Hauppauge HDTV 1600 card

[filibusterman]

I emailed the manufacturer about the full screen option not working with tv programs like prison beak that are in hd widescreen but do show up as 4:3 when im using my projector. they said there was currently no fix for this. Do others use a different program to actually decode the received ota signal where I would not have to deal with this win2000 program that seems not to work?

 

[trevor0323]

I've been wondering this myself. I just got my HVR1600 all setup but have been having problems with the factory software. Does anyone know which software: Sage, Beyond TV, MCE, works best with this card?

 

[ExPFC Wintergreen]

I have that card. I've been using Vista media center and it seems to be good. I haven't tried anything else. This is also only for the cable--my HD antenna hasn't arrived yet.

 

[yuppiejr]

I am running Vista MCE with this card an no issues with OTA HD, only caveat is that the QAM decoder (if it's in your version of the card) can't be used in Windows, only the WinTV app provided with the card.

 

[ColdFusion718]

I'm using it with MCE2005 and it works just great.

 

[PCTC2]

I don't have the card, but Beyond TV works great with TV tuners. I have a Hauppauge PVR-MCE500 Dual TV and an AverTV HDTV/Analog MCE Card and both work fine with Beyond-TV.

 

[hellokeith]

SageTV is the most mature of all the media center suites. It's available for Windows, Mac, and Linux in server, client, and full packages. It handles the aspect ratio, square/non-square pixel, and overscan/underscan issues on its own. Just tell it what kind of display you're using, and you're good to go. Lots of people using projectors w/ SageTV.

edit: I have a 1600 btw, and it works perfectly in SageTV.

 

[Modular]

If you are looking for good free software ... go with GB-PVR

 

[GullyFoyle]

We know the QAM tuner on the 1600 doesn't work in MCE. Does SageTV, GB-PVR, or any other third party software work with the QAM tuner (besides the WinTV software)?

 

[hellokeith]

AFAIK, the 1600 QAM will work on the Linux server version of SageTV, but not the Windows version due to a difference in how the OS's handle QAM.

 

[Modular]

<div class="FTQUOTE"><begin quote>Originally posted by: DanDeighan
We know the QAM tuner on the 1600 doesn't work in MCE. Does SageTV, GB-PVR, or any other third party software work with the QAM tuner (besides the WinTV software)?</end quote></div>

Last time I checked (which was about 2 months ago) Sub over at the GB-PVR forums was planning on releasing a new version of the program that would support QAM on the 1600. Head on over to their forums and see if it's been released.

Sub is really good about updating the software and there's a huge userbase over there that can help you get stuff running. Enjoy!

 

[GullyFoyle]

Update: GB-PVR now supports HVR-1600 QAM tuning:

After a nearly five month gap between releases, GB-PVR hit a new milestone today with the release of v1.0.

This new release represents the largest change to GB-PVR from any release to date, providing an entirely new user interface. This aspect of GB-PVR was always considered a weak point, but hopefully this release will go a long towards correcting this. In addition, this release also includes a new improved MVP server, and few cool additions like support for HVR1600 digital cable QAM tuning, DVB h.264 (MPEG4) channel support etc.

 

[HFC]

I tried the 3.4b software that came with the card and couldn't get that to work. Finally, I tried the beta 3.4d1 and it has been working OK. However, there are times when the video was a bit choppy. I tried sage tv and beyond tv but both wanted frequent access to the internet. I bought vista premium but have not tried.

I have a E4300 running at 3G with 2GB of PC6400 RAM and a 7900GS video card. I wonder if going to one of the newer video card with H.264 hardware support such as 8600GTS could work better.

 

[ViRGE]

Hopefully ClearQAM support will be coming to Vista SP1 as rumored. I have the 1600 and it's great, but it would be nice to use the QAM feeds inside of MCE.