Hauppauge WinTV HVR 850 TV Tuner Analog USB Windows Vista/XP USB CD-ROM Black

I definitely need to get around to seeing if they have updated software for this thing. Onto the review: It's been great. I ended up buying a $15 set of rabbit ears from Radio Shack and now am getting around 25 channels. Unfortunately, 3 are the kind I don't watch, and 7 of them aren't in English. However, I do get enough free channels that I do watch, so I miss not having Cable TV a lot less. The picture quality has been fantastic. I have a 2nd monitor, and it feels just like a television set. The software it came with does crash quite a bit, and it is annoying. Overall, it's been nice and it's making me look at getting a better antenna. It's also an incredible complement to a laptop computer. Update: the WinTV application crashed like crazy just how. However, if you have Windows Media Center, it simply blows away WinTV. I got more channels with it and it's more stable

In short: I love this little USB TV tuner! I did have a few issues during the installation but all are sorted out and it now works flawlessly. My system consists of a desktop PC running Windows 7 64-bit Ultimate with external rooftop TV antenna. I read several people are having overheating problem and that's most likely attributed to the tuner trying to amplify the weak TV signal, i.e. the weaker the signal the more it tries to amplify thus the hotter it gets (uses more power). If you're using a laptop it will drain the battery in no time! The signal strength indication on the software shows the signal quality AFTER the amplification, so it is not a true indicator. If your TV has a built-in signal strength indicator (mine does) than it's the accurate way to tell whether you're TV signal is weak or strong. In my case I'm getting strong signals from the rooftop antenna that the tuner stays cool (or lukewarm at most) even after a whole day in operation. I do mount it on a small L-shape metal on the antenna connector side (see pics) and use the short USB cable to connect it to my PC. The metal mount serves as heatsink and cable strained relief, so I highly recommend it especially if you have overheating issue. As far as the software, I'm using it with Windows Media Center exclusively to watch, record, and playback. WMC does an excellent job in scheduling, recording and playback: it allows wake-up from sleep and record in HD content (video and audio, Dolby HD5.1 format), basically the native format of the source program. IMHO it works better than their software (WinTV). WMC also downloads the latest TV guide and you can configure your recoding schedule very conveniently. You can pause and rewind live TV, and do other cool stuff too. If you are using it exclusively with WMC like me, then you do NOT want to install their WinTV software, or it will conflict with WMC! The conflict shows up as the tuner gives "System not available, no TV signal found ..." error and some other obscure errors which occur intermittently. For instance, the tuner fails to tune for the first time you launch WMC but works OK after you close WMC and re-launch it. If you're getting these errors then most likely it's because of the driver installation fiasco. One way to tell if the tuner is configured properly is that the two LEDs (see pic) should be on right after the PC boots up or wakes up from sleep, and should stay on throughout regardless WMC is launched or not. To avoid the software conflict, you MUST install the driver package specifically for WMC from their website (make sure you uninstall their WinTV software first completely). After that reboot and the two LEDs should be on and stay on until you turn off your PC. Another observation: I'd recommend that you use an external hard disk if you're planning to do continuous recording for more than 2 hours since the internal hard disk might get hot after awhile. The tuner itself stays cool (provided you do as I recommended above). Happy watching & recording!

This item arrived well packaged but without drivers or any software. The drivers were easy to get from the website but the software you have to buy it $9.00, not bad, still fair. I use it on 2 laptops Windows XP and Window and works alright, it pulls in 38 channels using my external antenna on the house. But its antenna is useless. It may good for those who are like 20 miles from the transmitters. Did not work for me. Could not get any channel registered. The product itself is great, the only beef I have is it came without any software or drivers, I recommend it because the setup is very easy. I also recommend the vendor, the item performs and it arrived in time.

This small, relatively inexpensive (compared to others on the market) external T.V. tuner does exactly what I expected. I purchased it to use on my Windows 7 desktop - we have a 37 inch T.V. in the family room but I wanted to be able to record shows and be able to watch T.V. in the background while doing other things on my computer. We don't have cable, so I am just using it with a pair of rabbit ears. I picked a cheap pair up for less than five bucks on amazon along with the tuner - the "Zenith VN1ANTP1 Indoor Passive VHF/UHF Antenna", found here - [...]. The tuner software is perfectly fine, but I choose to use Windows Media Center. The included software looks very utilitarian in comparison, and I only used it once. I chose Windows Media Center because of the more streamlined interface, plus the T.V. listings appear along with the channel, making it easier to record. The tuner seems to work just as well as the one in our Panasonic T.V. It doesn't pick up one fairly weak channel our amplified antenna connected to the T.V. does, but I think that the positioning of my computer and the fact that my little cheap antenna is un-amplified are the cause of this. One thing not listed in the product description is that this tuner does pick up F.M. radio. Also, the newer box for the tuner has the "compatible with Windows 7" logo on it, but as most people who purchased this tuner seem to be using it with 7, that is not surprising. The "portable antenna" included with this product is a joke, I never even hooked it up to the tuner. It is less than a foot long, and a waste of plastic and box space. Buy a cheap antenna like I did and you will be much happier with your tuner. Overall, it does what it should and for 55 bucks it is nice to have another T.V.

I tried to setup the HVR-850 tuner on both a Windows 7 32-bit desktop and laptop. Neither computer could download the correct drivers. I then downloaded the latest firmware updates from Hauppauge's website, and the unit still could not be recognized. I have since been refunded through Amazon. I then purchased the AverTV Hybrid Volar MAX-TV Tuner and it worked instantly after plugging in and is now setup with Windows Media Center perfectly. A con with this tuner is that it does not include an OTA antennae for portable use (as opposed to the Hauppauge tuner package, which does include an antennae for a similar price as AverTV tuner.)