Test System:

Intel P4 2.6C

1 GB RAM

ATI Radeon 9500 Pro

Windows XP/SP2

ATI HDTV Wonder

DViCO FusionHDTV 2

 

Well, at least you don't have to use Hauppauge's WinTV2000 application!
The WinTV HVR-950 is Hauppauge's first entry into the HDTV PC USB tuner market. The HDTV USB tuner market has grown considerably since the first few products appeared around 2005 with the DViCO FusionHDTV5 USB and the VBox Cat's Eye USB3560. Since the popularity of notebooks has grown considerably as they’ve become more affordable, USB tuners are needed for the portability. Now there are plenty of HDTV USB tuners available from companies like Artec, FujiPlus, Autumnwave, KWorld and Pinnacle. Hauppauge is well known for quality analog tuners to use with Windows Media Center Edition (MCE), but how will their first HDTV tuner fare? This review will consist of two parts- first will be a look at the software included with the HVR-950, and then I'll go over the performance of the tuner with WatchHDTV. I’ll only be looking at its HDTV performance, so analog and cable quality won’t be reviewed. Since Hauppauge has pretty good analog tuners already, I would like to assume that the analog and cable performance with the HVR-950 would be similar to those other devices. The HVR-950 package, shown below, includes the tuner (which measures about 3.5”L x 1.25”W x .5”H), about a 30” USB extension cable, and a small antenna connected to a 5’ coax cable and extends about 14.5” tall.
    

 

To sum up the WinTV2000 program in one word- ouch! Luckily the tuner can work with other applications like MCE, and of course, WatchHDTV, because I wouldn't want to be stuck with that program. Now some might think I'm only saying that because I'm the developer of WatchHDTV, but I wish that was the case. I have no prior experience with any Hauppauge tuner and programs, so my experiences may differ from those that have used them before. My system configuration may also have some affect on performance but it’s plenty powerful enough so any performance differences shouldn’t vary greatly. Before I get into the problems with the WinTV2000 program, I'll go over how the program looks and works. When running the program the first time you're asked if you would like to scan for channels. Selecting yes then opens the “WinTV Channel Manager” shown below.
    

I would have thought it would have started scanning for channels since it just asked, but it didn’t. The first part is the “Scan” selection where you can scan for analog and cable channels. To scan for HDTV (ATSC) channels, you have to choose the “Sources” selection, which is shown in the previous picture. You then select the “ATSC Source” on the left and you can auto scan or manually tune into the channels you want by changing the channel number and pressing “Tune”. If the tuner can get a signal, the channel will be added to the list with any possible data present in the signal like the name of the channel (NBC4-LA), the channel number, and any subchannels available. The “Devices” selection just provides some information about the tuner and the “Channels” selection is where you can select and unselect any channels you want. Once you have the channels you want, close the “Channel Manager” and the main WinTV program will open, which is shown below.
    

You have some buttons on the left to do various things like change the channel and volume, some buttons on the bottom to pause (timeshift) and record, and the video window (the black area). Pressing the “Pref” button opens the “WinTV Settings” as seen below, where you can configure some basic options like how aspect ratios should be handled and where recordings and screen captures should go. There isn’t really a whole lot to configure, as options are at a minimum.

    

To watch video full screen, you can press the button to the left of the channel up button and enter “TV Mode”. You can also change to “No Title Mode”, which gets rid of all the buttons and you just get the video in a window by itself, which can be resized and moved. Pressing “PAUSE” and “RECORD” will open a little window where you can use those functions. There is also the ”WinTV Scheduler” where you can setup recordings. The scheduler supposedly supports silent recordings, but I couldn’t figure out how to set them up. I didn’t do any extensive testing with the scheduler, but I would hope it works and it did work for the couple of events I did test. That pretty much sums up how the program looks, but how does it all work?