Rating: 
Summary: Avoid this one with XP at least
Review: After spending 2 days of trying fixes from their "support" site that you have to hunt and hunt to find anything, I find this system useless. I have a new XP system and you have to search around all locations on the Hauppage website to find new drivers. After trying about 30 combinations and reboots I did get video and audio however it was very jerky. I suggest trying an ATI card which actually works.
Rating: 
Summary: Perfect for an average computer.
Review: As this device capture and encode video with a hardware encoder, it is not necesary to have a powerful computer to capture DVD quality video, mine is just a Celeron 1.2 Ghz. Very Good TV picture, software included is ok. Very good product for the price.
Need to get last motherboard drivers from internet and last Hauppauge drivers to prevent incompatibility problems, just like any other capture device.
Rating: 
Summary: Linux is now supported!
Review: I am about to purchase this device now that it's supported under linux. Feel free to check out the MythTV web site for more information.
Rating:
Summary: Very Nice
Review: I am using the WinTV-PVR250 in a Dell Dimension 4300, Pentium 4, 1.7 GHz, 256 Mb ram with a NVIDIA GeForce2 64Mb video card, running Windows XP Home Edition. The WinTV-PVR250 exceded my expectations. I bought the card primarily as a means to back up my home videos. I wasn't expecting to be impressed by the TV function but I WAS!!! This card does a very good of capturing video from BOTH my VCR and while using it as a PVR. Another thing I was impressed about was the snapshot function. The resolution is customizable to numerous settings between 320x240 up to 1600x1200. I found it produced the best JPG's at 640x480. After having a disasterous experience with a Pinnacle PCTV Pro card (separate review),I couldn't have been more pleased. Is the extra cost of the WinTV card really worth the difference? YOU BET IT IS!!!!
Rating:
Summary: Good card - Software needs work
Review: I bought this card mainly to transfer the contents of some old VHS video tapes to DVD. It did not take much work getting the card installed and running but the software has some glitches. It is intuitive and easy to use but sometimes for some unknown reason it will freeze up. This is easily recified by doing the old Ctrl-Alt-Delete routine to end the program but it is annoying. The program will freeze up and need to be restarted at least twice an hour. You cannot use any other software to interface with this card. I tried 3 different video editing programs with no success before I went to the manufacturer's website. They have a section on there where they tell you that the card will only work with the software that came with it. Even the slimmed down Ulead Movie Factory Toolkit that came in the software package cannot interface with the card directly. That was a little disappointing. The WinTV software does work and I am satisfied with the quality of video that I am able to capture and save with it and the card. Hence my rating of 4 stars. There is one other strange issue that I have had. I'm not sure if it is the card or a coincidence but you might want to watch out for this. My husband has several video games installed on the machine. Shortly after we installed this capture card, a few of those games stopped working properly. The games would run and we could hear sound but the graphics would not display. No amount of tinkering, reinstalling etc could fix the problem.
Rating: 
Summary: Didn't work
Review: I got this product and installed it. After about two hours of trying to get it to work (including all the drivers and setting) I finally gave up on it and went to sleep.
I called Hauppauge customer service the next day. I spent about six minutes on hold (not bad considering it's the holiday season), and after about twenty minutes of fix attempts, the customer service rep told me that he felt the tuner was probably broken, and to return it.
I'm giving this product no stars because it doesn't work at all. My hope is that if the replacement card works I'll be able to give a higher ranking later.
I added an two stars because Hauppauge customer service was great. Very little wait and the rep I talked to was very helpful and polite. He seemed genuinely interested in helping out, rather than just breezing through a prewritten script and then giving up.
Rating: 
Summary: customer service
Review: I have a problem with audio/video being out of sync when I create a DVD after edition out commericals. I requested help 2 times about this problem without any replys.
Rating:
Summary: PVR250 running under Linux
Review: I have been running the PVR-250 under Red Hat Linux for a while now, and using the Open Source MythTV application I have been able to record television shows, scheduling and watching them while at home, or on the road via MythTV's web interfaces.
The quality is quite amazing for the price, there are occasional minor artifacts in the resulting movies, but they are minor and hardly noticable when recording at the highest quality.
I have not used this card in Windows, but I would assume the quality is just as good under that operating system. I recommend this card to anyone who is interested in building their own PVR (Personal Video Recorder) system under Linux.
Rating:
Summary: technical support (where are they?)
Review: I have emailed the technical support 2 times and have yet to receive any reply on the following problem.
After editing the commericals from a show that I had downloaded from tv, I burnded my DVD and foun that after each commerical I removed the audio/video would get more out of sync. By the end of the show, which was about 45 minutes in length, the audio/video was so far out of sync it was useless to watch.
Rating:
Summary: Best bang for the dollar
Review: I have had my 250 PVR for about 6 months. In that time I have produced 100s of flawless SVCDs of exceptional quality. Like any computer activity, you need the proper equiptment and you need to study the techiques. With the latest updated drivers and modern computers, you can re-record your VHS tapes to a more stable media. Record your TV shows to see at your place and time. Or just watch TV on your computer. The 250 PVR does it all and well. I suggest you have at least a P4 1.8 meg or higher computer with at least 256 meg memory and 40 gig hard drive.
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