Hauppauge1120CN WinTV-HVR-950 Hybrid Video Recorder

- GENERAL -Get the latest drivers, etc. here: [...]NOTE: Newer versions of this card actually show up on device manager as version 980, instead of 950.My Setup: Vista Home Premium, Windows Media Center (built into Vista Home Premium and up), Core 2 Duo 3.0GHz (E6850), 2GB RAM, nVidia 256MB 8400GSOverall, the card is a pretty good deal when you compare it to PCI cards. If you get a discount or rebate you might get it for less than 50.- HD V. ANALOG -This card really shines in ATSC HD mode (using an antenna). The difference between analog and HD is almost like night and day! It's amazing how much better HD looks, even in the exact same computer.You should also know that with HD signals you either get the signal and it looks awesome or you don't and you don't see anything. With regular over the air TV you would get fuzzy channels if you don't get a good enough signal, but with HDTV you will either don't get the channel at all if the signal is too poor or you will get dropped frames (or skipping) if the signal's almost good enough. The dropped frames can be very distracting - it reminds me of fast forwarding or a scratched DVD, so you will probably need to get an antenna to actually get a good HDTV experience.THIS CARD WILL NOT RECEIVE CABLE HDTV, it only works with over the air HDTV using an antenna.On the other hand, analog reception (from cable at least) is good or "OK", but a little washed out and grainy/snowy when compared to the WinTV-HVR-1800 (PCI), which I've used side by side. The analog reception would be good as a secondary unit, or a good primary card if your computer's not very fast or you don't care too much about analog quality.- SOFTWARE -I haven't used the bundled software because I used previous incarnations of it and the reviews indicate it hasn't improved much. It's supposed to work with XP Media Center and all sorts of other programs, but I can't attest to that.The card works amazingly well in HD mode with Vista Media Center, but you need to install an encoder if you plan on using it in analog mode (look for "MCE software encoder" here: [...] Also, you can only use it as analog OR HD mode in MC, but apparently you can switch between modes with the WinTV software. That's not a problem for me, since I'm using this as a secondary card, but it's a downside if you want to use it as a primary card in Vista MC.- OTHER THOUGHTS -Again, you might need to get an antenna to receive HDTV over the air, but if you're close to HDTV transmitters the included antenna might get you a good enough signal. I'm only a few miles (around 5) from transmitters and the included antenna gets me: - 3 channels with a good enough reception (no skipping or dropped frames) - 3 more with spotty reception (a few frames get drop every now and then) - 2 more channels that are scrambled or don't have a good enough signal to be viewed- FINAL THOUGHTS -I strongly recommend this card for HDTV. The quality is just amazing and the price is difficult to beat (particularly if you get a discount). In analog mode, this is a good secondary card if you already have one, or a good primary card if you're on a tight budget or if your computer is older or not very powerful. Fortunately, my computer's fast enough and I didn't run into performance problems. As with any hardware upgrade, you should consider your system's performance before getting it.If your system's good enough, it's hard to go wrong with this cardIt gets a 4 because compared to the WinTV-HVR-1800, the analog signal's not as good (but still good) and it requires software not included in the Disc to work with Media Center - it took me a while to figure this out. If I didn't compare it to the WinTV-HVR-1800, it would probably get a 5, but if I had to use the included software, it would probably get a 3.

This simple looking HVR-950 IS ONE AMAZING DEVICE!!!My particular HVR-950 came with an unexpected "external A/V source" adapter. It plugs into the side of the HVR-950 and allows R-L audio, S-video and composite video signals to be seen and recorded from such sources as VCR and DVD players. It works very good. This accessory can also be bought directly from WinTV. See "Customer Images" for a picture of the adapter.After a month's use I notice the HD picture can be slightly jerky at times but you can still watch it ok. Nice bonus, you can copy the .mpg files you record and burn them to a DVD disc. A half hour HDTV show takes up about 3.75 GB of space. The disc can then be played back on any computer using the Windows Media Player with the wide screen picture appearing just as you saw it originally over the air. However this disc will not play in a regular DVD player.It took only a half hour from the time I first opened the box, hooked up the hardware and ran the install CD until I was watching NBC National News in good looking HDTV. The Dell 20 inch widescreen monitor I'm using has a native resolution of 1680x1050 pixels, my Desktop setting is 1280x800, video card has 256 MB of memory and the CPU runs at 3 GHz. The viewed TV picture's aspect ratio is adjustable to give a true 1.78 ratio. Antenna being used is a 12 year old Radio Shack fringe area type which pulls in 7 DT stations (11 DT channels) located 15 to 25 miles away along with 5 analog ones. You can download a nice WinTV signal strength indicator for checking out your antenna. The HVR-950 remains cold to the touch until it's actually being used and then becomes warm but not hot.The included video recorder and scheduler also work good. I did have a jerky picture and/or computer lockup when using the pause or fast forward controls while viewing recorded video. Then I discovered switching from the default "Force Primary" to just "Primary" mode setting found in the WinTV program files eliminated the problem. This also enables "Snapshot" to function in the DT mode. Windows Media Player also works just fine for playback. Recording a 2 hour HDTV show requires 11 GB of hard drive space but the playback picture looks as good as the original. There's also a "TV Pause" mode that starts recording live TV until you can get back and pick up from where you first paused it, like for answering the telephone. Neat.Version 6 software has "skin" files that I used to slightly modify or personalize the appearance of the WinTV player. The basic HVR-950 hardware is definitely well engineered, very useful and is not a gadget. The more you experiment the better it works. I'm giving only a 4 star rating because there is no on screen "Help" information when you are using the latest version 6 software but I'm still very pleased with this product.