The
HVR-900 TV stick replaced my Hauppauge WinTV Primio PCI TV/Teletext/Radio Card, which I've owned for about 10 years.
Initial thoughts on the HVR-900:
1. USB TV stick with an included USB extension cable. You need to use the extension cable if you are plugging it into a desktop PC because the phyiscal size of the stick means that it will block most of the other USB slots.
2. It has both Freeview digital TV and analogue TV tuners. It seems to be able to do other countries as well (I noticed NTSC as an option in the channel suite)
3. Comes with an IR remote control (only available on some models)
4. Comes with a mini-USB adapter which plugs into the mini-USB socket on the stick. The adapter has an S-video and left and right phono sockets, which I'm using for my DVD player (instead of using a Scart cable to my VCR). This seems to work OK, although please refer to my second comment under the 'Cons' heading.
5. Stick comes with a coaxial TV aerial socket.
6. Hauppauge include a small internal aerial (I haven't tried this yet to see how good it is)
7. Stick has an in-built IR sensor for the remote control, which works well.
8. Included drivers seem to work pretty well on XP 32 bit. Not sure how well they will work on Win 7 on my new rig. Note: Drivers were a big problem on my old card - the Hauppauge drivers were very hit and miss; kind of like Soundblasters (BTRY)
Cons:
1. It's slow changing channels (compared to my older TV card). You click a different channel and you wait a couple of seconds for it to catch up and change the channel. I think this may have something to do wih it having a USB interface. My old PCI card did not have this issue.
2. It does not seem to like having composite channels (for my DVD player) and normal analogue channels on the same channel suite. i.e. If you change channel from analogue to composite it goes a bit weird and you have to close and re-open the WinTV application.
3. You need a decent aerial to pick up the digital channels. Since I'm using an internal TV aerial, I don't have a good enough signal to pick up all the digital TV channels. I already knew this would be an issue, so I don't mind. I can live with analogue TV for the time-being. Be warned though that if you are expecting to get digital TV on your laptop using an internal TV aerial then you won't. The digital TV receiver needs a decent external aerial to get a good signal strength. This really isn't a con as such, since you need good signal strength any way to receive digital TV.
Pros:
1. You get an awful lot for your money; it cost me £50 inc. V.A.T.
2. Hauppauge have thought of everything. Despite it being a physically small USB stick (compared to my old TV card, which has less features), it has nearly all the same connections as the PCI version, which I previously had.
3. Having analogue and digital tuners on the same stick is a big plus.
4. It came with an IR remote control (another big plus for me since I'm lazy). You have to be very careful, because most of the HVR-900's do not come with a remote control.
5. If it is anything like my old TV card, then it will be the best thing I've bought for my computer in years.
6. I get a pretty decent picture on the analogue TV channels, despite using an internal TV aerial.
I WOULD RECOMMEND THE HVR-900 TV STICK TO SOMEONE ELSE. YOU MUST CHECK FOR COMPATABILITY IN YOUR COUNTRY FIRST.
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