppauge card, and after three days of futzing with it, I sent it back for a refund. In all that time I was able to view about 30 seconds of video ... the rest of the time my machine either showed no picture, or just froze. I am running XP on a system that meets the "requirements" but I fear your setup needs to be WAY BEYOND (as usual) the requirements to run properly. Issues I had:
  
  * Some kind of conflict in the PCI ports. I wasted two days trying to debug this problem, and gave up. It is not "plug and play" for everyone, by any means. It caused my Linksys wi-fi card to stop working.
  
  * I could rarely tell whether the remote control was functioning or not. The extremely flimsy "IR Blaster" is a tangle of wimpy little cords. Just what I wanted, another rat's nest... Not. The whole setup is not elegant at all, and not what I wanted. Who wants to push a button on a remote 20 times wondering when the response will come, or which of the various components isn't working?
  
  * The included hardware "WinTV" etc. spit out errors on install every time. ONCE after a clean install I got the software to launch without freezing, for the abovementioned 30 seconds.
  
  It has been a long time since I went about adding devices or otherwise customizing my PC further. Now I remember why. Device conflicts, buggy software, "third-pary-add-on" junk hardware is the norm on Windoze PCs. What a waste of time.
  
  
• Works like a charm with Vista
  By A2RC0G0HR3FR56 on 2007-10-17
  I bought this card to use with my Vista Home Premium (Media Center) PC. I wanted to be able to record and watch over-the-air HDTV programs and pretty much use the PC in the home office as a TV. It works very well.
  
  I installed the card and let Vista find the driver automatically on the included CD from Hauppauge. The drivers installed well... I hooked up an inexpensive HDTV antenna to the ATSC digital tuner input on the card and was up and running with awesome quality HDTV and Digital TV in Vista Media center within a few minutes (after the Vista Media Center setup). At first, I did not install any of the software on the CD at all (except the driver which Vista found). Worked great just using the keyboard of the PC. Next I wanted to use the remote, so I installed just those tools from the Hauppauge set-up CD. Again, worked great with no messing around.
  
  This is where I found one very small issue that I guess has caused me to go 4 stars instead of the 5 it probably deserves. The dumb cord for the remote control receiver is way too short.... it does not reach from the back of the PC (sitting on the floor) to the monitor (sitting on the top of the desk) - a configuration I assume is very common. I have to mount the IR receiver on the front of the PC but most people want to point the remote at the image on the screen, so it doesn't work that well. Would have been SO much nicer if I could have put the IR receiver on the monitor. Small gripe, yes... but one of those annoying little things. But, don't let that stop you from buying it.
  
  UPDATE 10/19/07 - If you plan to use a set-top box with this tuner (say for DirectTV or something like that), you will need to buy the Microsoft Media Center remote control. The IR receiver in this unit does not work for Media Center. Well.. the remote works, but Vista does not see the hardware for the purposes of DVR from a Set Top Box. Quite frustrating and another forty bucks. BUMMER!
  
  
• A++++++++++++++++++++++
  By AL6KBL0EUNW4I on 2007-10-25
  First time using a TV tuner and didnt have much expectations. Got a 3.4 P4 2 Gigs MMRY, 500 Gig high end SATA Maxtor drives and ATI PCI Express card all with XP PRO. Downloaded new drivers from Hauppauge (a hint from reviews). Plugged it in, installed drivers, working solid for 1 month now. WinTV works for what I use it for, TitanTV scheduler was nice and simple. Use VideoReDo to remove commercials (free trial sold me), and Nero Vision4 to place on a DVD with menus. I thought it would be a nitemare.....guess it depends on your computer.
  
  
• Perfection!
  By A1TPZY6UK553OI on 2007-06-01
  This card has two tuners - NTSC and ATSC - and BOTH work at the same time in Vista MCE. I have two of these babies in our MCE box and can record four shows (two HD and two SD) at the same time now. Overkill? Yes, but for once, someone made a card that actually can do it and work like it is supposed too!
  
  It's a shame they don't come with an antennae like the HDTV Wonder used too - picture quality is same as any other HD tuner, and I'm happy with the signal of the SD as well.
  
  Stunning results for such a cheaply priced card. I should warn that I use the standard Microsoft remote with Vista's MCE - so I haven't played with the extra features that this card offers (remote and such) - and I have NOT used the software that comes with, as Vista's MCE does more than I need.
  
  Beautiful.
  
  
• Multimedia Dream
  By A3CA2WY5ZWJEG1 on 2007-07-26
  The Hauppauge 1600 is a great little card for the multimedia PC. This card has great picture quality compared to some of the other cards I have used. There is an analoge and digital imput connection so you can watch HDTV, regular cable and even DIGITAL CABLE. The remote is nice but the software sucks, it is very basic with few options. Easy to install only drawback is the limitation of external connections through the S-video connection. It does not have a stereo audio or video imput.
  
