Hauppauge HD-PVR shows itself, pre-order said to be coming soon
By Donald Melanson 
posted Apr 4th 2008 1:28PM
posted Apr 4th 2008 1:28PM
We'd already heard it was delayed, but that apparently hasn't stopped some pics of Hauppauge's much-anticipated HD-PVR from landing in the hands of a moderator of the SageTV forums, who has kindly posted them for all to see. As you can see, however, it isn't exactly much to look at, but the promised real-time H.264 compression of 1080i video from a component video source should be more enough to make up for any design quibbles. What's more, if that same SageTV moderator is to be believed, Hauppauge should be starting to take pre-orders for the device relatively soon, possibly as early as today (it's still expected to set you back about $250).
[Via TV Squad]
[Via TV Squad]
Just to clarify - in the last EHD Podcast, they said that we would need the upcoming version of Media Center (Fiji?) to take advantage of this unit? Because it's rumored to support H.264 streams? How firm is that information? Do we have any rumors of when Fiji is going to be released? I would think that the Hauppauge folks would want to aim for the same timeframe as the Media Center release so that their potential customers (me) would be able to get up and running with a minimal amount of frustration.
I'm really excited about this. Either this or the DirecTV/PC tuner would be completely awesome, in my book. Either one would help fix the big gaping hole I'm currently experiencing in my setup.
How would I use this if my DTV receiver already has the component and HDMI outputs being used? the components are going to my TV for everyday use and the HDMI going to my stereo for when I want surround.
The two sets of component inputs (and optical sound) are because one is for input and one is for output. So you run component video and either red/white or optical audio to this box. It then outputs it back out to your tv/amp/whatever, as well as compressing it and sending it over USB to your computer.
Since it's Hauppauge, I wonder if the UI will be based on ReplayTV?
I just pre-ordered mine (April 7th) ! Let's hope the advertised May 1st release date is respected !
Apparently, there might be a way to hack it to raise the bitrate over the 13.5 mbits/s limit, possibly up to 25 !
We'll have to wait and see... so far, it's only speculation. But even the 13.5 advertised maximum is pretty close to the theoretical 19.4 of broadcast HDTV.