Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-950 USB2 Hybrid Video Recorder

Hauppauge wintv hvr 950 usb lets you watch HDTV on your PC!

Strengths: Works under Windows Vista; Includes antenna; HDTV picture quality noticeable when comparing with regular NTSC.

Weakness: No remote; No QAM support; Software is a bit unstable.

The WinTV HVR 950 USB stick package came with the device itself, a short usb extender cable, a telescoping antenna, and a CD-ROM software. My package also happen to include an external video cable dongle to connect external composite or s-video sources. You might or might not get this extra, since Hauppauge typically sells this as an accessory to the usb stick. I was able to install the software...
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The WinTV HVR 950 USB stick package came with the device itself, a short usb extender cable, a telescoping antenna, and a CD-ROM software. My package also happen to include an external video cable dongle to connect external composite or s-video sources. You might or might not get this extra, since Hauppauge typically sells this as an accessory to the usb stick.

I was able to install the software and drivers on my Windows Vista system which is a Core 2 Duo 1.6Ghz with 2GB Ram. On the package, it states it also supports MCE (Media Center Edition). It was able to scan for regular NTSC and over the air HDTV channels.

The NTSC channels look grainy and bad in general. My cheap TV gets better reception than the USB stick. It also requires more CPU speed. (about 50 to 60% of the CPU time)
I believe they left the support in there so you can use it as a basis of comparison with the HDTV channel equivalent. In my area, I was able to pick up 27 free over the air HDTV channels. It takes about 30 to 50% of my CPU time. As for the quality, you definitely get a better defined, sharper, cleaner looking image on your laptop screen. The only trouble you might encounter might be viewing sporting events like football, if you have a slow cpu. The play coverage had a noticeable lag as a result. I also tested the recording feature. It seems to take about 500Megs to record 5 minutes of video. This would mean about 6 Gigs to record 1 hour of HDTV. One tip if you are recording program is to record a little earlier (about 10 to 15 seconds). It seems to slow down the frame rate in the very beginning of the recording process. This could be due to my slow cpu.

Now for the software. It is still buggy. I say that the app will work probably 7 out of 10 tries. When it does fail, it would play the HDTV for a few seconds and then freeze. If that happens, then what I usually do is to stop the usb device, and unplug and then plug in the usb stick in again. This seems to fix the problem most of the time. In the worst case scenario, you would have to reboot the computer. Also, I would suggest to go to their driver website and download their new TV ver 6 and signal monitor applications. The TV v6 app seems to be more stable than the TV2000 or TV32 applications that is installed from the CD. Also, the signal monitor lets you know the signal strength of HDTV channels only. This allows you to either adjust your antenna, or decide to get a better antenna instead.

As for the negatives, it does not have QAM support. Based on my reading, it only matters if you want to hook up your cable-TV HDTV channels. Since I use the free over the air, it doesn't matter to me. Also, it does not include a remote. If you are in front of your laptop viewing TV, that might not matter as much. Last, if you do get the extra video dongle, I was able to verify that my camcorder was able to play the tapes through its software. I was able to record about 30 minutes worth taking up about 1.3Gigabytes. So this usb stick can also double as a way to off load your old vhs or camcorder tapes into digital format.

By kckismet - Dec 4, 2007

Compact HDTV tuner with great reception

Strengths: Compact. The included antenna is great at picking up OTA HDTV - as good as any standard "HDTV" antenna.

Weakness: No built in tuner or remote. single tuner. Crappy software

This little usb stick is one of the best HDTV tuners for the price. For a desktop, I think its worth spending a little extra to get the PVR1600 with 2 tuners + remote & built in decoder. I would recommend the 950 for laptops or as a second tuner for a desktop. Dont bother with the included software - works great with BeyondTV or the free GBPVR

By makitaws - Dec 3, 2007

nice, but... certainly not complete

Strengths: excellent reception, even on the weaker analog channels; inexpensive; external

Weakness: no analog stereo; no closed-captioning; crummy software; poor tech support

