Hauppauge WinTV Nova-T

Hauppauge WinTV is a bunch of rubbish! Slow channel change, program crashes from time to time, sometimes you even have to restart the computer, huge lag when turning into timeshift mode. Second time you switch to timeshift or record the program will freeze and computer has to be restarted. Software lacks features, and has huge sized buttons made for idiots, which will take up all the screen space in vain.

Returned the product to the supplier, at my expense, in order to get a refund of the purchase price. None, wasted several hours trying to get it to work - no success. Looking on the Web there seems to be comments of it not working.

i am very pleased with my product i have it on a 72inch plasma display and there is no color bleed at all even hooks up to 5.1 surroundi use a mini state ant with 2 ampsi live in ontario canada and am about 2hrs from buffalo ny and i get these chanells ...........2-1, WGRZ: NBC4-1, 4-2, 4-3 WIVB: CBS 7-1, 7-2 WKBW: ABC 15-1, TORONTO 1 (Hamilton repeater)20-1, CBLT: CBC23-1, 23-2, 23-3, WIVB: CBS 24-1, CBLFT: CBC29-1, 29-2, 29-3 WUTV: FOX 40-1, CFTO: CTV43-1, 43-2, 43-3 WNED: PBS 53-1, CITY TV66-1, TORONTO 1 2-1 WGRZ-D 704-1 WIVB-HD 904-3 WNLO-SD 907-1 WKBW-DT 8021-1 WXXI-HD 021-2 WXXI KID 021-3 WXXIQ 021-4 WXXI-TV 023-1 WIVB-HD 6023-3 WNLO-SD 50-6029-1 WUTV-HD 0-6029-2 WUTV-SD 0-6029-3 WUTV-EN 0-6043-1 WNED-HD 8043-2 WNED-SD 8043-3 WNED-B 8049-1 WNYO-HD 049-2 WNYO-SD 054-1 WQLN-DT 066-1 WXFP-DT 0analog 06-11-13-17-23-24-28-29-31-41-45-49-51-56-61

I never got as far as installation. Their complex instructions are written for w2000 and all it did was crash my pc. I was really lookign forward to "configuring the EPG service" just to find out what in fact this was. Naturally the instructions are coy about telling you what this is.

Save your money. This is complete rubbish. I have yet to find anyone that can make it work.

Hauppauge WinTV Nova-T has been a total waste of money for me. Never been able to get this product up and running. I do not recommend this TV Tuners.

Its going straight back. A complete waste of money and an afternoon for me.

The setup of the Hauppauge WinTV Nova-T USB2 model was easy to follow and simple to get going.

Search for TV channels is easy.

The operation with mouse and remote control is simple and intuitive.

I am so happy to have the 'extra' TV set especially during the World Cup - and the ability to save and write to DVD is superb, for very little extra cost.

I installed the Hauppauge WinTV Nova-T TV Tuner with a free replay system, so I could link via the LAN. However, the software was vicious. Even with almost every other program turned off, the PC crashed when viewing TV (AMD3000 with 1.5G memory!). Then, when recording, after an hour it crashed the ATI software controlling the video card, and every time I boot I am asked (in Hungarian!) to reload, even though I've downloaded new software in English.

I bought it from Lowestontheweb who are giving me a refund (but it cost £8 to send it back to them).

I cannot recommend this Hauppauge WinTV Nova-T hardware or the manufacturer, and suggest you don't touch either with a barge pole. There are far better cards for far better value out there - a pity I didn't choose the right one.

The problems were pretty random and it took me a while to go through the process of attempting to sort out the problems, by which time I was beyond Scan Computers 28 day policy and they refused to exchange it for another product. I had;

1. Visited the Hauppauge site and downloaded the latest software and patches for the unit.

2. Followed all the suggestions in their FAQ sections.

3. Sent them an email. No reply. Phoned them, got put through to the answer phone.

4. Bought a new high gain TV aerial (more expense), installed it on the roof and aligned it with a compass to the nearest digital transmitter.

5. Phoned them again. Got through this time and the disinterested guy suggested changes to my PC setup. He also suggested my aerial lead is defective despite the Pace box showing signal strength of between 82% and 92% with no errors.

6. So I uninstalled every unnecessary programme from my C drive (that's a lot as this machine is now my dedicated PVR now) deleted browser files and all temp files and any old dump files.

7. Then I ran a defrag and set the software to record to the now almost empty C drive rather than my new 160GB.

8. I also increased the virtual memory file to an initial size of 1Gig.

And how does all that repay me? I still get colour casts and the application now hangs after every recording. In fact the last one I attempted just kept recording. I stopped it once the file reached over 4Gig and was still getting bigger over an hour after it was supposed to stop.

This product is not fit for purpose. It may be OK to watch an occasional TV program on your PC, but as a part of a personal video recorder setup it is DIRE. And I suspect other Hauppauge products that share the same software will have similar problems.