Hauppauge's WinTV-HVR-950 hybrid ATSC / NTSC TV tuner for PCs

Looks like Hauppauge quietly went and released a hybrid NTSC and ATSC TV tuner for PCs. And don't it look to be from the same OEM'er Elgato's been kicking around with? The WinTV-HVR-950 hybrid TV stick supports up to 1080i ATSC digital or analog NTSC TV broadcasts when slotted into your USB 2.0 port and ships with Hauppauge's WinTV-Scheduler and the WinTV2000 application to watch and schedule TV recordings to MPEG-2. No word on pricing or availability but we have a sneakin' suspicion it'll cost ya about a Benjamin.

Update: Damn we're good; the word direct from Hauppauge is that this little dongle will set you back exactly $100.

[Thanks, Carlos]

[Dp462090 @ Sep 25th 2006 10:33AM]

I'm think about getting a TV tuner, and this looks pretty good.

[adam @ Sep 25th 2006 10:36AM]

just make sure you stay away from leadtek tv tuners. the ones i've come across all have software encoding (eats cpu resources) and are not MCE compatible. not to mention the quality on mine is crap, its useable, but thats about it.

[Patrick McCarron @ Sep 25th 2006 10:43AM]

As with the ElGato version, I would have ordered it on the spot if it supported QAM.

[Pete @ Sep 25th 2006 11:15AM]

QAM and/or Cablecard support is needed.

[Bhaughbb @ Sep 25th 2006 11:54AM]

Huh, I've got the Hauppauge MCE edition tuner and it still insists on software encoding/decoding when I try to use it in MCE, and I had to use a third party Mpeg2 codec to even get it to work, what're you using/recomending? If my DVR box had usb2 I'd consider upgrading to something like this if it'd help things. might be worth the purchase of a usb2 card as well.

[kenny @ Sep 25th 2006 1:11PM]

The encoding hopefully is in hardware, but all the cards I've seen still use software decoders, so in general they only need the decoder for playback.

[alistair @ Sep 25th 2006 6:14PM]

It is

[Tomas @ Sep 25th 2006 1:49PM]

Hareware decoding is fantastic on the Hauppauge cards. I used to have one of the their original HDTV WinTV cards that did the decoding on board, and I could watch HDTV with 0% CPU usage. That card had a nice big chip and a heat sink on it though...so unless the technology has gotten more efficient...

[Richard Bitting @ Sep 25th 2006 1:51PM]

Not bad but the DVICO Fusion USB does ATSC and QAM. The software has a few bugs but overall it is not bad. Even does DIVX encoding.

[RWD fan @ Sep 25th 2006 1:58PM]

Hope this might pressure Elgato to drop the price of their hybrid some...

[pwfletcher @ Sep 25th 2006 3:04PM]

I receive the Elgato Hybrid Last week and it, cobined with the EyeTV 2 software is nothing short of INCREDIBLE. I live in SF and get 36 digital channels, many in HD. The Hybrid plays and records full screen HDTV on my MacBook Pro flawlessly and the picture truly looks incredible ... in fact, it looks better than my 48" HDTV using the Sony HDD250 tuner/DVR. The Haupage picture looks exactly like my Elgato Hybrid so I presume that they are identical. I just happen to like the EyeTV software better.

[Mikey @ Sep 25th 2006 5:50PM]

Yeah, I got my Hybrid in last week as well. As this is my first HDTV tuner I am most definitely impressed. I didn't think much of the $150 price tag, but now that I see this one (and the exact same hardware) I can only hope that ElGato's software goes above and beyond what this one can do. I know I'm more than pleased with it.

[Henry @ Sep 25th 2006 5:42PM]

Does the Eyetv Hybrid come with the portable antenna like this one does?

[doi @ Sep 25th 2006 8:12PM]

so will we have to buy both an elgato and the hauppauge in order to run on both platforms. if its the same hardware why cant they make one and have both software packages. seems kinda silly. unless u can buy 1 and download the software for the other in order to run on the opposite OS.

[Ryan0rZ @ Sep 26th 2006 1:54AM]

I'd like to find one that does native MPEG4 hardware encoding....at around this same price point.

[Ed Kopp @ Sep 26th 2006 2:21AM]

Is there any chance that Engadget could hold a contest for one of these? I already have a media center 2004 PC that I use to view and record NTSC from my cable, but I would love to use this handy device to watch some over-the-air HDTV on my PC.

[Smiles @ Sep 26th 2006 3:21AM]

Does anyone know if this is supported by MCE 2005? I really dislike the WinTV application, but I'd be willing to spring for the unit if it works with MCE.

[cesar @ Sep 26th 2006 12:20PM]

Question... If I hookup my Comcast dvr box to this, will I be able to record the premium channels such as HBO seeing that the signal will already be descrambled by the cable box?

[JDigital @ Sep 26th 2006 1:01PM]

Ugh, Hauppauge. Are they still using that awful WinTV 2000 software?

[inirt_mad @ Sep 29th 2006 8:26AM]

Yes, the new HVR-950 is supported under MCE 2005.

[Dan @ Oct 12th 2006 5:45AM]

Really? How the hell did you get it to work? I can't figure it out worth a damn! Friggin' thing... grrr.... (Works great under a Mac, BTW...)

[horngreen @ Oct 3rd 2006 6:10PM]

check cpu specs- 2.4Ghz pretty hefty - before buying.

[Dan @ Oct 12th 2006 5:46AM]

Grr^2. Somehow, through all the roll-ups, driver installs, and tinkering around, I got it to work. Still works better on the Mac...

[John @ Oct 15th 2006 7:54AM]

Has anyone tried this or the Elgato with HD (1080) on a Powerbook G4 with 1.33GHz, and did it work ok?

[jadavis99 @ Mar 2nd 2007 12:04PM]

I have 2 of these Hauppauge HVR 950 - 1 with standard cable and 1 with the antenna. I seem to only have 1 over-the-air HD channel in my area (about 40 miles NW of Los Angeles). It is a Spanish video channel, but comes in clearly and is actually pretty decent. I use straight cable over the other one. I have to agree I dis-like the WinTV 2000 software. My Beyond TV 4.6 is MUCH more intuitive and has a nice remote control. I do have a question. I know this thing only picks up analog cable channels but... can I run the cable into my digital box and still scan for the analog channels?
Right now I just run the cable directly to the incoming Cable TV cable and get all the extended basic channels.

[Brandon Eubanks @ Aug 16th 2007 6:14AM]

I use this on a Dell XPS w/ Vista 32 bit and had a heck of a time getting it to work. It works fine with windows media center and the analog and digital signal hack for media center. Took me a while to figure out that it works like a charm if you run WinTV 2000 and the hwcemmon.exe as administrator. Otherwise it will lock up if you try to view ATSC channels(works fine for some reason with analog channels without administrative privs). Like I said worked right out of the box with WinXP but had to do the above before it would work in Vista. For Vista if your going to use Windows Media Center you'll need the software encoder from hauppauge's page along with these instructions to get digital/analog to work at the same time
http://www.hdtvtunerinfo.com/vistahdtvinstall.html
or you can use the Vista 3.4B beta CD and just run wintv as administrator by right clicking on the shortcut->properties->advanced button(shortcut tab), and tick run as administrator. Hope this helps many of the frustrated users I've seen out there.