Gadgetell Review: WinTV-HVR 950 hybrid TV stick
by at August 17, 2007 6:15 pm
Sections: Accessories, Audio, Computers, Desktops, Features, Hardware, HDTV, Home Audio, Laptops, Portable Audio, Portable Video, Reviews
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Hauppauge has released a tiny adapter that not only lets you grab HD TV signals and play them on your computer, but you can also record those signals like a DVR.
Grabbing video has become quite a bit deal. Not only does it mean big traffic for many web sites but it allows people to share their home movies or other video clips with friends and family across the interweb. Ah, the power of YouTube. Oh, and about the questionable practice of recording and sharing copyrighted content on the internet, just don’t do it – those people have kids to feed.
Design – The WinTV-HVR 950 hybrid TV stick is a small plastic adapter that weighs only 1.2 oz (35 g) and measures 3.5 in. x 1.25 in x 9/16 in. The version I received to review is gunmetal grey but the hauppauge! site shows a white version. The stick adapter has a female coaxial cable port on one side for the input signal and a male USB (2.0) plug on the other to plu into a computer. The side also includes a mini USB port.
It also ships with a CD-ROM containing WinTV-HVC compatible software, a small, fold-out instruction sheet, a 12.5 in. USB extension cable, an S-video adapter with two female audio RC/A cables and a male mini USB cable on the other end and a 4.75 in. tall mini HD antennae with a coaxial plug at the end of an 1/8 in., 5 ft. cable. All of my components and cables, save the dark grey stick, were black.
Features – After installing the software, the device is essentially plug-and-play. You plug the USB end of the stick into a PC and the other end into either the air antenna or an external media device via coax.
Then you launch the WinTV software and start to scan for channels. You’ll get a few right away but you’ll need to run the scan feature to find them all. The beauty of the device is that it will find a whole range of weak and powerful signals, so you can later try to tune to a channel or move the antenna for better reception.
The software will allow you to record any live video – as long as your hard drive and processor can handle the drag – as well as schedule certain channels or times to record. It will also allow you to encode the video into various formats, which can be especially useful.
You can also take screen captures and save them as JPEGs your hard drive, which is nice for making thumbnails if you use something like Coppermine or if you simply want a few images instead of full-on videos.
There is a feature that will allow you to encode into portable device formats – PSP and iPod, for example – but the options are greyed out and, unfortunately, require additional software called Wing ($24.95).
Performance – It took a few tries to get the software installed, mostly because I have a few older computers that I like try hardware on first. Don’t even think of using this on anything that does not meet the minimum requirements (2.2 GHz P4 or 1.8 GHz Centrino processor) and, even though it says you need a graphics card with a minimum of 64 MB of memory, aim as high as you can, otherwise the image will really stutter when you try to record. Also, the USB is not backwards compatible with USB 1.1 since it is way to slow. You’ll also need Windows XP with Service Pack 2 (it is also Mac compatible).
Once on a compatible machine, it ran very well and only crashed a couple times. Grabbing video was a snap as was scheduling times to record.
I was amazed at the number of HD channels I found in my area. Granted, most of them were PBS stations, but they were far better looking than the few stations I get with a regular ol’ TV antenna. One annoyance was not being able to jump to specific channels and instead needing to use the forward or backward button to move one channel up or down. Since it can take a few seconds for channels to hone in, surfing a single channel at a time can get a little tiresome.
It also handled widescreen and standard format pretty well, letting you switch between the formats while retaining the right ratio even when resizing the view window.
I’m not certain if the device ships with the S-video adapter I received since it was not listed on the box and Hauppauge also sells that as an add-on accessory bundled with a remote control. if it doesn’t then expect to shell out another $17, but it might be worth it if you have several S-video devices like I do.
Overall – If you plan to grab high quality videos – say videogame clips – or if you simply are looking for a decent HD antenna for your PC, this is certainly a good choice. My only complaint may be the price but, considering HD antennas can cost from $20-130, the price is not as high as it could be and it offers enough features to make it a pretty worthwhile PC device. Heck, if you are crafty enough, you might even be able to rig something that will let you stream channels to the rest of your house.
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