An Analogue and Digital Receiver Card
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The letters HVR, when related to Hauppauges latest television receiver card, stand for hybrid video recorder. Entitled WinTV-HVR 1100, this product has been designed to combine digital and analogue television capabilities along with FM and DVB-T radio within a single unit. The card, requiring either Windows XP or Windows XP Media Centre Edition, fits into an available PCI slot and provides connection sockets for FM, TV, S-VIDEO, COMP VID, LINE IN plus a supplied Infra-red sensor for use with a remote control.
Installing the card is simple if a somewhat drawn-out procedure. Automatically detected by the operating system, various required drivers are installed with the minimum of user interaction. However this procedure needs to be run through four times before all the necessary drivers are correctly set up and ready for use.
At this point you are in a position to install the main WinTV-2000 software that provides the viewing and recording capabilities. This installation can be a little daunting especially for the novice user as it presents a list of 13 modules that form the complete package. Fortunately the software does seem to process enough intelligence to automatically de-select those items that might be already present on the system. For example you might already have later versions of DirectX and Adobe Acrobat Reader software that are offered by Hauppauge. In such cases these items will not be ticked for inclusion and can safely be ignored.
The next stage is to let the software scan the airwaves for appropriate television and radio channels. This screen opens automatically the first time the WinTV-2000 software is run. The supplied instruction sheet suggests you select the DVB-T source option first. However as there are two references to DVB-T source on the screen this can be a little confusing. You need to select the DVB-T source which appears in the list on the left hand side. A scan is then carried out with all discovered channels being listed along with any relevant information. The same routine can be carried out for the analogue channels.
I finished up with a total of 64 channels. These consisted of 27 radio plus 32 digital and 6 analogue television channels. In case you are wondering why 6 analogue channels were discovered rather than the 5 that should be available, I often find, as in this case, that a ghost reception of my currently selected Sky channel is recognised but with so much interference that it is virtually unwatchable.
Initially I had problems accessing the WinTV-2000 software. It just produced an error message and refused to load. Fortunately after a number of failed attempts, the software suddenly decided to co-operate and completed the loading process. Hauppauges technical support suggested I use a Primary utility, that is supplied with this product, if the problem resurfaced.
Visually, little seems to have changed with this latest version of the WinTV software. You have the same arrangement of buttons, viewing screen and available options. You can switch between channels by using up/down buttons or entering the channel number via the keyboard or remote control. Different screen sizes and aspects can be set up; still images captured; and programmes recorded in MPEG-2 format to your hard disk. There is also an option to watch and record video from a VCR or camcorder. Using the Hauppauge scheduler facility you can set up programmes to be recorded once or on a daily/weekly basis.
A separate, smaller interface can be used for listening to the radio. As mentioned earlier this is DVB-T (Digital Video Broadcasting for Terrestrial) radio and should not be confused with DAB radio. The radio interface allows you to switch between mono and stereo output; adjust the volume level; and search for additional stations. There is support for up to 30 user-defined presets that can display assigned station names.
Quality of reception, for both radio and television, is good when using a roof-top aerial and the supplied FM radio antenna. However you will have to put up with poor lip synch when watching television due to the audio arrives before the picture. I still have some slight reservations regarding the initial difficulty with WinTV refusing to load even though this problem has not reappeared and is reflected in the marks for this product. Pricing for the WinTV-HVR 1100 has been set at £79.99.
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