Ab Work Outs: Hauppauge-WinTV-PVR-350 TV Tuner/Personal Video Recorder Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)4/28/05 - I have to update this review (from 10/1/04).I have since upgraded to Windows Media Center Edition 2005.This card is great with MCE. There are cheaper Hauppauge cards that also work fine with MCE, so it might be worth taking a look at them before spending the $ on this card. I also wanted to change this review to 5 stars, but Amazon doesn't seem to allow changes to the star rating.

After years of owning various ATI All-In-Wonder video cards, I decided it would be cheaper to go ahead and buy a TV only card, and not have to spend a fortune everytime it was time to upgrade my video card.Quick and to the point, here are my findings :

Negatives :
1. The 'web based' program guide is a very clumsy interface.I would much rather have a application based program guide.
2. No matter what I try, channel 2 always has ghosting.I know it's the card because I had the same cable plugged into my ATI AIW with no problems, and also plugged it into a TV with no picture problems.Maybe moving the card further away from the video card will help?
3. While I'm sure there is a way, I have yet to find how to change the recording quality.After fumbling through the software I finally gave up.

Positives :
1. The FM Radio program is pretty slick, and the reception is ok.No complaints.
2. Unlike the ATI AIW cards (and probably the TV Wonder's) you can set the program to automatically mute while recordinging and close the application when it's done recording.You still have to go back into the scheduler and modify EACH individual scheduled task.It would be nice to either highlight all and change them all at once, OR set a default for all new recordings.
3. Hardware based TV OUT is nice.
4. PLENTY of 3'rd party software supports this card. This is a big plus since in my opinion the software that comes with the card is lacking.

I would have gave this card 5 stars if the bundled software was better.Plan on purchasing SageTV or similar if you plan on buying this card.

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Product Description:

Marketing Information: Watch and record your TV shows with instant replay and program pause. Burn your favorite TV shows onto CD-ROM or DVD and play them on your home DVD player. Includes hi-performance hardware MPEG2 encoder!

The WinTV-PVR brings live TV to your PC screen. With WinTV-PVR"s 125-channel cable ready TV receiver, you can watch TV in a resizeable window or full screen. Or listen to FM radio with our built-in stereo FM receiver.

But thats not all!!

WinTV-PVR puts TV watching under your control! Watch what you want, when you want! With WinTV-PVR you can pause TV when you want, create your own instant replay and even burn your TV shows onto CD-ROM!
Product Name: WinTV-PVR-350 Personal Video Recorder
Product Type: TV/Video/Radio Input Adapter
Technical Information

Host Interface: PCI
Functionality: TV Tuner
Functionality: FM Tuner
Functionality: Video Capture
Graphics Resolution: 1600 x 1200
Graphics Resolution: 704 x 480 NTSC D1
Graphics Resolution: 352 x 480 NTSC Half-D1
Graphics Resolution: 352 x 240 NTSC MPEG-1
Graphics Resolution: 704 x 576 PAL D1
Graphics Resolution: 352 x 576 PAL Half-D1
Graphics Resolution: 352 x 288 PAL MPEG-1
Interfaces/Ports

Interfaces/Ports: 1 x Composite - RCA Video-in
Interfaces/Ports: 1 x TV Antenna
Interfaces/Ports: 1 x Mini-phone Stereo Line-in
Interfaces/Ports: 1 x S-Video Video-out
Interfaces/Ports: 1 x Composite - RCA Video-out
Interfaces/Ports: 1 x RCA (Audio) Line-out
Interfaces/Ports: 1 x S-Video Video-in
Interfaces/Ports: 1 x Radio Radio - FM Input