HAUPPAUGE WinTV-DualHD Dual USB 2.0 HD TV Tuner for Windows PC 1595,Black

I have been using a HTPC for years now, but I have always had Avast Tuners because they cost less. They still deliver HD and seem to work just fine. I bought a HAUPPAUGE tuner for my Xbox-One, which I highly recommend, and noticed immediately that the quality was better, and I received more channels even on the little tiny included antenna. So I decided to buy this tuner for my computer to see if I would get a better signal on a few channels that had been dropping out. Not only did I get stronger reception on those channels, but a few channels that never scanned at all on my other tuners now came in.I still use WMC as my primary means of scheduling and recording, and it works great with these tuners. The included software however was a big plus for me because of the ability to have two side by side streams. This is an excellent way to watch sports. I will say however that having two channels running in 1080 display on the screen at the same time side by side is fairly taxing on your CPU but I never saw any lag issues. I may buy another because having two of these as 4 tuners is much easier and less clutter than having 4 individual tuners.** For anyone who has never owned something like this **This is a simple USB adaptive tuner for your computer. You install it and it allows you to watch and record local over the air (OTA) programming. This generally includes CBS, Fox, NBC, ABC, CW, PBS and whatever other local stations you may receive.Almost all versions of Windows prior to windows 10 included Windows Media Center which is a program that allows people to watch, record and schedule recordings of shows. If you have a new computer that no longer includes this software this tuner includes a software key to install Hauppague's own software for watching and recording shows. It's not quite as nice or easy to use visually, but it works just fine. (The major distinction is that WMC was designed to work on a TV and with a remote, while WinTv is a legacy software program designed for use with a mouse and keyboard)This is a dual tuner which means you can watch two channels at the same time, or watch one and record another, or record two channels at a time. There is a small antenna included in the box which will work if you live in an urban area. For the best reception however use a larger antenna like the Mohu leaf (or any other decent antenna).Final note, if you are recording shows in HD (as almost everything is now) you will need a very large amount of space. I don't know the file sizes for the included WinTv software, but the files for WMC are on average 2-3 gigs for a 30 minute show. A 3-4 hour football game will take up between 20-25 gigs of space. It will almost be essential to have an additional hard drive dedicated to recordings. Of course this depends on how much you want to record and keep.

I upgraded to the DualHD from a 950Q and am very pleased with it. Can watch two different channels on two different mobile devices at the same time or watch one channel and record another. If you plan on using the WinTV extend to watch to channels at the same time you will need a decent CPU for the transcoding as it will use quite a bit for each tuner unless you tone down the quality in settings.I don't really understand the negative reviews on this tuner. One thing you have to understand using a USB TV tuner is that the power the tuner gets from the USB port is not on par with what the built in tuner in a TV will get. As such it will not get as strong a signal so channels you pick up on your TV may not come across on the USB tuner, specially if you are several miles away from broadcast towers. The included antenna is not much and you would have to be pretty close to get a strong signal with it. If you are going to use a USB tuner such as the DualHD you really need a good antenna like a Mohu and an amplifier like the Mohu jolt or comparable. I get over 50 channels with the amplifier and less than half without it.Previous versions of The WinTV application have been kind of sketchy but version 8 is pretty nice. Scheduling is very simple with TitanTV. Extend is very simple to setup and works great, it now has support for HTML5 so will work on newer android devices that do not have Flash Support. There are no stupid tuners, just stupid people.

Great picture quality and it picked up more stations than my smart TV HD tuner did.Easy install using the included WinTV software.I ran into an issue when I wanted to use the tuner with Windows Media Center (WMC). Previously used with a Ceton tuner card, WMC detected 5 antenna arrays and I had to choose which one I wanted to use. WMC wouldn’t let me use more than one. After some repeated tries with each antenna location, I finally gave up for the day and used WinTV that came with the tuner. To its credit, the tuner and WinTV software worked fine.The next morning, I gave it another try with WMC and now it works fine. I have no clue how it fixed itself but now it works with WMC. I find the ease of setting up recordings easier with WMC but know that WinTV has its own record scheduler built in too. You have to manually enter all the specifics with it versus WMC’s use of the guide and simply push the record button but still, it works.To their credit, the company customer service rep told me that the issue comes up with the difference between this tuner and how WMC works. This tuner scans and memorizes all the channels it tunes and WMC works by scanning via the zip code + local guide settings for those specific stations. That’s most likely the culprit behind my initial issue....my guess that is. Still, I don’t know what changed overnight to fix it but I’m not complaining...I just like to know for future reference.I really appreciate this unit now that we’re off CATV, pull 42 HD channels OTA and stream everything else. It’s a welcome addition to the HTPC.