HVR 1600 - good enough or should I consider alternatives?

[wolverines]

I'm getting ready to test out Sage and wanted to get an entry card for my system. Based on what I need the Hauppauge HVR 1600 is a good fit (I can test HD via qam and basic cable) for a not so bad price ($80).

But I keep reading about all sorts of problems with the card. Is that misleading (i.e. most people have the card and are happy with it, it's just that it's so popular that there are bound to be many with setup problems)? Are there any other suggestions for an internal card that can handle both qam HD and basic cable, at a reasonable price? If all goes well I'll eventually get an HDHR and HD PVR, but that's after I get this started.

Thanks!

[Spartan]

I have 2 in my server and they are terrific. I record OTA HD via antenna in my attic and analog cable via Comcast.

The only glitch was during the setup phase when Sage tries to show a preview. It hung there, so I just skipped that step.

Other than that they've been great.

[SWKerr]

I used one for OTA HD and DirecTV with Svideo capture for about a year and it worked well. I gave it recently to my brother for a QAM Cable setup and he had a problem with a few stations that seemed to have a weaker signal than the others. They would not come in consistently with perfect picture. A review of the forum seems to indicate that is a common complaint about that card. He was going to get a amplifier for it but I have not heard if that fixed the problem although I expect that I would have heard already if it had not.

With my experience with OTA and DirecTV I would recommend it as a great starter card but for QAM maybe not so much. With NewEgg's return policy I would go ahead and buy one and return it if it did not work as expected. You would just be out the postage.

I love my new HDHR but it is almost double $$$.

[bastafidli]

NewEgg is charging 15% restocking fee if you return for refund.

[Djc208]

Mine has worked flawlessly since I got it. However I have heard that the HD tuner is not as good as some others with weaker signals (mostly the HDHR), and I have had some issues with jittery signals (on a QAM setup), but I see that with my HD cable box too sometimes so I can't verify that it's the card and not just a weak signal. May need to go a head and get a good booster.

As Spartan said the preview window during setup doesn't always work well but you can skip that usually.

If the price is right I wouldn't hesitate to get one, however some of the newer cards like the 2250 have two tuners that are each capable of analog or digital instead of one of each. More flexability but more expensive.

[kbyrd]

I saw a few posts indicating there were problems with using two HVR-1600 cards, but I can't find the original posts saying that (can't search for "two" and "multiple" turns up too many).

I've got two haupuage hvr 1600 cards that I have been using for a while with Sage 6.4. I've been using the NTSC input only to tune basic analog cable (no set-top box). Last night, I moved the coax to the ATSC input on both cards (they're new, they support QAM). When I deleted then re-added the sources, I noticed I have:
- WinTV 418 Video
- WinTV 418 TS Capture
- WinTV 418 Video #2

Note that the 2nd card has only "Video", the analog input, listed.

Help. Please!

[Djc208]

Have you checked the hardware manager to make sure both cards are showing as properly installed? If the computer's not recognizing both digital tuners than Sage won't either.

[wolverines]

Originally Posted by kbyrd

I saw a few posts indicating there were problems with using two HVR-1600 cards, but I can't find the original posts saying that (can't search for "two" and "multiple" turns up too many).

I've got two haupuage hvr 1600 cards that I have been using for a while with Sage 6.4. I've been using the NTSC input only to tune basic analog cable (no set-top box). Last night, I moved the coax to the ATSC input on both cards (they're new, they support QAM). When I deleted then re-added the sources, I noticed I have:
- WinTV 418 Video
- WinTV 418 TS Capture
- WinTV 418 Video #2

Note that the 2nd card has only "Video", the analog input, listed.

Help. Please!

Do a search in this forum on the HVR 1600. Lots of people have had setup problems with getting the cards properly recognized, especially the QAM, but it seems like once they get them working things are pretty good. I don't have one yet obviously, so I can't help that much.

Thanks to everyone else for chiming in.

