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Right i think this may be my first ever thread start and my first review so here goes.
Over the past months ive been struggling with my Sky+HD box being near full pretty much all the time so i thought i would look into a way of backing it up to my pc. First of all i was content with just doing this with a dvd recorder and then onto my pc however i wanted to find a way to do this but in lovley HD goodness. This led me to....
http://www.hauppauge.co.uk/site/products/data_hdpvr.html
Managed to get this online for £150 delivered and 2 weeks later it finally arrived (No thanks to City Link who done their usual, turn up, post card and leave routine which led to me chasing him though the snow down the street
)
The box -
Unpacked -
Include in the box was -
HD PVR high definition personal video recorder, USB.
Remote Control Including batteries.
IR Blaster transmitter cable.
Component video cable set.
USB cable.
5v power supply.
Drivers and software
The set up of this was pretty simple using the supplied cable i connected the component outs from the Sky+HD box (NOTE - Only older type sky boxes have these please check yours first if you are planning on buying this) into the back of the HD PVR. There is also a component out on the box incase you use the component for your Sky HD to your tv, but as I am using HDMI for that and the Sky box outputs video over both simutaniously there are no problems there.
A Usb cable is then run from the unit into your pc/laptop....in other words all pretty simple.
All set up :
The software and drivers went on easily enough and didnt get any problems installing.
The general recording is rather easy, it picks up how the audio is input and what res the feed is and displays it in a window. There is a stop/start button and an option to set the recording length.
Right down to the main bit....quality.
To be honest i was stunned at how well this little box managed to encode the feed on the fly with no noise and very little heat. The image quality compared the the original is almost identical, it has possibly lost a little bit of sharpness and colours are a bit more flat but overall very good (Even though this could probably be improved by adjusting the settings which i havent tried yet)
File sizes at its full 13 Mb bit rate come to about 6GB per hour of footage.
Pros -
Good Image quality
5.1 Surround over optical
Easy to set up
Quiet
Cons-
Cables dont fit very snug in the back and need pushing in well
Image is slighty soft (may just be settings though)
Overall im very happy with this purchase as my Sky HD box can finally breathe again.
If anyone wants me to upload any images or videos then just ask
Over the past months ive been struggling with my Sky+HD box being near full pretty much all the time so i thought i would look into a way of backing it up to my pc. First of all i was content with just doing this with a dvd recorder and then onto my pc however i wanted to find a way to do this but in lovley HD goodness. This led me to....
http://www.hauppauge.co.uk/site/products/data_hdpvr.html
Managed to get this online for £150 delivered and 2 weeks later it finally arrived (No thanks to City Link who done their usual, turn up, post card and leave routine which led to me chasing him though the snow down the street
)The box -
Unpacked -
Include in the box was -
HD PVR high definition personal video recorder, USB.
Remote Control Including batteries.
IR Blaster transmitter cable.
Component video cable set.
USB cable.
5v power supply.
Drivers and software
The set up of this was pretty simple using the supplied cable i connected the component outs from the Sky+HD box (NOTE - Only older type sky boxes have these please check yours first if you are planning on buying this) into the back of the HD PVR. There is also a component out on the box incase you use the component for your Sky HD to your tv, but as I am using HDMI for that and the Sky box outputs video over both simutaniously there are no problems there.
A Usb cable is then run from the unit into your pc/laptop....in other words all pretty simple.
All set up :
The software and drivers went on easily enough and didnt get any problems installing.
The general recording is rather easy, it picks up how the audio is input and what res the feed is and displays it in a window. There is a stop/start button and an option to set the recording length.
Right down to the main bit....quality.
To be honest i was stunned at how well this little box managed to encode the feed on the fly with no noise and very little heat. The image quality compared the the original is almost identical, it has possibly lost a little bit of sharpness and colours are a bit more flat but overall very good (Even though this could probably be improved by adjusting the settings which i havent tried yet)
File sizes at its full 13 Mb bit rate come to about 6GB per hour of footage.
Pros -
Good Image quality
5.1 Surround over optical
Easy to set up
Quiet
Cons-
Cables dont fit very snug in the back and need pushing in well
Image is slighty soft (may just be settings though)
Overall im very happy with this purchase as my Sky HD box can finally breathe again.
If anyone wants me to upload any images or videos then just ask
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