Hauppauge WinTV-PVR-250
July 23rd, 2004 | by Jeff Fila
Full Review
Introduction In the attempt to turn your PC into an all-encompassing home-theater system, one of the most important components is the TV tuner. With the ability to watch, record and archive TV shows, a good TV tuner can help the do-it-yourself types build a system that rivals set-top-box solutions from TiVo, ReplayTV, and cable providers. One of the most popular TV tuners with HTPC builders is the subject of this review, the WinTV-PVR-250 by Hauppauge which can be found online and in retailers for under $175. Features and Design The WinTV-PVR-250 is a PCI-slot TV tuner and video capture card that allows you to watch, record and pause live TV in a window or full screen. . The “PVR” in the model number stands for Personal Video Recorder, which like TiVo or ReplayTV, allows you to watch, record and pause live TV. It features a 125-channel tuner and is a bit different — and better — than most other TV tuners in that it features onboard hardware MPEG-2 compression. MPEG-2 is the video format natively used by DVDs and many multimedia programs and devices, making it ideal for a PC-based TV Tuner. It is this hardware based encoding that makes the PVR-250 an excellent choice for home-theater PCs and TV recording. Other PCI-based TV tuners as well as those found on the ATI All-In-Wonder line of video cards use software to encode the incoming TV signal into a useable format (usually MPEG-2). This design taxes the system's processor and memory and results in video of often sub-standard quality. A hardware-based encoder, such as that found on the PVR-250 handles all of the compression onboard, allowing the processor to be freed up for other uses. Hardware encoding is faster and often times results in higher quality videos. Besides the onboard hardware encoder, the PVR-250 features a coax, S-Video and composite inputs, and infrared remote control and a stereo audio input. Included in the retail box is:
Hauppauge's WinTV-PVR-250 TV tuner and video capture card.
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by Ray on March 7, 2008:
“I bought a Win-TV USB which I tried to use. The picture quality is excellent but no sound. However, when I recorded a clip and played it back, there was sound. What should I do? I don't see a line-in option in my sound properties. ” More...