Hauppauge HVR-2200 - What a fantastic PCIe Dual Digital TV Tuner

[Mark1]

Finally, a tuner card that works goddammit.

Anyone with a Dvico card should get rid of it and get one of these babies.
Anyone experiencing problems with their current brand card should also get rid of it and get one too.

Yep, Its that good...

Here, its not just my opinion, this is what 2 other reviews said -
au-Review Hauppauge HVR-2200 Digital Tuner
New Magic Australia Introduces Hauppauge HVR2200 PCIe Low Profile TV Tuner

Its OEM, so that packaging isn't nice and colourful. But that only means you get more bang for your buck with out paying for the pretty box. And it has no remote, but hey, I have a M$ remote anyway. Again, they can spend that money on the Tuner card, I don't mind, thats what I paid for.

An 8MB VISTA driver download (this card is actually designed to run... properly... in Vista MCE) and 15 seconds later its up and running.
Not a signal issue, stutter issue, channel 9 white screen issue (thanks Dvico) to be seen.
Channel changing is truly lightning fast (when I read that on a review somewhere, I thought, yea right).

If anyone whats to ask any questions, or has anything to add, please post.

[poodletarmac]

Yep Just the most obvious questions.

Where did you get it?
How much did it cost? and
How long from order to delivery if you bought over the net.

Cheers

/Poodletarmac

[Zilch]

Any problems with it not being recognised after S3 sleep?

(And yeah, I hate having to pay for a remote I will never use anyway)

[Mark1]

Originally Posted by poodletarmac

Yep Just the most obvious questions.

Where did you get it?
How much did it cost? and
How long from order to delivery if you bought over the net.

Cheers

/Poodletarmac

I used staticICE, here is my search result -
www.staticice.com.au
And rang Adelaide Online Computers (just down the road from me).
They ordered it for me, took 2 working days to come from Melbourne I think.
I picked it up today.
Paid $215.

Originally Posted by Zilch

Any problems with it not being recognised after S3 sleep?

(And yeah, I hate having to pay for a remote I will never use anyway)

Yea, I plan on checking that soon. Maybe tonight or in the next few days. Stay tuned . My wife is enjoying some problem free TV viewing at the moment. I don't want to disrupt her.

[Mark1]

Originally Posted by Zilch

Any problems with it not being recognised after S3 sleep?

(And yeah, I hate having to pay for a remote I will never use anyway)

I remember when I first put my HTPC together, I selected S3 in the BIOS.
And I'm pretty sure it goes into S3 sleep.
When I select [sleep] in the Media Center menu, the computer goes completely dead (after 10 or so seconds) - fans, lights, everything. So I believe that is S3.
When I turn on again, Media Center comes back instantly. I've never really used S3, I normally turn off completely. I was amazed how fast Media Center resumed.

Anyway, long story short, no probs with tuner. Able to watch LiveTV straight away.

[TheRob]

Can this card be mounted in a normal height case, or does it only fit a low profile case?

[logifuse]

It's supposed to come with both brackets.

Justin

[johnny5]

yep, it sure does come with both brackets.

[Gemdarwen]

OK, I'm the first to admit that I'm not 100% sure about what all this means, except to say that the write up on the HVR-2200 is very appealing.

But - what is the difference between this card and say the TinyTwin Dual tuner from Digital Now (apart from the obvious USB v's PCIe interface).

Or even the DNTV Live! Dual Hybrid PCI-E S2 for Digital Now as well.

Previously I was leaning towards the Digital Now products as they had recevied some good writeups in this forum.

To a newbie like me the two PCIe cards seem similar, except that the Hauppauge one is about $60 dearer.

Now I'm getting confused again which card is better bang for buck.

[TheRob]

Originally Posted by Gemdarwen

But - what is the difference between this card and say the TinyTwin Dual tuner from Digital Now (apart from the obvious USB v's PCIe interface).

Or even the DNTV Live! Dual Hybrid PCI-E S2 for Digital Now as well.

Some answers in this thread.

I have the DNTV Live! Dual Hybrid PCI-E S2 and have been pretty impressed with it. This Hauppauge card is fairly new, so only time and a few more real life experiences with it will tell if it's in any way better or more stable than the DNTV stuff has proved to be. As you said, the DNTV is a fair bit cheaper, so if you're not going to use the analogue MPEG decoding functions on the Hauppauge mentioned in the other thread then I don't think you'll be disappointed with either of the DNTV cards you listed.

[Dream]

Originally Posted by Gemdarwen

OK, I'm the first to admit that I'm not 100% sure about what all this means, except to say that the write up on the HVR-2200 is very appealing.

But - what is the difference between this card and say the TinyTwin Dual tuner from Digital Now (apart from the obvious USB v's PCIe interface).

Or even the DNTV Live! Dual Hybrid PCI-E S2 for Digital Now as well.

Previously I was leaning towards the Digital Now products as they had recevied some good writeups in this forum.

To a newbie like me the two PCIe cards seem similar, except that the Hauppauge one is about $60 dearer.

Now I'm getting confused again which card is better bang for buck.

the main difference is that the Hauppauge HVR-2200 has hardware MPEG encoder, same as some old DNTV Live! cards (series 1), which DigitalNow have now discontinued http://www.linuxtv.org/v4lwiki/index...id_PCI_Express

If you need analog video capture, then these cards can make it easier to configure and use in Media Center, although I heard that the capture results are not that crash hot.

If you don't need analog capture, but want analog TV then the Dual Hybrid from DigitalNow or the Avermedia Duo or the KW 310, etc are as good an alternative.

If you need only a dual digital tuner (ie no analog TV or analog inputs), then the DigitalNow TinyTwin is unbeatable (at $129 delivered).

[Gemdarwen]

Originally Posted by Dream

If you need only a dual digital tuner (ie no analog TV or analog inputs), then the DigitalNow TinyTwin is unbeatable (at $129 delivered).

I understand Analogue TV, but analogue inputs? Is this something like a VCR connection or old handycam connection?