Legit Reviews

Does anyone have Windows7(Home Premium) & a Hauppauge HVR series Tuner card up and running? Especially a multi-tuner setup! Hauppauge claims to have drivers for Win7 but also said that WinTV is working but has some issues. The tech I emailed did not elaborate on what those issues are!
I plan on doing this and wanted to know if there are any bugs or issues that I need to check out before I get started?

I have a dual tuner Haupauge card and plan on making the switch, I just need to free up a hard drive as I'm going to test functionality of my media programs before making the full switch. I might get around to playing with it tonight since I don't have any recordings on Wednesday night.

Any reason you're using WinTV over media center?

Bwall wrote:I have a dual tuner Haupauge card and plan on making the switch, I just need to free up a hard drive as I'm going to test functionality of my media programs before making the full switch. I might get around to playing with it tonight since I don't have any recordings on Wednesday night.

Any reason you're using WinTV over media center?

Right now I dont have MC! I'm using WinTV7 with XP Pro and at best its unstable when it comes to recording!
Some days it works some it dont.
I'm hoping Windows7 will eliminate my problem(s)!

Let me know how things go for you!!!
I hate jumping into this knowing nothing at all.

I installed 7 tonight on a spare drive and got media center set up. I have a PCI HVR-1600 and it works great in Vista Media Center.

With 7, the install did not come with drivers, but I was able to get them via Windows Update. After all the updates and reboot complete, I fired up Media Center and proceeded to set everything up without a problem.

For my needs, compared to Vista Media Center, 7 MC doesn't change much. I will likely end up making the transition in a few weeks, going to stick with Vista for now. I've got 100GB of recorded content that I need to either watch or transfer, and I still need to make sure that I can get Total Media Theater 2 working.

Hope this helps!!

TY Bwall !!! Every little bit helps!
I have a 1600 & a 2250 also, I'm hoping to run them together so I can record 2 or 3 programs at the same time or overlapping. WinTV7 is just not working for me, thats why I did the early preorder of Windows7.
No matter what happens good or bad let me know!

I upgraded a Vista HTPC to Windows7 yesterday. It has a hauppauge 2250 tuner card in it. After upgrading I installed the latest driver from the hauppauge website and everything worked fine. I prefer Media Center to Wintv.

Finally installed Win7! Everything went smoothly and for being a first timer with Media Center the setup was pretty painless!
I like the interface with MC much better than WinTV but, I prefer the scheduler in WinTV. WinTV's scheduler is a bit more user friendly! Once I learn more about MC I'm sure I'll be more than happy with it!

So far Win7 Rocks!

A little bit off topic, but how are you guys getting these tuners to work? DO you still have analog cable? running from your sat or cable digital box to the tuner and having to put the box on the channel you want to record?

I have DirecTV and am STILL trying to figure out how the hell to set up a computer to record stuff while I am watching something else.

Mike

I have mine setup using Analog cable so I dont have any issues there!
I am able to pick up up several digital channels through the second tuners on my cards but, they are just the local ch's.

To be able to use a Sat. box and watch one ch. and record another is going to take a helluva setup. I'm not even sure it can be done without a Sat box that feeds at least 2 TV's.
Thats why I never went with Sat and stuck with cable tv.

So whats going to happen once analog cable goes away ;) I know Comcast is doing that already - I think Baltimore was the latest victim. They were all told they had to get boxes for each tv they wanted to watch stuff on. I think they are trying to get rid of the ability to record on anything but their own DVR's and take away the ability to archive shows - its sad, VERY sad!

Mike

KnightRid wrote:So whats going to happen once analog cable goes away ;) I know Comcast is doing that already - I think Baltimore was the latest victim. They were all told they had to get boxes for each tv they wanted to watch stuff on. I think they are trying to get rid of the ability to record on anything but their own DVR's and take away the ability to archive shows - its sad, VERY sad!

Mike

Very Sad indeed!
When that day comes, I hope AT&T's U-Verse is available in my area!

It seems everything that was once free, you are now being pushed into paying for!
I'm not against paying for something but, it should be commercial free if I have to pay for it!

camaroguy1998 wrote: I'm not against paying for something but, it should be commercial free if I have to pay for it!

We must be twins!! I have bitched about that for YEARS! pay for your tv, pay for your electricity, pay for programming, yet still have to watch commercials - ugh!

Mike

Like you KnightRid I've been complaining about this for a long time!

Back to the original subject....

I've been running 7 Home Premium since Sunday and have mixed feelings about it!
A big part of the upgrade was to be able to use the MC features! For watching Live TV, Recording TV and playback of recorded TV, MC is unparalleled! My only complaint and for me it is a major one, is the file format that MC records TV in! It is not compatible with any 3rd party viewers, such as VLC. Even converting to the proprietary .dvr-ms is only compatible with the latest WMP version which is not loaded on the comps at work. Of course I do not have Admin rights so loading a newer version is out
In the past I've been taking the mpeg files and burning them to a disc and watching it on another comp.
Does anyone know of a free program that will convert the MC files to mpeg? If I had something like that I would be much happier with this setup!

As far as Win7 goes, so far I have no complaints at all! Everything I've loaded has worked, so far!