[jasmithvr6]

Originally Posted by kbyrd

I saw a few posts indicating there were problems with using two HVR-1600 cards, but I can't find the original posts saying that (can't search for "two" and "multiple" turns up too many).

I've got two haupuage hvr 1600 cards that I have been using for a while with Sage 6.4. I've been using the NTSC input only to tune basic analog cable (no set-top box). Last night, I moved the coax to the ATSC input on both cards (they're new, they support QAM). When I deleted then re-added the sources, I noticed I have:
- WinTV 418 Video
- WinTV 418 TS Capture
- WinTV 418 Video #2

Note that the 2nd card has only "Video", the analog input, listed.

Help. Please!

I have two HVR-1600's running in my server using both ATSC and NTSC tuners. What model 1600's are you running? There are several posts in the forum that only 74021 and 74041 models support QAM. That said, some are saying they have had success getting QAM with other models as well. You may have seen this already, but here's a link to a general setup post that might help.

http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/show...hvr-1600+setup

If you're still stuck, I'd remove both sources from Sage, run HWClear and install one card at a time. Be sure to use different EPG line-ups for ATSC and NTSC as discussed in the linked thread.

[jasmithvr6]

Originally Posted by wolverines

I'm getting ready to test out Sage and wanted to get an entry card for my system. Based on what I need the Hauppauge HVR 1600 is a good fit (I can test HD via qam and basic cable) for a not so bad price ($80).

But I keep reading about all sorts of problems with the card. Is that misleading (i.e. most people have the card and are happy with it, it's just that it's so popular that there are bound to be many with setup problems)? Are there any other suggestions for an internal card that can handle both qam HD and basic cable, at a reasonable price? If all goes well I'll eventually get an HDHR and HD PVR, but that's after I get this started.

Thanks!

So far my two 1600's have done a fine job. I'm using both NTSC and ATSC tuners and while setup was a bit of an adventure, these cards are running with little to no problems in my Sage Server via an HD200. I've used a Fusion Lite OTA card for HD reception in the past, which was very good but sometimes a little choppy. In comparison, I would consider the HD picture quality via QAM on the 1600 to be exceptional. My signal strength is between 85% and 90% and have not had one jitter. Others are reporting poor signal strength compared to the HDHR, but some have successfully installed a cable booster to solve the problem. I'm on FIOS, so they actually had to install a filter to keep the signal from coming in too hot. Cable may be a different story.

As for price, I paid $29 a piece at CC for the 1600's so $80 seems a bit steep. If you don't mind an external unit, the HDHR is very popular and from what I hear does an excellent job at both OTA and QAM. It has dual tuners, so all you'd need is an analog card like a PVR-250and you're set. Keep in mind the HDHR will set you back about $150+.

[kbyrd]

Originally Posted by jasmithvr6

If you're still stuck, I'd remove both sources from Sage, run HWClear and install one card at a time. Be sure to use different EPG line-ups for ATSC and NTSC as discussed in the linked thread.

I've got that other thread bookmarked for when I do this again. I'll try HWClear. Do I need to remove the cards from the PC or can I just leave them seated in the slots, run hwclear, and reinstall drivers?

Finally, about the "use another EPG lineup." I don't have a cable box, just either analog cable or clear QAM directly from the wall. I'm pretty sure I'm going to end up with QAM versions of all the analog channels I want. That is, I don't believe I'll ever record analog once I get QAM working on both cards. So I still use a different lineup in Source Setup?

[kbyrd]

Originally Posted by jasmithvr6

As for price, I paid $29 a piece at CC for the 1600's so $80 seems a bit steep.

Wow! $29 is a steal for these HVR 1600 cards. I see them still about $80 and up.

[jasmithvr6]

Originally Posted by kbyrd

I've got that other thread bookmarked for when I do this again. I'll try HWClear. Do I need to remove the cards from the PC or can I just leave them seated in the slots, run hwclear, and reinstall drivers?

I would first remove both cards within Sage. Then run HWClear. Remove one of the cards so that you can start a clean install and get one up and running. Drivers should still be in Windows, so shouldn't have to reinstall...just point to the driver during setup.

