Hauppauge PVR - Differences between 150, 250 and 350? (1 Viewer)

[ThomasC]

My Hauppauge TV Tuner died after 3.5 years of good service, and now I'm looking for a PVR. For the most part, I just want to watch TV, but I'll have a few shows I want to record when the TV season starts up again. Are there any reasons why I shouldn't go with the 150, any reasons I should definitely go for the 350, etc.?

 

[ThomasC]

Anyone?

 

[Steve Berger]

That's not actually a very easy question. The 250 has the longest development time giving it the greatest variety of 3rd party tools. The 150 (500 dual tuner version) is the latest with slightly better quality and there are MCE and standard versions. The 350 has a nice (but limited) TV output. It would only be recommended if you need a TV output.

The supplied software won't win any awards but there are alternatives. I have a pair of 250's and use the command-line utility (WinTvCap) with Window's scheduler and various TV display methods, including 2 MediaMVP's.

Have you been to the unnoficial support site ? As with any purchase, you need to define you desires and find the product that fills the bill.

 

[Harris_C]

I think this will answer all your questions.

htpcnews.com/main.php?id=pvr_card_id_guide

 

[John_Bonner]

I'm pretty sure the 250 and 350 use hardware based capturing/decoding which use much less system resources that a software based card (the 150). I use the 250 with SageTv and when recording it barely uses any system resources. The 350 adds an FM tuner.

 

[ThomasC]

Thanks for the help, guys! This sealed the deal for me (linked in the page Harris linked to). I'll be getting the PVR-150.

 

[ThomasC]

John, all three models use hardware capturing/encoding.

 

[Harris_C]

Glad to be of help..It is a good card, have one right here.