HVR-1600 at Circuit city on sale

[nitrogen_widget]

I just picked up a haupauge HVR-1600 at Circuit city for 64$ with tax.
No coupons just $49 instant savings.

[pcostanza]

That's tempting enough I may need to think about this one. Been wanting to play with that card and figured I'd wait a while but it seems like the timing may be right.
I was hoping with the possibility of CompUSA closing that there'd be some good deals but that's not happened now that TigerDirect is getting involved.
Thanks for the heads up!

By the way, what antennae did you get for the OTA reception?

[pBS]

thanx for the heads up...i need another one...

yea, CompUSA has been going out of bizz for 2 years now...lol
the last company to buy them were really greedy and are trying to squeeze every cent out..no real deals to had there anymore..
plus lack of support and returns...

i had one 1600 that wouldn't pick up ch 51 here locally, tho another really cheap card does from same antenna.. for most part they are excellent quality tuners, but there are always exceptions...

just glad it isn't another rebate..

[pcostanza]

I'm wondering why they're so cheap. Are they going to phase them out for something newer? With Hauppauge, you never know. I can say that with 1 350 and 2 500's I've purchased from them, I've been lucky and never have had a problem. I'm going today to CC to get my 1600 and add it to my PVR500 system and see how it goes. I'm a bit concerned about splitting my cable as I already have that split to another computer now and that will make 4 tuners on 1 cable. So far, I've not had any problem with 3 but I may be pushing it.

[nitrogen_widget]

That's tempting enough I may need to think about this one. Been wanting to play with that card and figured I'd wait a while but it seems like the timing may be right.
I was hoping with the possibility of CompUSA closing that there'd be some good deals but that's not happened now that TigerDirect is getting involved.
Thanks for the heads up!

By the way, what antennae did you get for the OTA reception?

I'm actually building a DB2 Antenna from oven racks & AWG 12 copper wire.

I saw one made on the LumenLab forums.

I made one for my dad for about $10 with parts from the dollar store & it works perfectly for his HDTV.

[User]

I made a DB2 here also to connect to an ATSC set top box that I use for occasional viewing. Made the DB2 out of scrap copper wire and some screen and a 2X4 and on some stations it outperforms a commercial UHF/VHF antennae. Anyway, a fun project to play with till I get serious about recording ATSC. I saw the deal also on the 1600, almost jumped on it until the store search showed sold out at the stores near me.

[Firetoad]

I'm wondering why they're so cheap. Are they going to phase them out for something newer? With Hauppauge, you never know.

Something funny happened with Circuit City and Hauppauge. Just a couple of weeks ago when I purchased my 1600, they had a number of Hauppauge items available in store and on their website. Deciding to try an MVP, I went to Circuit City's website and found that they now only have three Hauppauge items (about 1/3 of what they had) and the store only has one card model for sale with no slots for any other Hauppauge items. The best part is when I asked the Firedog Knowledge Specialist if they carried the MediaMVP by Hauppauge and he somewhat rudely replied that he had never heard of Hauppauge. The kicker was that he was standing less than 10 feet from the row of Hauppauge cards mentioned earlier!

To better the knowledge of the saleskid that pointed me to the Firedog Guru, I took him over to the Hauppauge cards and showed him where they were. He then actually showed a geniune interest in the technology and I wound up educating him on the world that is PVR, specifically GBPVR. Firetoad 1, Firedog 0.

[gazoo]

I just picked up a haupauge HVR-1600 at Circuit city for 64$ with tax.
No coupons just $49 instant savings.

My Circuit City never has anything on sale that the others do. I checked a day after this post and it says $99. Ouch.

[pcostanza]

Got a new one close to my home and no one is ever there. It's in a populated area in the burbs but it's close enough to a Best Buy that people go there instead. I can walk in to CC and get what I want and get out in a very short time.
I purchased this antenna http://www.circuitcity.com/ssm/Philips-I...tDetail.do
and it works better with WinTV's software than Media Center and GBPVR. It's amazing the difference between the 3 programs. Only in WinTV's program can I tell a difference in quality between the HD OTA and analog channels. Media Center can only get half the channels so far and GBPVR gets about as many as WinTV does but I can see no difference in picture quality. This is all using the same system, monitor, antenna etc.
I've not doubt that I'm sticking with my cable company when the big change comes in the states in 2009. HD is overblown IMO but then again, the biggest TV I have in my home is 36". I'm waiting for it to die before I take the HD plunge.

[Deusxmachina]

Only in WinTV's program can I tell a difference in quality between the HD OTA and analog channels. Media Center can only get half the channels so far and GBPVR gets about as many as WinTV does but I can see no difference in picture quality. This is all using the same system, monitor, antenna etc.
I've not doubt that I'm sticking with my cable company when the big change comes in the states in 2009. HD is overblown IMO but then again, the biggest TV I have in my home is 36". I'm waiting for it to die before I take the HD plunge.

If you only get half the channels available to you, the antenna or its positioning is probably the culprit. My stations are all grouped together 20 miles away except for one oddball about 40 degrees in a different direction. Using a DB4 clone 180-ish-degree antenna, I can get them all adequately, but aiming more towards one station or the other causes signal loss on the other one.

If that 36" TV isn't HD and you already get a good analog signal, that would explain not much picture quality difference. But if you watch HD even on your computer monitor, it should be night and day. To not see any difference even with downconverted HD to the 36" you must have a good analog signal.