Hauppauge 1212 HD-PVR High Definition Personal Video Recorder
by HAUPPAUGE
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List Price: Our Price: $179.99 You Save: $30.00 (14%) Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours Category: CE See more product details |
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Customers in the UK,
Buy this product at amazon.co.uk
for British Pounds
Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Hauppauge 1212 HD-PVR High Definition Personal Video Recorder
Customer Review: Works with single core CPU
Summary: 5 Stars
After a month of usage I wanted to report to the forum that this unit can be used with an older single core processor equipped computer.
To capture perfect HD programs I am using a computer from 2004 with an single core AMD Athlon 64 3400+ "Clawhammer" socket 754 CPU wtih 1MB L2 cache and 2GB of RAM. I was going to gift the computer to my parents to replace their big box store bought D3LL but have since put it to use to capture 1080i HD quality contents from my Dish DVR without any issues.
The trick to HD capture Nirvana is to TURN OFF the "ENABLE PREVIEW ON RECORDING" feature. Once the preview is turned off your computer will be able to concentrate its raw power on the encoding and discontinue the display/decoding onto your video screen. With the preview disabled my CPU runs at avg 30% and peaks at 60% usage with no other tasks running (ie anti-virus or other programs) in the background. I have since backed up hundreds of hours of concerts and other HD programs onto my computer and saved as .TS file format at 8MB video capture bitrate and afterwards transferred everything via USB to an external hard drive all without stutter so I can watch it with my LG Bluray player LG BD530 1080p Network Blu-ray Disc Player via USB. I don't bother with higher setting as I am unable to see any difference due to souce compression by DISH Network.
Please do not shy away from purchasing this unit - with some simple tweak you too can use an old computer to record and share TV shows with family and friends!
Customer Review: Hauppauge HD PVR=AMAZING
Summary: 5 Stars
Hello everyone,
I bought this Hauppauge HD PVR about 1.5 weeks ago, I bought it for recording my xbox360 gameplay to my laptop (mac), It was very easy to set up. I am only 14 and I set it up no problem, I recommend you search on youtube how to set it up just so you can have a visual, This does not support HDMI it supports HD componet cables (identical quality) it comes with everything to get you started.....(manules.... install disk.... a note from Hauppauge.... and double sided HD componet cables) ALOT of people have been asking if this Hauppauge HD PVR works with a standard defintion tv.... The answer is YES it can work with a standard def tv but that avoids the point of the (HD) part of it, If you have a standard def tv and your looking to record I DEFFINTLY recomend buying somthing like a Dazzle Capture card they run for about $50 to $90 at your local electrionic store. The price on this amazon seller is very well priced compared to the $200 to $250 on the Hauppauge website,
If you have ANY questions regarding the Hauppauge HD PVR that I did not answer above, Feel free to MSG me on my youtube channel, (sjsharksfan454) there you will find Gameplay & Commentary
Thanks you and YES I would recomend you pick this up if your looking to record ps3 or xbox360 or just regular tv to your pc....or (mac) if you are using a mac I recomend you buy a program called Eyetv or HDPVR CAPTURE you can buy both online, I use HDPVRCAPTURE because its cheaper and it does the same thing as Eyetv, HDPVRCAPTURE is $30 and Eyetv is $80 to $90
Customer Review: Records in 1080i with excellent quality
Summary: 5 Stars
I purchased this and have been toying with it for about a week. In that time, I've found a method that works well for me. Let me caveat this review to say that I'm only using the component record option to offload my DirecTV HD PVR and am not using this as a full DVR.
The quality of the records that I have done thus far in 1080i with AC3 audio have been excellent using M2TS format. I am able to take these records and stream them to the PS3 which will recognize them as HD content and play back in 1080i with DD surround. Unfortunately, since Windows Media player doesn't recognize the M2TS format, I have to use Nero Home Media 4 server - which works flawlessly.
The apps on my recording PC do lock up every once in a while and are slow to start up and sometimes to respond, but I've not run into any show stopping issues. The fact that the unit must be on for the component/SDPIF pass through to work is an annoyance as well, but it's worth it to me to be able to offload the HD content in great quality from my existing HD PVR.
One issue that I did have at installation is that I went by the documentation as to which port to plug in the SDPIF IN versus OUT. The documentation is wrong as it has the IN/OUT port swapped. Once I looked on the device and found that the SDPIF IN/OUT ports were opposite of what the document said, everything worked correctly.
I guess I'm one of the lucky ones who hasn't run into the DOA issue. I was worried about those reviews, but mine turned out to be fine.
Customer Review: Great product for recording Xbox 360 gameplay
Summary: 5 Stars
For recording HD video from an Xbox 360, this is a great product.
First, my setup:
Source video - Xbox 360 connected to this device via component video cables and analog L/R audio (This device does toslink optical audio but I have not tried it yet)
Destination computer - Late 2008 unibody Macbook Pro (Made possible only by using EyeTV software... this hardware is not natively Mac compatible)
I tried a couple devices for recording (Blackmagic usb recording dongle, a few other various non-HD USB video capture devices) and this one is by far the best. Installation was easy - I had it set up in about 5-10 minutes. I hooked up the Xbox 360 to the HD PVR, and the HD PVR into my Macbook via USB. I fired up EyeTV, followed the instructions and had it up and running in minutes. I was even more shocked to find that I could plug the provided Component cable into my TV and watch the Xbox on the TV as I played and recorded on my Mac. Beautiful.
If you're looking for a USB device for recording Xbox gameplay, this one works without a hitch.
Pros:
Fast, easy setup
Does exactly what it says it does
HD recording done right
Cons:
Significant delay from the source device to the display on the computer. Not a big problem because of the ability to simultaneously output (no delay in the output), but if you are using the computer as your primary display expect about a 5 second delay.
Customer Review: Easiest Recorder You Will Ever Use
Summary: 5 Stars
This is the easiest TV/Game console recorder you will ever use, in terms of HD I mean. It comes with everything you need, even another set of component cables, and is easy to set up. You just plug it into the wall, plug it into your computer, put your component cables into the input and the other set into the output, which then go to your TV. Next you install the drivers and software, open up the recorder, and start recording!
The only problem I had with it was the very unmanageable video formats. M2TS, TS, and MP4 are not liked by very many of the editors out there. Sony Vegas Pro. 9 and Windows Movie Maker seem to be the only ones that work well, I'm sure there are others but I haven't bothered looking. If this could record in AVI, granted I know it is an H264 recorder, I would be a lot happier, but I can live.
I also had a problem where the HD-PVR would stop recording randomly with a black screen and gave me an error message, but this was resolved when I lowered the recording bitrate. I can only assume that my computer wasn't fast enough to handle what the bitrate was before I lowered it (for 720p it was at 8MB/s, I set it to 6MB/s, everything worked).
What I can say about this: If you want to record your game console, and you have an editor that supports M2TS or MP4 files and have a good computer, I would get this. It works, it's easy to set up, and it is worth every penny I spent on it.