Latest Opinion on HVR-1600 or ???

[gsee]

I admit - I'm confused and overwhelmed. I have a SageTV system and the tuner card died plus now I can receive a few QAM digital channels in the clear on my cable. So for a replacement, I was going to buy a HVR-1600 but the more I read, the more I worry -- driver problems, QAM problems, etc. What does everyone think of the HVR-1600 with the latest drivers? What would all of you buy if you needed one analog tuner and one QAM digital tuner or a combo tuner? Thanks for the help -- I need to get out of my fuzzy not sure what to do feeling.

[Tomahawk51]

I just bought an HDTV, and I don't have any experience with HD sources. My inclination is to wait for the upcoming HD-PVR device that will let me capture the output from the CableCo's HD box.

I don't like the idea of not being able to access all channels in QAM, but I can see why QAM is attractive.

[maxpower]

I'd opt for the HVR-1600. I have 4 of them and have had no problems at all. QAM was not difficult to get going. It is time consuming to do the channel scan and it's a pain to remap channel numbers, but once it is setup in-the-clear QAM HD is a thing of beauty; especially if you cannot get OTA HD.

I have no experience with the HD Homerun but I hear great things about it too. The setup seems to be much easier and it apparently gets better signal quality. It is a little more expensive but those who have one swear by it.

And if you are running out of PCI slots then your decision is basically made for you as the HD Homerun sits on your network and does not require a PCI slot.

[Mitch G]

If you're looking to tune standard cable plus clear QAM, then the 1600 is probably your best bet. If you only want to tune clear QAM, then I would vote for the HDHR. I have both. I use the HDHR for the clear QAM stuff and the 1600 for the analog cable stuff. I may one day use the QAM tuner on the 1600 as well, but I just haven't felt like doing the cable splits, yet.


Mitch

[gsee]

Thanks for the advice and wisdom. Any other thoughts are welcome -- even if you have other "crazy" ideas, please share with me so I make the "best" decision.

[blade]

I purchased 2 1600s and returned them because of how bad the QAM performance was compared to my HDHomeRun, but that was before the latest drivers that supposedly fix a lot of issues. I really wish the drivers would have come out just a little sooner.

Instead of getting another HDHomeRun I'm waiting on the device Tomahawk51 mentioned.

[Djc208]

My 1600 has worked flawlessly. The OTA HD reception wasn't the greatest but since upgrading the drivers to go to clear QAM it's been perfect, even before the new drivers (which I haven't tried).

The HDHR has a glowing reputation but you'll still need a standard analog card for the rest of your cable/sat linup. The 1600 gives you both, and with the small selection of QAM/OTA channels most of us get I just don't need two HD tuners.

So if you get a lot of OTA or QAM stuff then an HDHR and a seperate analog card may make sense. Otherwise the hybrid cards are great since you still get the standard analog tuner for all the other channels and an OTA/QAM reciever for the stuff you can get that way.

Have to agree with everyone else on wanting to see the new analog HD capture setup from Hauppage. That could convince me to start renting the cable box for the rest of the HD stuff my cable-co offers.

[Serra]

I have to agree, if you are going to get OTA and STB, then the 1600 is very good. It gives you the ability to record two things at once, which is nice.

I do agree that the new HD PVR vaporware sounds very good, but I'm think that even with that device, you'll still need to capture OTA.

[lbrandolo]

My two cents. I purchased a 1600 a month and a half ago and was very disappointed in SD and HD recordings on 1080i channels. I was getting stuttering and a green blob on SD recordings, and HD stuttering on all 1080i channels(i.e. FOX and the Super Bowl were fine, Law and Order was unwatchable). I stumbled on beta drivers from Hauppauge on their FTP site and have seen stuttering in SD/HD almost disappear and the green blob disappear completely. I can now watch live HD, which I could not even attempt before updating the drivers.
So where does this leave you? Hauppauge had no updates to drivers for the 1600 for 8 months, so people like me would have had to suffer for far more than the month I did. I find this troubling after buying hardware promised to do something, but then it ends up not doing these things without newer drivers. I hope that the next released version of drivers improves performance even more, but who knows when we will see these? So if you have no issue using beta drivers, I would say go for it. If things aren't to your liking, just return the 1600 and wait for the next best hardware to be released sometime this year.

[jlmdxtv]

The support you will find over in the HDHOMERUN board made the purchase decision a very easy one for me. Go wiith the HDHOMERUN if you need Clear QAM / OTA HD recording. If you need SD/Analog too, then you'll need an additional tuner.

Check it out:
http://www.silicondust.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=13

[OttoNP]

I have not tried the latest drivers, but I have wished I got the HDHR instead of the two 1600s that I have. If you search the forums, I believe you will find more people have gone from 1600 to HDHR then the other way. In fact, correct me if I'm wrong, but I can't think of anyone or posts where someone got a HDHR and took it back to go to the 1600. It seems that the HDHR just gets better reception. I got the HVR-1600 when it first came out...

On my setup, I started with antenna in attic and got random reception with HVR-1600, after spending a week with different attic locations, I finally moved it up to the roof, then got a different antenna. My TV got perfect reception with both antennas and all locations, so I knew my TV had better tuner than the HVR-1600. With this setup, it was pretty good, I would say maybe every 6 months a show will be choppy because of weather or something, but in the rare cases where I see it happen live, my TV also has some minor problems, but usually much less than the HVR-1600. So, if the show is unwatchable on the HVR-1600, it usually is definitely watchable live on the TV with minor hiccups.

Then, they released the QAM drivers, so I figured I'd have a go at that. Initially it seemed promissing, got all the HD channels but one, tried like 4-5 signal boosters that all would get that one channel in, but about once per day it would not be able to tune a show at all. I would have to play around with the gain on signal booster to get it back again. So, it seemed that the HVR-1600 was very sensitive to minor changes in my cable providers signal strength. Once again, the TV got all the channels perfectly the whole time. Both HVR-1600 act exactly the same. I also felt that the picture was slightly better with antenna, but I could have been wrong. I switched back the antenna that has worked pretty well for me over the last year.

I'll try the latest drivers and post back here if anything amazing happens. I may try QAM with them briefly just to see it it finds all the channels without signal booster...

[gsee]

Thanks for all your thoughts -- it's helped. I think it is clear what I should do. Get a HDR-1600 for analog and backup QAM and get an HDHR for the QAM. It can't hurt to start with the 1600 and then once that's running decide how quickly to splurge on the HDHR.

Thanks again -- I'll let everyone know how it goes.

[troycheek]

Having more money than brains, I was in the position just last night to compare the HVR-1600 and the HDHomeRun. On a crappy Comcast analog cable connection with the exact same combination of cables, splitters, amps, and prayers, the HDHR easily outperformed the 1600 in clear QAM tuning.

The HDHR found and could consistently tune the local ABC, CBS, NBC (plus NBC Weather Plus), Fox, CW, and PBS (plus 3 subchannels) stations, a whole slew of music channels, and some VOD or related channels. 80+ channels total. Signal strength reported as 95-100. Signal quality: 80-85. Symbol quality: solid 100.

The 1600 found no channels at all until I tried the beta drivers. Then it found 3-13 QAM channels each scan, but not always the same channels. Channels found could sometimes not be tuned a few minutes later. Could only count on Fox, CW, and the main PBS channel. Signal strength reported as 80-85. The 1600 analog capture was on par with my PVR-500.

This is on my crappy analog cable, which some days gives unwatchable signals on some of my analog channels, so if you have good cable or a strong OTA signal, the 1600 might come out on top. For me, it's HDHR for the win.

[Thorbaden]

Im not too familiar with all these tv tuners etc but ive been doing a lot of research and i still have lots of questions.

as i have been thinking about buying either the 1600 or the 1800 i saw the stuff about the HDHR.

basically my current tv in my room (26" standard tube tv) gets all the channels ide really want via a regular cable from the wall.
i do have 2 cable boxes (from Time Warner/Brighthouse in Fl) in different rooms for the full digital + VOD + HD. im not really into having all that on my computer i just want the cable channels that my tv in my room picks up. basically channels 1-1XX or something.

no clue if they are atsc/ntsc/qam, although i dont think its over the air becuase we dont have an antenna in the house or out that i know of. all i know is the cable i connect to my tv comes straight from the wall, and those are the channels ide like to be able to watch on my computer/record them. having HD from that is a bonus but not the deciding factor.

at first i was going to go with the 1600 pci, but i heard the 1800 pcie is better. now im hearing the HDHR is the best but is it really what i want? (will it get the channels my tv gets in my room?)

any advice?

[Tiki]

Originally Posted by Thorbaden

basically my current tv in my room (26" standard tube tv) gets all the channels ide really want via a regular cable from the wall.
i do have 2 cable boxes (from Time Warner/Brighthouse in Fl) in different rooms for the full digital + VOD + HD. im not really into having all that on my computer i just want the cable channels that my tv in my room picks up. basically channels 1-1XX or something.

no clue if they are atsc/ntsc/qam, although i dont think its over the air becuase we dont have an antenna in the house or out that i know of. all i know is the cable i connect to my tv comes straight from the wall, and those are the channels ide like to be able to watch on my computer/record them. having HD from that is a bonus but not the deciding factor.

First some definitions:
NTSC = Traditional Analog Broadcast TV that has been around for >50 years.
ATSC = New Digital TV standard that will be replacing NTSC in about a year for OTA television. Can be SD, ED, or HD.
OTA = Over The Air (The way local TV stations broadcast to rabbit ears or rooftop antennae.
SD = Standard Definition (480i in US)
ED = Enhanced Definition (somewhere in between SD and HD)
HD = High Definition (720p, 1080i, or 1080p in US).
QAM = Special CableTV version of ATSC. Can be SD, ED, or HD. May be encrypted or unencrypted.
ClearQAM = Unencrypted QAM

If you are watching it with an older TV, with a cable from the Cable company and no STB (Set Top Box) chances are you are watching an Analog NTSC signal. Your cable company may also be sending DTV (Digital TV) signals in the form of clearQAM and encrypted QAM down the same wire, but your TV won't see them. If you had a newer TV with an ATSC tuner, you still might not see the DTV signals from your cable company unless you had a more expensive model that is also QAM capable.

Here are 3 popular tuners used with Sage:
PVR-150, PVR-1600, and HDHomerun.

PVR-150 can tune analog only. It will be able to tune and record any channel your old TV could pickup through its coax cable connector. It can also record any channel from your Cable box if you connect it directly to the box and use an IR Blaster to change the channels on the box. It's also possible to hook-up any device with RCA jacks (think VCR or Camcorder) and record off of them (though its a little trickier to setup). Can only record from one source (1 channel) at a time.

PVR-1600 is intended to replace the PVR150. It has two coax cable connectors plus RCA jacks. The RCA jacks and first coax connector function the same as the PVR150 (you can only use 1 of these at a time). The second coax connector can be connected to either an external antenna or cableTV. It can record ATSC or clearQAM. You can use the digital input and one of the analog inputs at the same time to record two shows at once.

HDHomerun has two digital inputs, but no analog input. You can connect one input to cable and one to an OTA antenna or both to cable or both to an antenna. You can use both tuners at the same time. It cannot record from analog cable, cable box output, or old (soon to be phased out) NTSC antenna signals.

The PVR-150 and PVR-1600 are PCI cards that get installed inside your PC. You must have a vacant PCI slot for them. The PVR-1800 is a PCI-Express version of the PVR-1600, and requires a vacant PCIe x1 slot. The HDHomerun is an external device that connects to your home network via Ethernet. You install some driver software on the PC where Sage will run to enable Sage to use it.

One thing to be aware of when planning for the future is that Comcast is trying to shift people toward digital cable. In my area, I used to get channels 1-100 without the need for a cable box. A couple of months ago, they changed it to channels 1-20 only. They also remapped so channels 1-20 now consist of only local channels and shopping channels. Everything else is digital only and requires a QAM tuner or a set top box. Even with a QAM tuner, you may only get digital versions of the locals, PBS, and shopping. At least the QAM tuner will let you get them in HD if they are broadcast that way.

[Thorbaden]

i thought they were phasing out the over the air transmissions to cable. so you are saying that the signal im receiving in my tv (which isnt that old, maybe 4 years old) is the NTSC which will be phased out leaving me with the inability to continue watching those channels on that tv. i dont know if this helps but on the tv's that have the STB they have the exact same channels 1-110 or so (same name same number same showing) except they also have VOD and HD channels higher up there.

would this mean my tv is receiving the ATSC version?

basically what i want to know is before and after the phasing of NTSC analog will i be able to receive and record the same channels such as the SciFi channel, USA, FX, Spike, Discovery etc etc etc on those pvr 1600 - 1800 as those seem to be more in my price range and fit in my computer. will it just mean i put the cable into the analog spot on the tuner then after 02/09 put it in the digital?

sry for not knowing too much about this i have spent time researching this, read through several forums/sites etc but still having trouble. normaly im quite savy when it comes to pcs and hardware.

btw thnx for your help that has cleared a decent amount up for me (just not everything)

[Thorbaden]

Thanks cslatt that answers the rest of my questions for the most part


uh how did i end up above cslatt's post after reading it and replying to it. lol. guess we are in different time zones.

[cslatt]

Thorbaden,
NTSC is used in 2 places - Over-the-Air transmissions that you pick up with an antenna, and to broadcast Analog Cable. The government is requiring all Over-the-Air broadcasters to switch from NTSC to ATSC to free up some of the spectrum (radio frequencies) for other uses (ATSC can push a lot more data over a lot less spectrum). The government is NOT mandating that cable companies switch from NTSC to digital, but the cable companies want to do so eventually as it frees up bandwidth on their networks as well.

The end result for you is that eventually you will have to get some sort of digital tuner card to continue to record the channels that you are currently recording, but there is no particular date when that is expected to happen - the cable companies will phase out analog broadcasts at their own pace.

In perhaps more plain terms - you won't be affected by the government-mandated switch from NTSC to ATSC as you aren't using an antenna, but digital is the future and eventually your cable company will phase out their analog broadcasts forcing you into a digital tuner of some sort (when that will be, who knows?)

[EdwardATeller]

If someone has both an HVR-1600 and HDHR, can you please answer this question. If you record the same show on both, is there a difference in the playback quality? From what I read, it seems like the HDHR has better clear QAM tuning, but I've never seen someone comment about the actual picture quality difference.

I have the HVR-1600, purchased for $60, and I am very happy with it. It tunes more clear QAM channels than my DTV does, records both digital and analog, and I don't have to worry about network issues. I also had the option of returning it for a full refund to the store if I didn't like it. I think you are looking at a 15% restocking fee if you return the HDHR, plus it's a lot more money than the HVR-1600.

EDIT: I tried the beta drivers for the HVR-1600, and they didn't work for me. Didn't spend a lot of time messing with them, just rolled back to 3.4D1.

[karpodiem]

Where can I find the newest beta drivers for the 1600?

I don't see them on the support page; http://www.haupauge.com/pages/suppor...1600.html#beta