Originally Posted by kbyrd

Finally, about the "use another EPG lineup." I don't have a cable box, just either analog cable or clear QAM directly from the wall. I'm pretty sure I'm going to end up with QAM versions of all the analog channels I want. That is, I don't believe I'll ever record analog once I get QAM working on both cards. So I still use a different lineup in Source Setup?

Different line-ups keep things cleaner, but if your plan is to deselect local channels in analog and replace with QAM, then it shouldn't be a problem.

[wolverines]

Originally Posted by kbyrd

Wow! $29 is a steal for these HVR 1600 cards. I see them still about $80 and up.

no kidding. did you get it earlier in the year whan circuit was discounting them? best price I see these days is 82 all in at amazon.

[shadeblue.com]

I purchased the Hauppauge 1600 for my starter card. It works flawlessly for me (on Windows XP). I am using it for OTA/ATSC and S-Video analog capture. I never tried clear QAM on it.

I used this card for about 6-8 months before upgrading to the HDHR. I only added the HDHR to increase recording capacity so now I have 3 OTA tuners.

[kbyrd]

Originally Posted by Djc208

Have you checked the hardware manager to make sure both cards are showing as properly installed? If the computer's not recognizing both digital tuners than Sage won't either.

I did the following:

- Remove both all sources in Sage.

- Shutdown the PC, removed the cards from their PCI slots

- Rebooted the PC, ran hwclear, shutdown PC, Reinstalled one card in a PCI slot, rebooted PC.

- Canceled the add hardware wizard, then installed drivers from the "4.6a+" zip file I got from Hauppage. These appear to be the latest. Rebooted.

- Started up Sage, had analog working (Sage remembered my settings). Got QAM working using the setup thread referenced above, remapped channels where I wanted them got EPG data sorted out, etc. I'm happy!

- Shutdown PC, installed 2nd HVR-1600 in the other PCI slot, and rebooted.

- Sage auto-remembered this as "WinTV 418 Video Capture #2", I still do not have a "WinTV 418 TS Capture #2". Crap.

- Windows hardware wizard thinks both cards are just fine.

Help!

[kbyrd]

I fixed the problem myself (well, with help from Opus4). See http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/show...39&postcount=9

My second TS Capture encoder ended up in the ignored encoders line in the sage properties file. Removing it solved my problem!

[jasmithvr6]

Originally Posted by wolverines

no kidding. did you get it earlier in the year whan circuit was discounting them? best price I see these days is 82 all in at amazon.

I caught them online in the CC outlet. Had to get creative to find them in stock as they were sold out in all of the surrounding local markets. Found a few of them 4 hours from me and called the store who agreed to have them sent to a local store for purchase. The cards might be older models (one was 74021, the other 74041) but work great regardless.

[jasmithvr6]

Originally Posted by kbyrd

I fixed the problem myself (well, with help from Opus4). See http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/show...39&postcount=9

My second TS Capture encoder ended up in the ignored encoders line in the sage properties file. Removing it solved my problem!

Glad you got it working. Let me know what you think about PQ on the NTSC tuner and if you have any suggestions to improve it.

[kbyrd]

I've been using the NTSC tuners for a few months. I think the quality is fine. Of course the source isn't that great, at least one channel has some noise. Not the fault of the Hauppauge cards, it's there on all displays and cable combinations even without the cards.

About the 1600s... I spoke too soon. I can't get them to reliably change channels. I intend all my TV programming to be from QAM only, and I verified this morning that I can get all the channels I am interested in from Comcast via the QAM tuners. I got the channels remapped where I needed to, then removed the analog sources in Sage and was happy. After that last post. I played around a bit changing channels and such. Then I needed to reboot. When everything came back up, I can't get either tuner to reliably tune QAM. I can't find a pattern, sometimes it'll tune a give station, sometimes not.

In any case, I'm going with an HD Homerun, from what I've read it's QAM reception is rock solid. Since I don't need NTSC, it should be ideal.