Okay Geek Farm
Hauppauge HD PVR Gaming Edition review
Ricardo Trejo
“Let’s play” videos have become a staple of many video streaming sites, highlighting what a game looks and plays like for people who haven’t decided yet to buy the title for themselves. But you may wonder, “how can I record HD footage from my TV over to my computer and throw it up on Youtube?” Well, the answer and the means to do is a lot easier and cheaper than you think.
Features
- Includes Component Video gaming cable for Xbox 360 and PS3
- Includes Arcsoft ShowBiz (PC), with upload to YouTube so you can share your best game play in HD
- Original black case and green recording light
- Built-in hardware H.264 high definition encoder, for high performance, high quality video recordings
- Component Video input (YCrCb or YPrPb). Optical or stereo audio inputs.
- Record high definition video at up to 1080i resolution, 720p or VGA/D1
- Record at datarates from 1Mbs to 13.5Mbs, constant and Variable Bit Rate
- Audio / Video component video pass through to allow HD recording and viewing at the same times
Our Impression
I personally owned a Hauppauge branded HD PVR a few years back but got rid of it because of just how bad my PC at the time was. Well, a few things have changed since then on the hardware front (rocking an iMac now), so I decided to check out Hauppauge’s latest offering, which is meant solely to appease their gaming users’ needs.
Out of the box you have the HD PVR, first-party PC software install disc, and a number of cables; power supply, USB cable, component-out cables, and a special “Gaming Edition” component-in cable in which one side has plugs fitted for the Xbox 360, PS3, and even Wii.
Inputs and Ports
The front side of the HD PVR offers ports for S-Video and composite (Yellow, White, Red) inputs. The rear side of the box is what most of you are actually interested in, which hosts the component (YCrCb or YPrPb) for up to 1080i video pass through. You will notice that there aren’t any HDMI ports, which are not available yet on any sort of model sold by Hauppauge. There are also TOS-LINK (optical audio) in/out ports, though like most audio products, there is not an included cable for this — also, if you want to pass through to your 5.1 surround sound system you’re going to need two TOS-LINK cables, obviously (one to run from your gaming system to the PVR and another from the PVR to your audio system).
Interersting to note, there is an IR Blaster port in the rear, however, there’s no included controller as with previous Hauppuage PVR’s.
Set-Up
Set up is straight forward, although there is a word of warning before beginning:
You have to have your computer (whether it be a desktop machine or laptop) near your game console. The reason for this is that unlike other recording means, such as Avermedia’s Broadcast HD device, where you can capture your gameplay to a hard drive onto the device itself and then move it over to a computer, Hauppauge’s HD PVR acts more like a capture card, where the software does the recording and so needs to be streamed over to a PC through a USB cable. Now the included USB cable is only about 5 feet long so you don’t have much wiggle room in terms of where you set this up.
NOTE: One could buy a longer USB cable from Amazon — seen here — but they only go up to 15 feet, and if you get a repeater or even an extension you’ll lose speed, which could hinder your captured footage during recording.
Step-by-step:
- Set your game console to display to 1080i or 720p
- Set your TV’s source to Component
- Plug in the USB cable from the PVR to your PC
- Plug in the component cables from your TV to the PVR
- Plug in the second set of component cables from your PVR to your game console
- Turn on the PVR and install the ArcSoft ShowBiz software on your PC
And that’s it. If everything has been put together there will be a live feed of what’s going on the TV on your PC.
But while Hauppauge says this is a “no delay” feed, yeah… that’s not true at all. If that were true you could play games just from watching the feed on your PC monitor, but there is definitely a two second lag from our own experience that would make playing a game just about impossible, let alone staying competitive on titles played online.
Software
The included capture software is ShowBiz by ArcSoft, which happens to be a Windows only program — though we will recommend a few choice 3rd party applications for Mac users running OS X.
ShowBiz is as basic as it gets, as you’re only given a handful of options on how you’d like to capture your footage, though, there are already presets depending on which console you’re recording from; Xbox or PS3. Footage is captured into the MP4, M2TS, and AVCHD video formats — which can be edited, converted to another file format (using a 3rd party conversion application), or burned to a Blu-Ray disc, respectively. The application even gives you the option of uploading straight to Youtube, if you’d like.
Aside from ShowBiz being all but a simple record button, it also offers a streamlined video editing platform. But anyone who is any bit serious about doing video editing should look elsewhere for editing solutions; something like Vegas Video or Adobe’s Premiere Pro software.
3rd Party Mac software
While Hauppauge advertises the HD PVR Gaming Edition as a Windows device it can still run on the OS X operating system, but you’ll need to find your own supported application.
Here are our favorites that we found and tested:
EyeTV — Our Mac recording software of choice, EyeTV is just as intuitive, user friendly, and even better than the included Windows based, ShowBiz application. In terms of what it does better, when exporting recorded files you’ll be given a wide assortment of file formats ready to be imported to iMovie or Final Cut Pro.
HDPVR Capture — Is a little more complex as it gives you a whole lot more options to mess around with for your own custom preference. If you’re not fully proficient in knowing what you want from your videos then this may be a little more advance than what you need. It’s definitely not for novice capturers, so we say stick to the likes of EyeTV.
Captured Footage Quality Test
After capturing footage from a number of games varying in motion and in overall graphical design (8-bit retro to modern titles) we threw it all up onto one video to give you a taste of what the HD PVR Gaming Edition can do. And while we didn’t get a shot of it in action, whenever the PVR is in use, or recording rather, it gives off a pretty awesome green glow from the top — a change from the original blue glow seen on previous “non-gaming” Hauppauge PVR’s.
Overall
If you’re any sort of gamer looking to get into video editing of any kind, whether it be for your own Youtube channel to brag about your skills or to simply stream some game footage for your followers to watch, then there couldn’t be an easier way of going about doing this than getting yourself a “Gaming Edition” Hauppauge HD PVR.
However, word of warning, even though this device is easy to set-up, is relatively cheap, and gets the job done, if you don’t have your game consoles accessible to a close by PC, like within 5 feet of one, then you may need to do some furniture rearranging if you plan to dive in with Hauppauge.
Pro’s
- Easy set-up w/ all hook up’s provided
- Included software is intuitive and user friendly
- Affordable means of capturing HD footage
Con’s
- No 1st party Mac software
- Needs to be tethered to a PC close by
Where to buy
Hauppauge — MSRP: $199.99
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