Media Center capabilities on old PC without Windows Media Center Edition - Hauppage WinTV PVR-150
Written: Mar 02 '06 (Updated Mar 05 '06)
Product Rating:
Pros: Works well as TV with remote, DVR with pause, and with external video input
Cons: Many software updates needed, picture quality may be limited by your existing video card
The Bottom Line: Buy it if you want a modestly-priced TV card that works even with older hardware and Windows 2000/XP, and especially if you want to record external video input.
gregs1015's Full Review: Hauppauge WinTV-PVR-150 (DH1045) Video Capture
Why I bought the Hauppage WinTV PVR-150
I was interested in a TV tuner/video capture card for two major applications:
(1) Converting old Sony Hi-8 (analog) videotapes into mpeg computer files for archiving, and burning to DVD, before the old camcorder dies. (This requires using auxiliary video input to the tuner card to take the output from my camcorder, not supported by every TV tuner card).
(2) Using my old PC as a DVR (Digital Video Recorder) to record and play back TV shows, with a tuner for analog cable TV. I especially wanted a "pause" mode - to allow simultaneous recording and delayed viewing. That way, you can pause and start watching any time, and skip through commercials. And, I didn't want to be forced into paying monthly fees for TIVO-like service, since I just needed to record and play back.
A key constraint for accomplishing this is that I wanted to use an old PC - a vintage 2001 HP computer with a 1.5GHhz Pentium 4, 512MB memory, running Windows 2000. The video card is based on NVidia Riva TNT2 Model 64 with 32MB memory, and it drives a 19" NEC CRT-type monitor, running at 1024x768 pixels, 70 Hz refresh rate. If this card works in that old PC, it will probably work in your newer computer. And if it works in Windows 2000, it almost surely will work with Windows XP. Foreshadowing the rest of this review -- it does work well!
To use that computer, I concluded that I needed a solution with hardware encoding (MPEG-1 and MPEG -2 are supported in the PVR-150). Cheaper cards often rely on the CPU to do the encoding, and that would bog down the old CPU, and in any case would likely lead to problems when various background software runs. It would require double the activity on the system bus as well, because the video would have to first go to the CPU, and then back from the CPU.
Based on previous research, I didn't expect that any USB or firewire solution would work well. USB-1 would just be too slow, not supporting the bit rate needed. USB 2 is faster, but in either case, probably involves too much CPU and bus usage. Reviews of many products in the past have indicated problems using USB. No, a PCI card with hardware encoding is the safest solution.
The PVR-150 is a PCI card that can work with direct bus access to the disk drive and the video card, minimizing interference from a sluggish CPU. (More on this later).
I bought the Hauppage PVR-150 in the Winter of 2005 at Comp-USA for about $70 after a rebate. It supports Windows 2000 and WinXP.
Note that this is different than the AverMedia PVR-150, which has already been given poor reviews in Epinions. Also note that although this is the lowest product number in the series with the PVR-250 and PVR-350, it is the newest. So, there may have been some improvements in general capabilities and software since the release of the earlier, more expensive cards.
Hardware Features
To copy my old tapes, I needed video inputs to take the signal from my old analog camcorder. The PVR-150 card has inputs for composite video (the usual yellow plug on the back of every DVD player and VCR) plus audio (left and right channel, in a stereo mini-plug)and S-video. While most people would expect standard RCA phono jacks for the audio left and right channels (the white and red plugs), I suppose there just wasn't much room at the back of the card. To use normal audio cables, you'll need to spend a few bucks to get an adapter to split the stereo mini-plug into two RCA phono jacks. Although S-video should result in higher quality, so far I've only used the composite video plus audio inputs, with good results.
For use in watching TV and using it as a DVR, the PVR-150 has a standard coax input for use with cable or an outside antenna. Note that the tuner only supports analog TV, not digital TV. If you have digital TV, you'd have to take the signal from the output of your set-top box, and use the "blaster" capability for remote control. And you still won't have the high resolution of HDTV.
There's an input for the IR (infrared) remote control assembly. From that plug, you run the (included) wire to the (included) sensor you use for remote control of your PC, and to the (included) transmitter that you place near your cable TV box if you have one. That transmitter is optional, only needed if you're using the "blaster" mode. The "blaster" allows you to remotely control the PC, but then re-transmit the channel choice to your set-top box. That transmitter must be placed within two inches of the set-top box IR sensor. I don't use a set-top box, so I just ignore the blaster capability.
If you want video output from the card, you'll need to buy a more expensive card like the Hauppage PVR-350. Also, if you want an FM tuner, you'll need to buy the more expensive card.
The included remote works well, although as noted in one of the reviews of another in the PVR series, I haven't found a button to switch between full screen and a smaller window.
Software features
The card comes with a full collection of useful software. The basic WinTV2000 software is used for watching and recording TV. It supports the desired delayed viewing & recording. The WinTV scheduler is easy to use for scheduling recordings. For burning DVDs or Video CDs, ULead DVD MovieFactory3 SE is included. Hauppage includes the "nanoPEG editor", which allows very precise cutting up of mpeg files (with some problems, mentioned later). The installation includes Titan TV. This is a web site that is a free guide to TV. It is integrated nicely with the Hauppage software in both installation and routine use. There are links provided to "Beyond TV", which I have not explored. (Subscription fees apply for that, so I have no interest in it).
