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: does exactly what it says it will
Summary: 5 Stars
Do not believe the bad reviews for this unit. I just picked one up and couldn't be happier with it. I have my unit connected to a quad-core PC with 3gb RAM running Windows7. The Hauppauge runs flawlessly with my PC. I have the software set to capture Dolby Digital 5.1 audio and HD 1080i video at 1920x1080/30fps/13mbps (the max available from the unit) and it records without a hitch. I bought this unit primarily so that I could offload HD programs from my Tivo and archive them permanently to disc. The unit does that beautifully and the blu-ray player compatible DVDs that I burn look indistinguishable from the original video and I am watching them on a 60" Pioneer Kuro (a tv that is known to have exceptional picture quality but will also bring out any flaws in the source signal if any are present). Point is, even with my tv, the video looks stunning, as good as the original. If people are complaining about this unit, they either got an earlier version (make sure you get the latest "E1" version, if you don't just contact Hauppauge within 30 days and ask to swap it out), didn't connect the unit properly, or their PC doesn't have enough horsepower to keep up with the 1212. This is an exceptional product and a very nice addition to my home theater system (replaces an old 480i Sony DVD recorder).Customer Review: Works Great and now does 5.1 audio with update
Summary: 5 Stars
I've had the Hauppauge 1212 HD PVR for a few weeks now. I just installed the driver update for 5.1 audio. It's a public beta but works fine.
I use the ArcSoft software to make the TS file.
If I want to play it off the HD I use PowerDVD 7 which handles the .ts file just fine. I play it back through a DVI cable to the Mitsu 1024P tv.
If I want to save it I have ArcSoft create an AVCHD structure on the HD and use Nero 7 to burn it to a DVD+R DL that plays on my Sony Blu-Ray player in HD. The ArcSoft software is cludgy but works. If fancier menus are wanted on your DVD use NeroVision to encode the AVCHD but keep in mind that it takes Nero a lot longer to create the AVCHD from the .ts file then ArcSoft software. A 2hr HD recorded a 9MBits sampling makes a .ts file just right for a DVD DL disk. ArcSoft took about 20 minutes to make a AVCHD structure that Nero 7 can use to create a DVD-UDF disk. If NereVision convert the .ts file it can take hours so I use the ArcSoft for that even though the menus it creates are lame. The quality of the recordings are fantastic. I love this box. You will need a fast pc and really good video card to get the most out of this unit.
I'm using a AMD 64 Dual Core 4600+, fast OCX memory, and two GF 7600 GS cards in SLI mode.
Customer Review: Surprisingly good
Summary: 5 Stars
I expected this product to be "delicate" and to not work out of the box without tweaking -- I was wrong. This product worked as advertised. I just installed the software, hooked it up to my Directv box and it worked great.
I was especially pleased with the software -- it did not crash or hang, which has happened to me with other video capture software. Also, the conversion of what was captured to AVCHD-DVD or plain DVD was error free and worked right the first time. The DVD authoring software also allowed you to put chapters into the videos easily.
I have a couple of notes: if you want to capture HD video and preview the video while you are capturing it, you may have trouble if you are using integrated graphics. My Dell laptop has switchable graphics (integrated Intel plus AMD graphics). I had to switch to the AMD card in order for the preview to keep up while capture was occurring.
My second note is that if you capture HD video and then want to create a plain DVD (not AVCHD), you will need a lot of CPU power if you don't want to wait hours for the conversion. This is a very CPU intensive process, and a dual-core Intel Core 2 will not do it particularly fast.
Customer Review: Some Reviews Made Me Leery But . . .
Summary: 5 Stars
Perhaps what I'm doing isn't as sophisticated as others but I had this up and running in less than 15 minutes and it worked beautifully. I have a DirectTV HD DVR and a laptop running Windows 7. I connected everything following the Quick Setup guide and installed the software without problems. I did one test recording using a bit rate of 9 but then reduced it to 5 as the file was too large (I wanted to fit three 50 minute episodes of a show on a dual-layer disc and using a bit rate of 9 would have limited me to two). I continued my recordings and they progressed very smoothly. When I finished the several recordings in my first batch, I simply brought them into TMPGENC's DVD Authoring Works 4 then went to work editing them and building DVDs. Playback during editing wasn't 100% smooth but that is due to the ACHVD file format and in the end, it didn't prevent me from making perfect edits. When I played the DVDs back on a 42" 1080p TV, I wasn't able to see any reduction in quality from the original HD broadcast. I was thrilled.
This unit really exceeded my expectations. I hope it continues to be this trouble-free!
Customer Review: Excellent but has a few hiccups.
Summary: 5 Stars
I'm going to split my review into two portions the PVR itself and the shipping problems and nuances.
The PVR: Beyond excellent, exceeded my expectations in every way. Very easy to setup and use. Only problem is that I could not get the editing and capturing software I had used previously to recognize it, but I think that's more user error than the PVR. However, YOU MUST HAVE THE INSTALLATION CD FOR IT TO WORK, I know that sounds obvious but this brings me to the shipping problems. Amazon has a bad tendency to ship the PVR without the Installation CD, so think very hard about buying it from Amazon (like I did) or any other 3rd party seller. Granted, it is not hard to get the CD, I called Hauppauge's support people and they shipped it to me one within a week but it's up to you to decide if the $12 you're going to save by buying it here is worth not being able to use it for a week or so. In my opinion, this machine is absolutely worth the money, thus why I bought it, but think long and hard about if what you plan to do with it is worth the investment, A Dazzle is a LOT cheaper and does the exact same thing, just not in HD.