Hauppauge.. Ugh!

[Zorba]

This is more of a rant than anything, so I apologize up front.

So when I built my HTPC back in 2009, I ordered a Hauppauge 2250, since it was a dual tuner card and seemed to have good reviews. Well the first card worked fine for about a week, then it just randomly stopped being able to tune physical channel 11. I tried everything I could, but at that point I was still struggling with Mediaportal, remotes, etc. So I exchanged it with Newegg for a new.

The next card shows up, and it won't tune physical channel 11 at all. After doing some research online, it looked like it was a pretty common problem, just one that would only be noticed if your city had a channel on physical channel 11. I tried to get support from Hauppauge, and heard nothing, so after a few days I sent it back to Newegg and got 2 Diamond ATi TV-Wonder 650s.

The 2 diamond cards work great until I upgraded to Windows 8 about a year ago. When I upgraded to windows, I didn't realize that AMD refused to create Win8 drivers for my integrated graphics (Radeon 400 Series). So while my graphics worked, I didn't have hardware acceleration for HD, which caused some issues. Because I now needed a discrete GPU, I had to give up a PCIe slot for the GPU and could only use one of the ATi 650s.

Since I still wanted two tuners, I decided to give the Hauppauge 2250 another try, I figured in 3.5 years they would have fixed the issues. For 6 months it worked great, then all of sudden the second tuner started having trouble with a handful of stations. I e-mailed Hauppauge, and they were very responsive this time, and cross-shipped a "new" card to me.

Now the "new" card can't even be found by windows. I've tried it in every PCIe slot in my house, no computer recognizes it. The old card, that I was returning, still works fine (as far as being recognized). Hauppauge has agreed to send me a shipping label to send the new one back.

Cliffs:
I had 2 Hauppauge cards in 2009 that didn't work, support didn't respond
1 Hauppauge card in 2013 that started having tuning issues after 6 months - Support very responsive this time
1 Hauppauge card in 2014 that couldn't be seen by windows - Support very responsive this time

Considering these are $130 cards, I'd expect more that 4 bad cards over 4 years. But they have very little competition, so I guess they can get away with it.

 

[Tegeril]

Avoid Ceton and Hauppauge and pick up an HDHomerun

 

[gorobei]

ch 11 is typically a problem child for most OTA. its right at the transition zone between VHF and UHF.

 

[SaurusX]

Yikes. I was planning on getting a Hauppauge for my next HTPC, because my current Avermedia Duet is a POS. The computer can never be put to sleep or else the tuners will disappear and you have to actually unplug the computer for 10 minutes to get them back. Ridiculous.

I guess it'll be the HDHomerun the next time around.

 

[NoCreativity]

I've had a hauppauge running for 2-3 years now without a hiccup. But you're right OP, not a lot of choice out there.

 

[Zorba]

I've had a hauppauge running for 2-3 years now without a hiccup. But you're right OP, not a lot of choice out there.

Yeah, it seems like with a lot of these card it is completely luck of the draw. I know the ATi card got pretty bad reviews, but they always worked great for me.

 

[Zorba]

ch 11 is typically a problem child for most OTA. its right at the transition zone between VHF and UHF.

Yeah. What was so weird about it is the first card scanned it, found it on both tuners, had great signal, then like a week later wouldn't find it at all on either tuner.

I do think the next tuner I buy will be a HD Homerun, haven't seen much negativity about them.

 

[Fallen Kell]

Yeah. What was so weird about it is the first card scanned it, found it on both tuners, had great signal, then like a week later wouldn't find it at all on either tuner.

I do think the next tuner I buy will be a HD Homerun, haven't seen much negativity about them.

Only thing negative is that it requires WMC and put DRM on the recorded videos. This can be an issue if you expect to play the recorded videos back on other devices other than the HTPC that recorded it (and/or need to reinstall windows).

 

[samboy]

I have 2 of the Avermedia Duets (4 tuners for BeyondTV) and have not had any wake issues with them...... (The computer wakes up to record the scheduled shows)

What sort of MB do you have (mine is LGA1155 based)? (I recall reading that some AMD chipsets did not seem to be compatible or maybe later versions of the card fixed the problem?)

Yikes. I was planning on getting a Hauppauge for my next HTPC, because my current Avermedia Duet is a POS. The computer can never be put to sleep or else the tuners will disappear and you have to actually unplug the computer for 10 minutes to get them back. Ridiculous.

I guess it'll be the HDHomerun the next time around.

 

[SaurusX]

I have 2 of the Avermedia Duets (4 tuners for BeyondTV) and have not had any wake issues with them...... (The computer wakes up to record the scheduled shows)

What sort of MB do you have (mine is LGA1155 based)? (I recall reading that some AMD chipsets did not seem to be compatible or maybe later versions of the card fixed the problem?)

My HTPC has an AMD board. I've heard that may be part of the problem, but I'd still lay the bulk of the responsibility at Avermedia's door. I had an older single tuner from Avermedia that would sleep/wake/sleep with no issues at all.

 

[Maiyr]

mis-post, sorry

 

[TastesLikeChicken]

Only thing negative is that it requires WMC and put DRM on the recorded videos. This can be an issue if you expect to play the recorded videos back on other devices other than the HTPC that recorded it (and/or need to reinstall windows).

That isn't an issue for the HD Homerun. OTA signals are marked Copy Freely so there are no DRM restrictions on the recordings.

You can run into DRM restrictions with the HD Homerun Prime (which is the cable card version of the HD Homerun) but that all depends on your cable provider and the CCI flags they set. Some providers flag nearly everything Copy Once while providers like Verizon FIOS usually only mark the premium channels Copy Once, and sometimes even the premiums are flagged Copy Freely.

 

[Zorba]

Only thing negative is that it requires WMC and put DRM on the recorded videos. This can be an issue if you expect to play the recorded videos back on other devices other than the HTPC that recorded it (and/or need to reinstall windows).

HD Homerun will work with Mediaportal too.