Installation
Software installation went more or less OK. Software and hardware installation has be done in the order specified - I got out of sequence once, and had to start over. Be aware that every bit of software has newer versions that must be downloaded from the company web site or ULead's web site. Downloading all the upgrades was a bit tedious. But, it was necessary - some of the functionality didn't work with the base software provided.
Watching TV and picture quality
The picture is not as good as a "real" TV, but it's not bad. I find the tradeoff of being able to skip through commercials in pause mode worth the loss of picture quality. The loss of quality is probably due to the old video card. I'm not sure where the upconverting occurs from normal TV resolution to the higher-resolution computer screen , and deficiencies in that may be due to the video card as well.
I'd say that the video card is the limiting factor rather than the PVR-150, with the possible exception of the generation of the TV-display. I conclude that because when recording from Hi-8 source material, saving video to mpeg files and then burning that to DVDs, the results are high quality video when played back through a normal DVD player and TV. So, the quality limitation is not in the WinTV card's video capture and mpeg conversion. Be warned that reviews I've read recently of recent-generation video cards from both nVidia and ATI complain of low display quality for DVD source material even now.
You can display at full screen, or various smaller formats. The quality difference with TV that I'm talking about is mainly noticeable at full screen, where the mismatch between high screen resolution and low source material resolution is greatest. TV pictures in a window only covering part of the screen look pretty good. And, I've been surprised at how often I've felt like just keeping an eye on some program on part of the screen while doing something else on the computer.
The software to select TV or auxiliary input is easy to use, and includes auto-discovery of channels. You can attach your own labels and comments to each channel. You can snap pictures as well.
Titan TV is a web site serving as a free guide to TV, but Hauppage integrates well and simplifies the access. You can click on the schedule to get details about a program. Or, click on an associated TV icon for an ongoing program, and it starts WinTV at that channel. Or, for a program that hasn't started yet, click on a "record" icon on the listings on the web page, and it automatically sets up the WinTV scheduler to record that program.
DVR capability
The PVR-150 works well as a DVR. The pause mode works well. And, skipping through commercials is much faster than with a tape-based recorder. I like the instant 10-second jumps you can do via the mouse or remote. And, (I realized since the first version of this review) that the "skip" button on the remote can do 10-second jumps or can just be held down for continuous fast forwarding. (The manual doesn't say much.)
I was pleased that the computer was not loaded down when in DVR mode. But, having said that, be aware that I absolutely try to minimize the number of background programs running. I do allow automatic updating of antivirus software, but not Windows updates. You can do some other tasks like web surfing at the same time, but anything requiring serious work with the hard disk and CPU does risk introducing dropouts into recording or watching.
Performance is good because there's direct bus access between the PVR-150 and the display card. I record everything at DVD-standard play quality. This results in about 3GB of disk space per hour. There are numerous choices for higher or lower quality. You can play with the settings, including video bit encoding rate, choose fixed vs variable rate encoding, change video resolution, and change audio bit rate. The preselected set of options is more than enough.
Note that I use a separate hard disk (7200 rpm, EIDE) for recordings and other file archiving. The key is not to use the C drive that's in normal use by the operating system. This minimizes interference from operating system activities, unexpected tasks like antivirus file updates, etc. And, definitely follow the recommendations in the manual to enable DMA access to the hard drive. This keeps the CPU out of the path of data from PVR-150 to/from the disk. I did find that to be necessary.
Making DVDs and transcribing from my external video source
I follow a 2-step process to making DVDs of my old Hi-8 tapes. First, I play the tapes, connecting to the video & audio input of the PVR-150, making an mpeg-2 DVD-compatible file using the WinTV2000 software. Then, I make a DVD from the mpeg file using the supplied ULead MovieFactory3 SE software. The result is a good quality DVD. Sony Hi-8 recordings are higher quality than standard TV broadcast or VHS tapes, so if you want to digitize VHS tapes, you should also get good results.
One of the software updates to the ULead software should allow directly going from the WinTV card into the ULead software. That particular update failed for me, but I didn't see a real need for that capability anyway.
The ULead software is a very good choice when using the PVR-150. A huge advantage of this software is that it requires no format conversion (re-encoding) from the files generated by the PVR-150. There's a huge advantage in eliminating this rendering time, and this also avoids degrading video quality. (Just as in the case of photo editing, re-encoding means re-compressing and losing information).
The Ulead software allows various formatting options for the DVDs. This includes letting DVD users select the segment from miniature "live" preview videos. If you use this (default) feature, the ULead software does take a lot of time rendering the small video images used in those "preview" screens.
I just used the composite video input, but really should have used the S-video input for better quality.
There's also a small standalone MPEG editor to cut the MPEG files at frame boundaries. That's OK for splitting a movie into two parts, but that's about it. Something gets lost in the process, so that the segments can't always just be recombined. Sound in particular gets lost. I only rarely use this, and never with the PVR-150.
Summary of this review of the Hauppage WinTV PVR-150 TV tuner/video capture card
For TV and DVR use, this Hauppage WinTV card works well, even on an older PC. At full screen resolution, the picture isn't really as good as TV, but much of this is probably due to my video card. If the PVR-150 is responsible for upconverting TV to a higher-resolution screen, it could do a better job.
For converting old tapes, the PVR-150 is very good for the job. You can use either of the video inputs (S-video or composite video plus a stereo miniplug for audio input).
A key point is that this card is a reliable solution, stable even with some other simultaneous use of the computer.
In summary, the card and software does its job well.
Epinions.com periodically updates pricing and product information from third-party sources, so some information may be slightly out-of-date. You should confirm all information before relying on it.
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