New TV tuner cards from Hauppauge: HVR-1600, PVR-USB2 w/ IR Blaster
January 17th, 2007 at 8:03 pm by Rakesh
Hauppauge announced a few new TV tuner cards last week and during a brief meeting I had with Ken Plotkin, Hauppauge’s CEO, in Las Vegas at CES, I got the inside track on their new cards.
First and foremost (at least for those of us in the United States), Hauppauge announced the HVR-1600 at CES. The HVR-1600 is Hauppauge’s second recent TV tuner card to support over-the-air HDTV. Their first TV tuner card with over-the-air HDTV support was the HVR-950 (which we wrote about here in October 2006).
The retail box for Hauppauge’s new HVR-1600
Like many cards, the new HVR-1600 supports both over-the-air HDTV and analog TV. But, there are a few very cool things that set the HVR-1600 apart from any other TV tuner card on the market in the United States:
1. First of all, the HVR-1600 has an IR blaster and code library — the same one that Hauppauge includes with all of their PVR-150 TV tuner cards. Hauppauge’s PC TV tuners are the only ones in the United States to include IR blasters and code libraries, making them the only TV tuners that you can use if you want to record TV on your non-media center edition PC from your satellite or digital cable set-top box without any additional cost add-on products.
Hauppauge’s new HVR-1600 with IR blaster and code library
The connector plate for Hauppauge’s new HVR-1600 (note all-important IR emitter port)
2. Second of all, the HVR-1600 has a hardware MPEG-2 encoder for analog TV — this means that, like the ATI Theater 650, you can not only record analog TV, but you can record it in consistently high quality without putting much load on your PC’s CPU. We’ve always recommended analog TV tuner cards with hardware encoding. This makes the HVR-1600 one of the few over-the-air HDTV cards that we can recommend you use to also record analog TV.
3. Finally, and this a subtlety, the HVR-1600 is supposed to be a true dual tuner card, which means you can use both the digital tuner and the analog tuner at the same time. You can record an over-the-air HDTV show while you simultaneously record an analog TV show. This sets the HVR-1600 apart from the only other over-the-air HDTV card with hardware-encoding analog TV support, the ATI Theater 650.
From what Ken told me, the HVR-1600 should already be on the shelves at CompUSAs around the country. And, while we haven’t tested these new Hauppauge cards yet, the HVR-1600 should work just fine in Beyond TV. Look for another blog posting confirming HVR-1600 support in Beyond TV and announcing availability in the SnapStream Store.
The second important piece of news that I picked up during my meeting with Hauppauge at CES (that wasn’t in their press release) is that Hauppauge will soon quietly begin shipping all of their PVR-USB2s with the same IR blaster and code library that the Hauppauge PVR-150 cards have always shipped with.
The retail box for the PVR-USB2 — they’ve added an IR blaster, but the retail box hasn’t changed.
This is great news for digital cable and satellite users who either have a laptop and aren’t technical enough to open up their PCs and install a PCI TV tuner card. We used to have to direct these folks to over to the expensive ($49.99) USB-UIRT cable pack, but once these new Hauppauge PVR-USB2 devices are in circulation, the Hauppauge PVR-USB2 will be a one-stop USB TV tuner solution for not only regular cable and antenna users, but for digital cable and satellite users as well. The new Hauppauge PVR-USB2s with IR blaster should be widely available shortly. Look for another blog posting when we start shipping these new TV cards in the SnapStream Store.
The new Hauppauge PVR-USB2 with IR blaster and code library — note the newly added IR emitter port.
UPDATE: It seems that the Hauppauge HVR-1600 is NOT a true dual tuner card. It’s a hybrid card just like the ATI Theater 650, which you can use either the analog tuner or the digital tuner but not both at the same time. We’re verifying our tests and checking with Hauppauge, but meanwhile we’ve gone ahead and updated this post to reflect what we saw in our tests (1/22/2007).
UPDATE 2: The Hauppauge HVR-1600 IS a true dual tuner card after all. Beyond TV 4.5 treats it like a hybrid card but Beyond TV 4.6 will fix this. (1/24/2007).
January 18th, 2007 at 1:16 pm
[...] Say you’ve got a Windows-based PVR that’s running quite nicely and you don’t see the need to upgrade to Windows Vista anytime soon? But you’re stuck using analog cable because you can’t figure out how to get your computer to change the channel on your cable box. [...]
February 1st, 2007 at 2:01 am
Hi I am interested in getting a TV Card for my computer I need to know how
do I install it ? is it hard to do ?
