Hauppauge WinTV HVR 950 USB 2.0 Stick Review

[Greg]

I hooked mine up directly to Comcast and was fine, though I could not get some of the higher channels. You'll need to ask other service providers; the key is that their normal cable has to be encoded according to the NTSC standard (or ATSC).

As far as I know, no cable HD feeds are ATSC. These HD feeds are all worked up in DRM that the tuner cannot decode.

[JMac]

As far as I know, no cable HD feeds are ATSC. These HD feeds are all worked up in DRM that the tuner cannot decode.

Thanks. I've been debating between the Hauppauge and the Plextor ConvertX PX-TV402U. The Plextor has hardware encoding, but no HD tuner. But it seems like for all practical purposes (to be useful for me an HD tuner would have to decode a cable/satellite HD signal) the Hauppauge doesn't really offer anything more as far as HD goes. Looks like the advantage may go to the Plextor. Anyone know anything about it which might influence my decision one way or another?

[Greg]

The only think I can offer is that if you're area has a lot of free OTA HDTV channels, the Hauppauge may do you more good.

But other than that it comes down to visual quality IMHO.

[dieuwer]

In contrast to all the positive reviews, I am not too happy with this USB tuner. I guess my processor is unable to keep up because the TV display constantly hangs-up or has "hiccups".
Additionally, when I power-up my laptop while the USB tuner is already attached, the hauppauge software cannot find the USB tuner! Meaning, everytime I have to manually remove the USB and reconnect it to the USB port! Only then the software loads and does not give me the error: "cannot initialize tuner".

[Greg]

In contrast to all the positive reviews, I am not too happy with this USB tuner. I guess my processor is unable to keep up because the TV display constantly hangs-up or has "hiccups".
Additionally, when I power-up my laptop while the USB tuner is already attached, the hauppauge software cannot find the USB tuner! Meaning, everytime I have to manually remove the USB and reconnect it to the USB port! Only then the software loads and does not give me the error: "cannot initialize tuner".

Are you using the software included on the CD? The CD software is definitely junk. Download the latest software and update.

[PhoenixReborn]

I tried this card with the antenna and it worked alright but when I tried it on cable it didn't get any channels. Why would this be? It's regular Comcast.

[Greg]

I tried this card with the antenna and it worked alright but when I tried it on cable it didn't get any channels. Why would this be? It's regular Comcast.

When you are setting up the tuner, you need to either use Cable or Cable HRC. I think Comcast is currently using HRC, but it might vary by area.

[PhoenixReborn]

Interesting. I should have asked before I returned it. Do all such usb tv tuners work with cable? If not, is there some way to tell which ones will?

EDIT: Now that I think about it, it was actually an AVerMedia tuner that didn't work.

[eleron911]

So Greg after some usage, how is it holding up?
I'm planning on getting one, since it looks so sleek and portable...

[paper_wastage]

im looking at the WinTV 950Q (same as this model but with ClearQAM support)

a quick but important question
anyone tried using Media Center to view OTA Digital Signals? hows the CPU usage for using Media Center? I've always found that Media Center uses much lower CPU usage than other PVR program

(eg my PCI Analog Tuner, runs maybe 10-20% CPU usage in Pentium 4 3.0GHZ, Vista Media Center..... but using BeyondTV/ChrisTV, CPU Usage goes up to 50% or higher, and laggy.....)

and im also looking at the FusionHDTV Tuner USB, since it claims support for Vista x64 (im using x64)