Review: Hauppauge HD PVR

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 Review: Hauppauge HD PVR

As a gamer one of things I’ve wanted to do is upload my own gaming experiences to places like YouTube for other people to see. In the past there weren’t very many reliable options apart from an internal PC capture card or if you had the money could get yourself the expensive recording devices. Times have changed and there are more affordable ways now to record my gameplay experiences such as Dazzle capture card. However not all these devices record in HD, which let’s face it if it’s not HD it’s not worth watching or spending the time recording.

So in comes the Hauppauge HD PVR a High Definition recording device that’s reasonable affordable and does the job perfectly. For me as a gamer one of the most important things is being able to record in the best possible quality and the Hauppauge provides that. It lets you record High quality videos from 480p to 1080i. The Hauppauge comes equipped with all the necessary connections to allow for consoles, DVD players and video players and more. It has in/out component connections, SVideo, composite, in/out optical audio and IR Blaster connection. It should be noted that there is no HDMI connection simply because you can’t record through a HDMI connection as the (HDCP) High Definition Copy Protection-encoded video signal is un-recorderable. Out of the box the device comes with a component cable IR blaster cable, IR blaster remote control, USB cable and of cause the Hauppauge HD PVR. It also comes with a disc which contains drivers and software. 

First impressions with the Hauppauge where surprising as the device its very light weight, but then again it’s only a capture card the real work is done via your PC. This brings me to my next point if you want the best possible quality then you going to need a pc that can handle it. There is no point trying to record at 1080i if your pc can’t handle it. The Hauppauge connects to the PC via USB connection. As mentioned before in the box is a disc which contains some Arcsoft software entitled Total Media Extreme. With this software your Hauppague will record whatever is plugged in to it as long as it receives a signal. TME also comes with other applications but I’ve never used them and don’t plan on using them since I have no use for them so I won’t be going into any more detail about them.

I really don’t have any problems with the HD PVR I use to record gameplays and also to transfer my old vhs tapes onto my PC. It is a wonderful piece of equipment and if you’re in the market for a new capture card device then I recommend the HD PVR from Hauppauge.

 FINAL OPINION: MUST BUY