If you can help me that would be great
also is is possible to get one that uses a USB cable ?
thanks for your input
February 6th, 2007 at 8:45 pm
Any idea when the USB version with IR blaster will be in your stock?
February 9th, 2007 at 6:18 pm
Do you know if the HVR-1600 supports QAM? Have you tested this support? Thanks
February 14th, 2007 at 10:41 pm
Just installed the 1600 and do not see any QAM channels detected.
Sorry; wish it were so!!
March 3rd, 2007 at 1:34 pm
Anyone know what the 13-pin header on the top right of the card is for?
March 5th, 2007 at 1:44 am
I agree with your article “pctv”This is great news for digital cable and satellite users who either have a laptop and aren’t technical enough to open up their PCs and install a PCI TV tuner card of pctv
May 8th, 2007 at 10:45 pm
I have been looking forward to a hardware encoded analog input as well as HDTV that can utilize both inputs at once. Thank you Hauppauge!
I have never been disappointed yet, and I have been using their products since the original WinTV days. You can’t go wrong with them, now we just need to see a PCI-Express card for all our updated computers with minimal PCI slots.
May 29th, 2007 at 3:54 pm
Two versions of this card support QAM, according to the Hauppauge website. You just have to buy the ones with the correct labels. According to Circuit City it shows the sticker, on the card, on the Picture of the card on the box… I hope that picture is accurate:
“Digital QAM features
If you are using digital cable which broadcast the local ATSC channels, you can receive these QAM channels with the new WinTV v6 application. QAM is only supported on product codes 74021 and 74041 (found on the tuner label).
Note: not all cable TV networks send clear QAM channels
Note: if you have a WinTV-HVR-1600 poduct code 74021, click here for the latest software which supports QAM”
July 5th, 2007 at 3:50 pm
the hvr1600 appears to get some QAM channels, such as locals and home shopping channels, but not things like Comedy Central, Food, etc. My Visio LCD tv tunes most of the non-encrypted channels, including Comedy Central, Food, etc, so I know the hvr-1600 is somehow designed to skip these channels.
July 5th, 2007 at 3:51 pm
the hvr1600 (with the correct tuner 74021 or 74041) appears to get some QAM channels, such as locals and home shopping channels, but not things like Comedy Central, Food, etc. My Visio LCD tv tunes most of the non-encrypted channels, including Comedy Central, Food, etc, so I know the hvr-1600 is somehow designed to skip these channels.
August 15th, 2007 at 9:32 am
I just put HVR 1600 in my computer. I had to remove all the provious drivers and applications for WinTV250, then downloaded latest driver from Hauppauge website (the whole CD). Followed instructions for installation and scanned for QAM channels. I plugged cable (no splitters) directly to back of HVR1600. It was able to pick up about 15 channels (inlcuding major networks). I am planning to buy Motorola signal booster, this should probably allow to pick up more channels and help with a splitter.
So far I wan not able to set it with up BeyondTV 4.6.1. It supposed to work, however Wizard scans for HDTV channels for Antena (digital) and downloads line-up for channels at lower spectrum (numbers like 1000) when QAM channels are in upper register (over 2000) I will try clean install of BeyondTV.
HVR1600
Time Warner Cable NYC
September 4th, 2007 at 9:48 pm
I bought HVR-1600 last weekend. Using the auto-scan feature I can get 6-7 QAM channels only as compared to 30 QAM channels that my Philips HDTV can scan. After playing a little bit with the WinTV software, I was able to get all 30 channels on this card. Here is what you need to do; In WinTV channel manager, select QAM as source and using the up/down channel changer on the same screen start changing channels one by one. Start with ’0′ as default. You have to change 125 channels by mouse clicks
Once done, it will generate a list of all newly tunned channels. Now right click on QAM source and “Refresh” . That is it, the newly scanned channels should be there.
September 23rd, 2007 at 7:00 pm
The 1600 has two coax connectors on the back. one for analog cable and one for OTA ATSC. if i want to tune QAUM rebroadcast signals from the cable company, do i connect cable to the ATSC??
October 2nd, 2007 at 8:44 am
Yes, For QAM you need to connect it to the the ATSC connector.
March 28th, 2008 at 6:09 pm
I have (3) HDTV tuners.
AverMedia PciE
ATI All in WOnder.
and the Hauppauge 1600
The hauppauge is by far the worst. First the IR BLASTER IS USELESS in Vista or Media Center. The Reception is crap. The other 2 tuners picked up more OTA hdtv channels.
Last but not least. THEIR TECH SUPPORT SUCKS.