Hauppauge HD PVR review

As subscribers to Sky and Virgin can attest, it's too easy to fill your set-top box with recorded TV. With the arrival of HD boxes the hard disks have grown, but so have file sizes; replacing the hard disk yourself can void your warranty or contravene the terms of your contract, and USB or eSATA ports are generally disabled to prevent additional external storage from being connected.

Hauppauge's HD PVR aims to solve this issue. It works by capturing the feed of your set-top box and sending it via USB to the hard disk of your PC or laptop. It can handle HD video using component video connections - some HD boxes have these, but check before you buy.

The HD PVR has two sets of component ports - one input from the set-top box, the other out to your TV - so it works as a pass-through, and it needs to be switched on at all times if you want to be able to watch your set-top box on your TV. Using the accompanying ArcSoft TotalMedia Extreme software, you set when the PVR will record. It records AVCHD video at a chosen compression rate to TS files that can be converted to other formats or burned to DVD for playback in Blu-ray players.

We shifted HD episodes of Heroes and Natures Great Events from our test V+ box at the default 8.5MB/sec average bitrate and at the maximum 13.5MB/sec average bitrate, and our 1.8GHz Intel Dual Core laptop coped fine. Playback was crisp, but you'll have to watch those file sizes. A 55 minute video recorded at maximum quality takes up 5.36GB of disk space.

There are other issues too. It only comes with one component cable in the box. The IR blaster implementation is fiddly and doesn't integrate with your existing planner - you have to make scheduled recordings via your PC. And though the software works, it won't win any design prizes.

We can't imagine content providers are keen on devices such as this - hence the lack of component ports on many set-top boxes - but whether they like it or not the Hauppauge is an effective, if expensive, way to reduce the strain on your HD box. Just don't go putting your recordings on BitTorrent.

Author: David Bayon