Hauppauge 1212 HD-PVR High Definition Personal Video Recorder
 | Average Customer Rating: Recommend Record high definition TV programs to your PC, using high quality H.264. HD-PVR is the world's first High-Definition video recorder for making real-time H.264 compressed recordings at resolutions up to 1080i. HD-PVR records component video (YCrCb) from cable TV and satellite set top boxes with a built-in IR blaster to automatically change TV channels for scheduled recordings. Audio is recorded using AAC or Dolby Digital. The recording format is AVCHD, which can be used to burn… Product details and pricing info |
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14 Customer Reviews Posted
- the BOMB, Baby
- cheap way to get 1080i video and AC3 5.1 audio from ANY source (satellite box, ps3, dvd player, camcorder) onto a hard drive via a USB connection. I used this and a 1.5tb drive to turn my PS3 into a movie jukebox.
I have not used the timer recordings or remote, hav not needed to. - 2008-11-29, 0 of 0 people found this review helpful, Rated:
- Funtional device, but not without problems
- I bought this box because I save lots of sports events, and I wanted some way to capture and keep them in high definition. The good news is, it does work, and it works on any HD channel, which is a must, since a regular tuner for a video card typically only works on broadcast TV. I have now captured a bunch of events off of ESPN and The Big Ten network in HD, and a few HD movies off of HBO. The ability to do this is like a godsend for me. No longer do I have to archive my favorite sports events in standard definition using old technology.
However, there are some problems. The biggest problem with this device is that the software that comes with it is extremely primitive. You can basically only do two things with it -- capture and convert to .WMV format. Forget about editing. The editing software is worthless. This package would have been much better if there had been a way to convert and edit in one step. As it stands, the editing function is tied directly to the "burn to DVD" function.
This box is also extremely unstable with a VCR feed. I have tried to capture many of my old videotaped events, and I have had all sorts of problems. Any time that the tape skips or bobbles, the box completely crashes, forcing you to unplug it and plug it back in again to get it going. This is an extreme nuisance. If you are planning on using this box to rip all of your VHS collection onto your computer, then forget about it.
One other problem that I had with the software is that the video codecs that came with it screwed up at least one of my games (Fallout 3). I had to turn them off to get the game to play. It wasn't hard to do this once I had found the problem, but it took at least a few hours of troubleshooting to find it.
Still a worthy purchase though, as it's the only device capable of doing what it does. There's a ways to go before I would call this an outstanding product. - 2008-11-17, 0 of 0 people found this review helpful, Rated:
- Way too buggy
- I've had this for almost a month now and it's been a fight ever since I first installed it. Sometimes the video is slightly distorted, sometimes I get a memory address error, and sometimes the preview window blinks in and out. Removing it from device manager and rebooting will usually clear it up, but I'm not going through that every time I need to use it.
This is one of those devices that they release too soon and make the public the beta testers for. I've had stuff like that before and I'm returning it while I can still get a refund. - 2008-11-11, 1 of 3 people found this review helpful, Rated:
- Has anyone else had this just die?
- Hooked it up to cablebox and used the loop out, so the signal could be watched on TV. I didn't have a chance to hook it up for a few days, but intended to. Then one day it would no longer pass the signal through, and I tried to install it on the computer but it was not recognized. It seems to have just died, although the power light was on. I'm getting a replacment, but I am not sure if the next one will be any better. Anyone else have a problem like this?
- 2008-11-08, 0 of 0 people found this review helpful, Rated:
- Love it!!! Records straight to avchd (.TS or m2ts)
- This device finally does what I have been wanting since my purchase of a Sony CX7 avchd camcorder. I always wished I could just hook my cam internals to my hd pvr and record a show in HD.
Well this is almost like that , the box has hd component inputs (and outpus for passthru) with an internal processor to convert the video straight to avchd out the usb port.
Now , for the cool part... since my computer was no where near my hd sat receiver I decided to try using 2 usb active extension cables to bring my usb port to the box. Worked great!
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The software included will make a .TS file (avchd) now you can play this file directly on a PS3 by just renaming it with a .m2ts extension ! just rename it and your done... no further transcodes needed!
But the best part is to make a hi def blu ray dvd using a cheap blank dvd-r . You can put 1 hour of HD avchd video on a standard 4.7gb dvd-r - your blu ray player / PS3 will see this disc as a valid hd blu ray disc and play it! No blu ray burner needed to actually make blu ray discs.
Creating the disc does not take very long since its putting your file in the proper blu ray structure... its just copying it not transcoding it.... so quick and painless.
Now if you want to make a standard SD dvd this will take longer because it will have to transcode it..
I found the included software pretty straight forward and easy to use. Making a avchd playable disc was totally painless.
If you want to record a show in HD and keep it for later playback on a ps3 or bluray player on cheap dvd-r media - this is it ! I love it... there is nothing else like it.
I used a intel dual core system with 2gb of ram and an 8500 video card with Vista and the software ran very smoothly. I do not use the pc to playback any of the video - thats the job of the ps3 or bluray player... so think of your pc as the recording and making dvd device not the playback device. playback of avchd file require too much pc muscle - so use a ps3 - its easier and you can load .m2ts files on it to your hearts content!
The other reviews I read about quicktime and stuff are kinda missing the point... its really to get the hd content off your dvr and get it into a dvd-r thats playable over and over again.... in HD
What I hope to see in the next rev:
Ethernet port rather as well as usb to send the data stream.. this way you can send the data to a computer that is not near your home entertainment system.
A hard drive or external hard drive hookup with a record button... eliminating the need for a pc all together for the recording of the show. - 2008-11-03, 3 of 3 people found this review helpful, Rated:
