Hauppauge HD-PVR – The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly

by

After more than a week with my Hauppauge HD-PVR, I can say that my excitement hasn’t waned. This thing brings all the channels: HD, digital, SD – everything to the HTPC user without worrying about CableCARD, broadcast flags, or other DRM issues. I’m still working out the final details for a complete review of the device, but had a few points to mention.

First, the Good:

  • HD-PVR video quality is excellent. I was a little worried about how much picture quality loss I’d get since the device is essentially taking a once digital signal that is converted to analog and encoded in H.264. I can say that after testing that 1080i, and all the other formats I receive from my Time Warner cable box, and comparing it to OTA HD shows and unencrypted QAM shows from my HDHR, the picture is very, very good. I’m unable to tell the difference between an HDHR recorded show versus a HD-PVR show.
  • I’ve had error-free recording and live tv viewing from the HD-PVR since day one. Not a single lockup, hiccup or problem even with heavy use and testing.
  • The device is supported by SageTV (with latest beta) and GB-PVR. Beyond TV is not yet supported, but you can get it working with some effort.
  • Another tidbit that might surprise some is the fact that you can have multiple HD-PVRs on one HTPC! This has been proven several times by SageTV users. The thing to remember here is that it is up to the software maker (SageTV in this case) to support multiple HD-PVR devices so this might not be the case for other HTPC software.

To experience The Bad and The Ugly, continue reading at Brent Evans Geek Tonic.

5 thoughts on “Hauppauge HD-PVR – The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly”

  1. I assume there is a slight degradation in picture quality. When evaluating the Gefen HD PVR with similar (?) Ambarella chip when two 37″ Westinghouse HDTVs were placed side by side we noticed slightly softer edges when comparing Gefen’s output to a HD Motorola STB. For most, and for day-to-day usage I wouldn’t say it’s significant at all – but it did exist.

  2. I’m sure there is some degradation in PQ, but I honestly couldn’t see the difference with my eyes on my LCD. I was only viewing the output one at a time so trusting my eyes might not be the most scientific method, but bottom line, it was pretty darn good – good enough for me at least. In the review I’ll try to come up with a measurable method to compare though.

  3. Brent–Try the obvious: Sports, especially fast pans like a long bomb say, with a lot of action on camera. Or a waterfall. Or rain. Or fire–a lot of fire (red is hard).

  5. Glenn,
    You mean like Soccer and Tennis? It handled both well – Soccer was a real test and the HD-PVR handled it with flying colors in my first few tests.

  6. This looks cool, but I wish there was an easier way to have multiple tuners. AFAIK, you need a separate cable box+HD-PVR for each simultaneous stream. That’s pretty darn expensive.

Comments are closed.