Fantastic performing TV Tuner card from Hauppauge

Category: Review on Hauppauge PVR-500 MCE Edition TV Tuner Card

Posted by: 4-Oct-2007

Strengths: Performance is excellent

Weaknesses: Difficult to install and quite expensive as well

Personally, I am not too impressed about watching television on my computer. After all, it is difficult to beat the comfort of a couch and the lower eye level watching pleasure on your traditional television set. Even then, I managed to give it to 'tech-peer' pressure (that is a word which I just invented and I think it works quite well!) and put the Hauppauge PVR 500 on my computer. Though I still don’t watch a lot of television on my computer, the PVR 500 did help in changing my mind about the entire TV-tuner card concept.

I am quite impressed with the performance of the PVR 500. However, the effort of installation was quite something else. It took me more than a couple of high-tech tension hours to install this card successfully which was quite unexpected. Other than that I found the PVR 500 quite expensive as well. The 2 years warranty is reassuring as I would hate to see something go wrong in the card. Just wish that the manufacturer work on the installation process a bit more.

So will I recommend you to buy this product…yes and no. yes, since it really tops on the performance front and no if you have no clue about installing hardware. Other than that, the high price of the card is also a deterrent for many users and it is quite cumbersome to install and then not use it! Do look around and check out the other TV Tuner cards available online to ensure that you pick up something which matches your requirement.