  
• Works flawlessly with Vista mediacenter!!
  By AQMXFNM5YR5VV on 2007-08-24
  This is a great tv tuner card. I was a little wary of opening up computer to install card but went without a hitch--went with this Hauppauge instead of tuner stick and glad I did -once card is installed it is out of way and a permenent part of pc case. The analog cable reception is pretty good-this is what I am using with the media center-for some reason the media center does not seem to scan in digital channels via anntena--no matter--- the hauppuage program which installs on your pc desktop works great to bring in digital tv anntena signals--you can watch two tv channels at once!
  ```The only catch is that one needs a good computer to see the high def digital signals--with out freezing and breakup of picture- the dou-core pc with 2gb of ram and 246mb video card i have works well. The cable tv signal is not as big an issue with a slower pc. The remote that works with the hauppauge program has some problems-but no big issue--also some problems with channel changing with both programs--just be sure not to channel surf to much! This is not after all really a tv. For the price this card cannot be beat! Recommended!
  
  
• Excellent Vista/MCE solution.
  By A2LLJF824LIRN9 on 2007-09-13
  I run Vista Ultimate on a home-built PC with an AMD X2 4600+, 2GB RAM, and a 7600 GS GeForce video card. I connect to my XBOX 360 on a 100MB network and use the XBOX's media center extender functions to watch television. I receive my TV signal over the air using a CM 4228 roof mounted antenna in the SF Bay Area.
  
  This card, with the newest drivers, is QAM capable, but only if you use the packaged TV software, and it might also be QAM compatible with other TV software suites, but not Vista Media Center.
  
  The setup using Media Center could not be easier. Install, install drivers, and add your channels. The picture is fantastic, it changes channels quickly, and does not interfere with anything else in my computer. I can't recomment this card more, and I will be buying another so I can have a dual tuner set up, allowing me to watch one channel while recording another.
  
  
• Great while it worked
  By A14E7NS89D64JA on 2007-09-23
  While it worked it was great. The remote was intermittently useful (it seemed to work 75% of the time). I returned that unit and got another one and it worked perfectly for a couple days and then stopped decoding any channels period. When set to scan for channels it found 0 analog (where it had 70+ the day before). All this happened after I tried to use the S-video connector. My coworker also bought this product (from a local circuit city) and had trouble with the remote control. I had no problems with the installation or the software. It just wasn't reliable so I can't recommend it to anyone.
  
  
• Works Great
  By A32QF0ZD4WU7LK on 2007-06-11
  I bought the Tuner over a month ago. I haven't had any problems with it. It's easy to install and works great.
  
  
• MrWebscan
  By A35YY0E4SA2E67 on 2007-06-26
  This card works excellent with Windows Vista. Tv looks great and installation was painless. Definitely recommend.
  
  
• Buy 2 and get a 2 tuner HD Media Center
  By A1CPRP3VFJRS1R on 2007-12-02
  I bought two of these and installed them in a PC running Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005. The result is a PC that can record high definition TV off two separate tuners at a time. I use an XBOX360 as a media center extender to watch my recordings on my HDTV.
  
  Note that the HD tuner will only work for off-air signals, so you'll have to install an antenna in order to use this.
  
  
• Hauppauge WinTV-HVR 1600
  By A2S6C1ZCISHWZX on 2008-02-08
  This TV card works great and the remote control that comes with it is very easy to use. I have basic cable and running the coaxial from a splitter direct to the card with no cable box. You can program and record TV programs just by clicking on TV guide time slot. It's so easy and the reception is like watching Youtube videos. Not bad for under $100. The only problem I had was getting the remote control cable inserted into my computer. At first I thought it was all the way pushed in and my remote control did not work. Somehow the alignment of the input is close to the metal on the computer case and touches it which makes the remote control cable seems to be properly inserted, but actually needs to be pushed in further. I had to kind of push the cable into the input in an angle to get it to click right in due to the mini plug not being inserted all the way in. After that I got it to work fine and with no problems at all. I would rate this card as an excellent product and comes in handy when the family takes over the other 2 TV's I have in the house. I am running Windows Vista and it works fine with both the supplies WinTV software and Windows Media Player which I use more often to watch and record TV shows. You can also instantly delete the TV show once you are finished watching them to save on computer memory space. I'll give it 5 Stars out of 5 for price, ease of use and convenient use of the remote control.
  
  
• Great Card! Easy to Install! Needs Better Software!
  By A3FCL4APUQPOKF on 2008-04-19
  I give the card 4 stars and the software 2.5 stars, for an overall rating of 4 stars.
  
  Card produces great picture quality. I am using an old outdoor antenna plus a 20db to 30db adjustable amplifier from Radio Shack. I only got about 4 channels without the amplifier and between 28 to 50 channels with the amplifier. I bought a big new HDTV antenna, but I need to install it outdoors, because it doesn't work well enough indoors. HDTV is way better than analog. The picture quality is perfect and much higher resolution.
  