I bought this unit for use as a TIVO-like device. This it does and does well -- though the 10 second or so delayed start (during which reception is blanked) might annoy some users. This delay occurs on my P4 3.0c system with 1.5GB RAM, the AIW 9800 Pro card & Windows XP SP2; your mileage may vary. . The included software works well with Titan TV's website for scheduled recording. I've had only...
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I bought this unit for use as a TIVO-like device. This it does and does well -- though the 10 second or so delayed start (during which reception is blanked) might annoy some users. This delay occurs on my P4 3.0c system with 1.5GB RAM, the AIW 9800 Pro card & Windows XP SP2; your mileage may vary.
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The included software works well with Titan TV's website for scheduled recording. I've had only one "lost stream" event while recording from a digital channel so far.
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The reception is superb in my area (Houston).
Analog is far superior to that of my All-in-Wonder 9800 Pro's tuner. Indeed, the only tuners I've found which are better are in Sony products -- nobody beats Sony NTSC tuners (opinion derived from 20 years repairing consumer electronics).
The unit pulls in 28 digital channels in my area (with outside pole antenna) -- sweet! I haven't tried the antenna included in the box, so I can't speak to its efficacy.
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Nor have I tried capturing from an external source with the included cable -- though it would be nice if it offered higher resolution captures than 320x240.
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There are some important points you should keep in mind when considering this unit:
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1) It does NOT provide stereo (MTS) analog reception, only mono. This is not mentioned on the box. This is a minor issue (at least for me), since NTSC will end in 2009 anyway.
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2) It does NOT provide closed-captioning. This is also not mentioned on the box. Hauppauge tech support informs me that the unit is, in fact, capable of CC, but they couldn't (or wouldn't) tell me whether this capability will be made available later via firmware flash upgrade (or if flashing it is even possible) or via future driver and application releases. It seems stupid to me to design in CC capability and cripple it -- if the unit actually IS capable of it.
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Issue 2 above should also tell you something about Hauppauge tech support. It's pretty crummy, PLUS there's no toll-free support number! This is also ridiculous for a top brand.
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In a nutshell:
The hardware is good, easily whipping the AIW series tuners (and probably others). The software does record shows, but limited functionality keeps it from being what buyers of the hardware rightly expect.
That the unit's lack of analog stereo and closed-captioning support isn't mentioned on the box suggests Hauppauge is trying to pull a fast one -- this information is on their website, but it's buried deep as obscure entries in the FAQ section. Lastly, their tech support sucks.

By TechTime - Dec 2, 2007

Good unit

Strengths: East to set up

Weakness: USB adapter gets hot, high CPU demand

This USB adapter is very easy to set up. Attena comes with it can catch 6 HD channels for me. Use about 50% of CPU for Dual Core 1.7 GHz Dell Laptop. However, unit gets very hot after 30 minutes of operation. The antenna comes with this unit is not so great. I have hooked this up with a rabbit ear antenna with power amplifier, and it gets much better signal for analog channel and more digital...
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This USB adapter is very easy to set up. Attena comes with it can catch 6 HD channels for me. Use about 50% of CPU for Dual Core 1.7 GHz Dell Laptop. However, unit gets very hot after 30 minutes of operation. The antenna comes with this unit is not so great. I have hooked this up with a rabbit ear antenna with power amplifier, and it gets much better signal for analog channel and more digital channels as well. With 60 dollars price, it is a good buy.

By ivkay - Nov 21, 2007

WinTV-HVR-950

Strengths: Very portable. Antenna included.

Weakness: WinTV software.

Works well if you are on the road and would like to use your laptop as a TV and HDTV. The antenna included is highly compact. However, the reception may not be as good as because of the antenna. The software provided does not provide an easy way to see how strong your HDTV signal is. As such, you may not get many channels as you would like if you were to use a large traditional HDTV antenna. The...
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Works well if you are on the road and would like to use your laptop as a TV and HDTV. The antenna included is highly compact. However, the reception may not be as good as because of the antenna. The software provided does not provide an easy way to see how strong your HDTV signal is. As such, you may not get many channels as you would like if you were to use a large traditional HDTV antenna. The quality of the picture is not as great compare to others. Required a great deal of your cpu resources. Don't expect to surf and watch HDTV on your laptop if you do not own a top of the line laptop.

By skyfire - Oct 4, 2007