Recently Circuit City had the Hauppauge! WinTV-PVR 250 on sale + rebates which took the price to $89.99 usd. In the market for a TV Tuner / Capture Card to complete my hashed together HTPC, I bit the bullet and laid down the cash based on a few positive reviews I read on the 'net.

The PCI card comes with RF, S-Video, and Component Video inputs, a Line-in Audio input and a output for plugging in the remote sensor. It also came with a remote, 2 AA batteries, a thin installation guide, plus a CD with drivers and apps - and a more robust guide in PDF format.

Installation under Windows XP Pro was simple and clean, but I did have to reboot to make it work properly -- which wasn't in the guide or indicated by the installation software. No big deal, just one of those little technical annoyances that might just be my hardware config or something.

The software bundled with the unit worked as expected -- the documentation left a bit to be desired, but after clicking around for a while and playing with the bells and whistles, the WinTV 2000 app (the main TV viewer) has sort of grown on me. It has full adjustment of the video, which is handy of course because no 2 channels or even TV shows are lit and shot the same way... being able to quickly adjust the contrast and brightness are handy -- the hue control is very hairy, though -- a small adjustment will throw your colors way off, it could stand to be a little less sensitive. Included in the software package are WinTV- Scheduler and Win-TV- Editor, which allows you to schedule ahead of time when you want to record something, and the editor lets you ggo back and take out the commercials later. It's all very Tivo-ish and gives you a lot of control and options for recording off-air in various resolutions and bit rates. It also comes with Ulead's DVD movie factory for authoring DVDs of the things you record and home movies and such.

I originally connected my DirecTV receiver to the PVR 250 via the RF input for simplicity's sake, as I didn't have a s-vid cable long enought to reach where my projector is currently setup. Results from the RF input were less than stellar, but still acceptable to watch as long as you didn't make the windowed screen size larger than 65" diagonal -- about half the size of my screen.

Now I have the unit connected via s-video to my DirecTV receiver and the video is much better, of course. Running in full screen mode at 120" works great for most programs, but with more action-packed shows and sports events with lots of wide shots and fast movement things do get pixelated at times. Running those shows in a window at about 90" diagonal helps a great deal, and seems to be the best balance of size/quality. Taking it down to 65" or so makes it look very clean, but it is very watchable at 90"

While there are some higher-end TV on PC solutions out there, overall I would say that the PVR 250 is a very good choice for those on a budget looking to add a TV tuner / capture card to their HTPC setup.

~DM~

I give it -- 8.5 Drudges out of 10

i definently think i'll be investing in one of those!!

That is a COMPOSITE not component input

DM, either alow it to change resolution when in full screen mode, or try the different options in the primary program (start>programs>hauppauge wintv>primary) that may help with those faster sports programs.

Thanks for the tips, will play around with it when I have time this afternoon before the S. Carolina / Georgia Game.

GO GAMECOCKS!!!

~DM~

Give ma a pm if you have trouble, i'm back to work on monday i'll give you a hand then if needed, otherwise just check out the uk hauppauge forums, tonnes of help over there

GOOD