  You need a reasonably powerful computer to handle this card. At first I was using a PC with an Athlon XP 1800+ CPU and Radeon 9700 card. I could watch HDTV on this, but there was some occasional lagging or stuttering of the video. It was not quite fast enough of a computer. Then I tried to upgrade the CPU, and ended up killing the computer. So I built a brand new computer with really high specs! My new PC has a Athlon 64 X2 5600+ cpu, 2gb Corsair ram, and EVGA GeForce 8800 GTX graphics card. Now it handles the HDTV very easily. I can even play a recorded video at the same time as I have the HDTV running.
  
  The WinTV software works, but it is lacking a couple of things. First of all, it will not adjust the proportion of the picture to your monitor. When you watch in full screen mode, it just stupidly stretches the whole picture to cover your entire monitor. I use a 16/10 proportion widescreen monitor. Therefore all the 16/9 and 4/3 tv shows are stretched out of proportion in full screen mode. Also, the timer recording software does not work! That is, when I try to schedule shows for recording, that just doesn't work. I bought a WinTV card a few years ago and I returned it because the software was utter crap and would not even install properly. This new WinTV software is far better, but it still needs improvement for the above reasons! Why do they insist on releasing good hardware with inadequate software? Is it so hard or expensive to create decent software with complete functionality? I doubt it! I used to do computer programming, and I think with just a little more effort they could've made this software complete. I'm not asking for some super fancy software, I just want something with a complete set of basic functions that I need! Another problem was that they don't give you any software to play your recorded HDTV programs! You can record them, but not play them with your WinTV software! So I had to find software that would play these big HDTV files. So I got VLC (a free program) to play the files. It works great. I also got the BeyondTV software to watch HDTV. I use that one most of the time instead of the WinTV software. BeyondTV shows all the programs in correct proportion on my 16/10 monitor in full screen mode. Also, the BeyondTV timer scheduling feature actually works and is easy to use. However, BeyondTV has one problem, in that it doesn't have an instant recording feature that works the way I want. So when I need to record something immediately while I watch, then I go back to using WinTV for that. So I am using three different pieces of software for all my TV viewing. I should only have to use ONE and WinTV should have provided that! I haven't tried to do any video editing. The video editing software that comes with WinTV is probably a piece of junk and I haven't tried it yet. I know it has minimal capabilities. Fortunately there is rarely a show that I'd want to edit and keep permanently, but I'm gonna have to find some good software to edit a few important shows and burn them to DVD.
  
  From what I've read and from my own experience, it seems that this card does not have a very sensitive tuner, so it may be difficult for you to get all the available stations. Even with a 30db amplifier, I'm still getting only about 30 stations and some of them are not very strong. I can get 52 stations on my Zenith converter box WITHOUT using an amplifier and all 52 channels are rock solid! I probably will consider getting a better HDTV card eventually, if my new HDTV antenna does not get me all the channels with this card.
  
  
  
• TV for the PC
  By A2KN938JQH8BXF on 2007-07-03
  I have used Hauppauge products before with very good results and this tuner works just as well as the MCE-150 I have in another PC. This tuner also gets over the air HD TV with an antenna which is nice. Make sure for HD that your video card and monitor are HDCP compliant or you won't notice how good the picture can be.
  
  
• Useless to me.
  By AXN1V47UH3EPZ on 2007-09-06
  Video was choppy with the bundled software and fell out of sync with audio when using DScaler. Running the uninstaller has somehow disabled DVD playback on my computer. Others seem to have better luck with this product, but it was a complete waste of money for me.
  
  
• Best ever!
  By A1CODQROJOVVV1 on 2007-09-22
  This is my first TV tuner card I have ever had for a computer. To be honest, I had no idea how my satisfaction would be, as there are a lot of mixed reviews on here. Well, I am so excited with my purchase! It works wonderfully and perfetly with Vista home premium. Picture quality is excellent. Sound is awesome. Quick response time. It works right within Media Center with only slight configuration. I did not try to install the included software. Vista detected and installed the correct drivers.
  
  
• excellent solution, great price
  By A1BBU3QXVEQFL7 on 2007-09-24
  pros: fast channel switching. is a dual tuner. has a remote, that is Vista media center compatible. driver support from Windows update. is QAM HD compatible which I haven't tested but is supposed to work with many HD cable signals.
  
  cons: remote is IR (haven't tested the IR blaster feature) so you have to place it somewhere via velcro, prefer RF. IR driver fails after the system returns from standby and gives a popup error, this should be fixed in Vista.
  
  other notes: I had just read the developer brief on becoming Vista Premium / XP MCE hardware certified and that hardware should have their drivers available via Windows updates, so I decided to put it to the test. I loaded nothing from the Hauppauge cd and it found and setup everything in Media Center except for the remote, which I had to download the current IR program from their website. I am not using their PVR software BTW.
  also works well in Snapstream's Beyond TV 4.6.
  
  

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