WinTV-PVR 250/350 (Model 30xxx, 32xxx, 48xxx) > Drivers and Hauppauge software (PVR 250/350)
Happy or not Happy with your WinTV-PVR 250?.
jd1961:
As I mentioned on another thread, I'm giving up after less than a week. I intend to make DVDs for other people professionally, and I can't afford to wait and hope I can get it to work right. I plan to return it and get something else before the end of the week.
automaton:
50% unhappy.
I agree too, that the reliability of the software is the major reason for frustration. I've had to do a complete reinstall twice, where no other component in my PC has any problems at all.
I appreciate that drivers & applications are complex, and they take time to write, but the market for these cards must be increasing, along with DVD sales, and so are expectations. More competitors may arrive, producing better and easier-to-use software, and if Hauppauge wants to compete, they have to improve the reliability.
It wouldn't matter so much if the boards were a quarter of their current cost, but when a consumer spends the same on a Tuner card as it would cost to buy a VCR, they expect it to work.
Well-written, stable applications are very important, but rock-solid stable drivers are critical. Most normal consumers are happy to sacrifice 5-10% performance to gain reliability.
Apart from that, the results are fine :wink:
mreddie:
I'm torn on how to vote for this. I am happy now, after spending two frustrating days getting it to work. For purposes of this vote, I am going to say unhappy.
There is not any chance at all that this hardware would have worked out of the box on my Win2000 machine. Therefore, Hauppauge knowingly sold me something they knew was faulty. Only after spending some serious time with google, and finally locating helpful resources such as this forum, was I able to get it working.
After reading all of the information here and downloading the drivers from SHS's page I was able to get it to work. Now that its functional, I am quite happy with the performance of the card for capturing video. At this point in time, I haven't tried any of the PVR capabilities.
As noted by another individual, I have noticed a minor voice/lip sync issue on occasion. As also as noted, it gets really hot. So much so that I felt compelled to move it far away from my video card. Needs to incorporate a fan of its own or something.
One more thing while I'm at it. The Hauppauge website really sucks. Plus, they should have documentation of every error and possible causes. Their site was useless when trying to figure out the errors I was receiving
Hardware:
Athlon Thunderbird 1.2 Ghz
512 PC133 RAM
7200 RPM Maxtor HD
NVidia TNT2 32MB video card
Creative XGamer audio card
Windows 2000 SP2
jd1961:
I did return mine and got Pinnacle Studio Deluxe with their AV-DV card. Although it cost quite a bit more ($300), I'm much happier with it, though audio still falls out of sync with a noisy video. I can fix it now, as it generates AVI's, so I can load the file into my wave editor and create a separate soundtrack, which I then sync with the video. With the PVR, audio was guaranteed to fall out of sync no matter what the source, and there's nothing you can do about it. Also, the software is much better than the Hauppauge drivers. It's not perfect (what is?), but I believe I made the right decision.
FKK:
75% unhappy
- Tuner hardware is out of date. I receive some channels perfectly and some in which i needed most dont.
- interlacing
- outdated software
+ integrated MPEG hardware, it even works perfectly on my old AMD400
Does anyone has experiences with pinnacle or MSI (silicon tuner) tuners?
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