Hauppauge 1183 WinTV HVR-1600 Internal PCI Dual TV Tuner/Video Recorder Media Center Kit

I'm using this card to record the S-Video output from my DirecTV satellite receiver, so I'm not using the tuner. It works great for my situation, and I found it easy to set up, although I'm an experienced computer user.The WinXP Media Center Edition software works well with this card, and the IR blaster works with my DirecTV receiver. That part of the setup was easy, the software automates it.It took a little time to get used the the Media Center remote, but now I've got the hang of it and can quickly select the programs I want recorded and then play, stop and resume playing the recorded programs. I don't watch live TV much any more, I record most everything so I can skip the @#$%! commercials. I'm quite happy with this card, and the Media Center software. The schedule software is faster and provides a lot more info about programming than the DirecTV receiver does. It's great to be able to quickly find interesting programming and set it to record, then watch it when I have time. One other thing, I also needed an inexpensive wireless keyboard/mouse with a 15' range for this computer. I'm quite happy with this one. IOGear Multimedia Keyboard with Laser Trackball and Scroll Wheel, 2.4GHz Wireless GKM561R (Black)

At the outset, I want to say that I am generally non-judgmental and easy-going.A month ago, I upgraded my Windows Media center PC to Windows Vista Premium 64 bit operating system. The existing TV tuner that came with the original hardware did not work. So I decided to upgrade to a new TV tuner. I saw that Hauppauge, the maker of my old TV tuner had a new product that I could install and be able to view HD TV on my TV. I bought WinTV-HVR-1600 MCE Kit Bundle. I removed the old tuner and replaced it with the new tuner. I followed all the instructions including the latest device drivers and the PC properties/device driver said that the device was working properly. So, I decided to go to Media Center and followed the channel tuning steps. This is where the trouble began. The HD Digital TV scan identified the local channels that transmit digital signal and then started the signal intensity scan. At the first pass it showed signals that had 4 green bars. Then it went through them again and changed the strength of the same stations to 2 red bars, etc. and the scanning kept going on and on and on forever and every time it kept changing the number of green bars. Then, when I stopped it manually and went to view a channel, I got the message "TV signal not available, etc."I called Hauppauge and their Tech Support person did not know what was going on. He asked me to download a driver file which I had already done in the first place. Then, he said that he would forward my problem to their engineer. The engineer e-mailed me asking me to send him screen shots without being specific about which ones and why. I e-mailed him back asking to be more specific. That was 3 weeks ago. I have not heard back from Hauppauge tech support.Bottom line: I wasted about $80 on the tuner, $40 on a powered antenna and I cannot yet get any signal and the Hauppauge technical support seems to be one of the worst operations I have encountered in a long, long time. Hauppauge should be investigated for false claims and bad customer service.

Everything I read on Amazon said this card works on XP and does exactly what I wanted, especially the Clear QAM channels. Unfortunately when I got the card it says right on the box that XP doesn't support Clear QAM channels! Why is that not on the technical specs for this card on Amazon? It could have saved me the frustration and us both the trouble of shipping it back. If your buying this for a Vista PC with Media Center it is probably a good card but don't bother on XP.

The installation instructions were abbreviated...a little too abbreviated. The drivers didn't install properly and I was afraid I had made a mistakein buying this card. I downloaded the newest software from the website, and in the process figured out what the problem was with the original install. Once I had that done I started to receive some channels, but not all. It was through a trial error process I was able to figure out that in order to receive all TV channels and FM radio I needed an antenna connected to all three inputs. It's not an easy trick because of the limited space between the connectors. It also makes the back of the PC a little messy. The instructions for the operation software were also quite brief and very vague, and that took some time to work through as wellBut I eventually figured everything out and I'm glad I did. Using a P4 2.99 ghz and XP Pro SP 3 and an HP 2207h HD monitor the picture is as clear as it is on my large HDTV. I am very impressed. I've used the record function and it works very well, as does the screen shot feature. Now that it's up and working I think my wife could sit down and watch TV on it with little or no instruction from me, so that learning curve is very short.Don't expect to stick this card in and be up and running in 5 minutes. And don't buy this card if you are a computer or a/v neophyte - you'll be disappointed. But if you know your way around software installs and enjoy fiddling around with something like this and the satisfaction of getting it working it is does a VERY good job.

Pros:Very easy installation of hardware, I did have to go to site to get updated software that Windows 7 needed. Even with the software some of the QAM channels donot show up in win 7 Media Center, (you must manuely add QAM channels in WMC 7) but they do show up using the software that came with the card. No problems what so ever with ATSC, and analog cable signals. Great card.Cons: No free TV guide unless you use Windows Media Center, and schedule recoding is lacking.Recomendation: Would recomend