Hauppauge adds QAM support to the WinTV-HVR-1600 dual tuner card

There are never enough PCI slots to support all the tuners we want in a home theater PC . Sure if you are satisfied with one or two tuners you're fine, but if you go big with lets say 8, you need to get more than one tuner per PCI slot. The Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-1600 does just that, and now they have added support for QAM, which is great for watching HD cable channels without a set top box or even a CableCARD. Sure you can't watch HBO or any of the other encrypted channels, but there is still plenty of great HD programming out there. As with anything else there is a catch, the QAM support is only available on the retail version of the product, and as we all know; Windows Media Center Edition and Vista Media center, don't support QAM. So you will have to use the bundled software to take advantage of the new feature.

[(Unverified) Posted May 18th 2007 3:47PM]

But MCE does support QAM. Maybe not with the Hauppauge cards, but the Silicondust HDHomerun does it:

http://www.silicondust.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=20167&sid=24608d305d15980ee4ac1337662035bf

[(Unverified) Posted May 18th 2007 3:49PM]

Yes I know, I tried to work that info into the post, but I just couldn't find a place.

Plus MCE doesn't support QAM, but the HDR tricks MCE into working with it.

I have been a HDR supporter as long as anyone.
http://www.engadgethd.com/2006/10/30/engadget-hd-review-hdhomerun/
http://bjdraw.com/2007/03/09/where-ive-been/

Ben

[(Unverified) Posted May 18th 2007 3:41PM]

fyi there IS a way to get QAM into media center.... HDHomeRun works flawlessly with xp&vista mce.

[(Unverified) Posted May 18th 2007 4:52PM]

Or you can use beyond tv 4.6.1 which also works with the 1600 and vista and mce

[(Unverified) Posted May 18th 2007 6:47PM]

ExpressCard compatible version or replacement from another company anyone?

[(Unverified) Posted May 18th 2007 7:30PM]

Not true! Vista and MCE (as well as other PVR apps) can tune and playback QAM programming with HD Homerun.

[(Unverified) Posted May 19th 2007 1:51AM]

many thanks for the valuable information
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http://www.populardownload.net/

[(Unverified) Posted May 19th 2007 9:10PM]

Is this a dual-QAM tuner? I know it has dual tuners. But the description on the Happauge site implies that "dual tuners" means a single ATSC and a single NTSC?

I want to use this with Vista MCE, but I want to be able to record two QAM channels at once.

[(Unverified) Posted May 19th 2007 9:36PM]

The 1600 is a dual tuner, NTSC analog on one tuner, and ATSC/QAM on the second tuner. Both tuners can be used at the same time, if you use a 3rd party app like GBPVR or Sage.

[(Unverified) Posted May 19th 2007 4:28PM]

I don't understand... why is it that only certain versions of the 1600, unlike mine, support QAM. Real let down...