Review of Hauppauge WinTV DCR-2650 Dual Tuner Cable Card TV Tuner

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List Price: $139.99
Sale Price: $129.03
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I just received this tuner today, and have had it running for about four hours, so I will edit if I encounter any issues in the next few weeks.

Preliminary review good tuner for its price range. If you don't need the four tuners in the Ceton InfiniTV, or the three tuners in the SiliconDust HDHomeRun Prime, this two-tuner box from Hauppauge is worth the look. As for me, I already had a card for ClearQAM, so I didn't really need more than two tuners. HD quality on my HTPC is equal to the quality from the cable company DVR (which is going back tomorrow!).

First things first don't even mess with the CD in the box, download the latest software and firmware directly from Hauppauge. The firmware has been updated at least twice in the last two weeks, and will probably be updated quite frequently as more features are added.

Following the instructions in the box, installation went smoothly. I did encounter a bit of a hiccup in getting my CableCard activated, but it is a known issue with activating CableCard equipment on Cox's network (short version just ask the tech to send two "cold hits" to your box, about five to ten minutes apart it seemed to work for me).

If your cableco uses SDV / tuning adapters, you may want to wait Hauppauge is still working on getting tuning adapter support. However, I don't, so it was a non-issue for me.

You'll probably want to run a clean line to this box no splitters just to make sure you have sufficient strength and quality of signal.

Overall, my early impression from this box is very favorable. If it continues to work well, I will be recommending that all my friends abandon the cable company DVR and build their own HTPC's.

EDIT 11/8/2011: I've been using the WinTV-DCR-2650 for about two months now. In that time, Hauppauge has released several firmware and driver updates, and the tuner appears to be quite stable now. In the two-month period, I did miss one recording, but that was due to issues with Windows Media Center moreso than the tuner (the tuner and WMC didn't communicate very well on whether I could record a "copy once" flagged channel); the issue was resolved by reconfiguring WMC. If two tuners are sufficient for your needs or you are using in combination with a QAM tuner, I continue to recommend this tuner.

EDIT 3/3/2012: Almost six months since I bought this tuner, and I still highly recommend it. By my calculations, it will have paid for itself in another month over Cox DVR rental rates. The firmware has been stable for about three months.

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I bought this mainly for the price... it was $75.00 cheaper than the HD Homerun Prime by Silicon Dust. It has one less tuner (2 instead of 3) and lacks the network sharing feature of the HD Homerun. Basically, you plug it into the wall, and connect it to your computer (via USB). Then plug a coax in for your cable line. You have to have an M-Card from your cable company. I have Comcast in South Jersey and I was able to go to my local Comcast office and pick up a cablecard free of charge.

Once you plug everything in, you go into Media Center and run through the setup. At one point during the setup, you'll get a screen with three numbers that you have to give to Comcast to activate the card. There's a self-install line that you should call instead of the general number. It's mentioned in another review on here, so search the reviews for Comcast and you should find it.

After I called, I completed the setup in Media Center and I was good except I didn't get any of my premium channels. A follow-up call the same day resolved that issue.

All-in-all, the device worked well for the first few days. Eventually though, I started getting "turner unavailable" messages in Media Center on startup and also while the device had been in use for a few hours. The only solution was to unplug the unit and plug it back in. It's not that big of a deal but if you are buying this to get rid of your cable box (like me), this can get annoying.

In the end, I ended up returning it to Amazon and ordering the HD Homerun Prime. As I said, it costs more but it has an extra tuner (which is nice) and you can view it from any computer on your network (like a slingbox). I didn't think I would need more than two tuners, but if you are recording something and watching something else, you need an extra tuner if you're watching on a second computer. Also, if you want to record two things at the same time and watch tv, you need three tuners.

In sum, it works pretty well with the exception of the error that causes it to loose connection ever now and then. If you are looking for something to use in addition to your cable box (like, for instance, if you only want to use it as a DVR), this is probably your best bet, but if you're looking to replace your cable box, I'd go for the HD Homerun Prime.

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As most of the reviews on these cable card tuners go the tuner itself works great but dealing with the cable company to get it setup was a huge pain. I had to call Comcast around 10 times before they finally got the card paired and initialized correctly at the same time. If you are a Comcast customer don't waste your time calling the normal phone number to setup your card. Call 1-877-405-2298 that is their cable card department and you get connect to a person right away. Most of them still don't seem to know what they are doing but eventually you will get bumped up to tier 2 tech support where your chances are higher. As of now I have all my digital channels working and working well. What they don't make clear in the description is this is a DIGITAL ONLY tuner so if your cable company still has some analog only channels you won't get them with this tuner. All my basic channels are still analog only so I'm going to have to buy a regular tuner so I can pick them up too. Took me a while to figure that out. On the plus side that will give me 3 tuners kind of. Channels changes are about the same speed as my Comcast box which isn't great but at least this isn't even slower. I'm using my xbox 360 as a windows media center extender and that is working well too. Once I get my analog tuner I'll be able to ditch my $18 a month comcast HD DVR box.

update 11/22/11

Just wanted to ad I installed a Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-1250 to take care of my analog basic cable channels and all is working well together. Windows Media Center integrates all three tuners seamlessly. It even knows to record a show using the 1250 if the two tuners on the 2650 are busy automatically.

Update 7/30/12

Just had my first issue with my tuner. For some reason I lost all the channels that require the cable card to receive. Called Comcast twice to try and resolve thinking it had lost its pairing and hoping Comcast had improved but they haven't at all lol. Just for the hell of it before calling the third time I updated my firmware since it claimed to offer better diagnostics and it fixed the issue and I started getting all my channels again for some reason.

Honest reviews on Hauppauge WinTV DCR-2650 Dual Tuner Cable Card TV Tuner

Firmware fixes (2 releases in September) have made this much better, still drops occasionally, but now this with WMC is a viable HTPC and a good vendor STB replacement. Got this a a couple weeks ago, setup was easy; cable card activation a breeze. But after anywhere from 1-30 minutes tuner loses signal (tuner light flashes), WMC freezes, and the the device becomes unknown as a USB device. Half the time the PC then locks up; power cycle of both HTPC and DCR-2650 is required, but then again next time only works for ~10 minutes so wash-rinse-repeat. Opened support case, got essentially a one line response of "updated firmware." That would have been my first troubleshooting step but from 8/22-8/30 (first week I had the device) there was no updates on their support page. Firmware update (from 8/30) has NOT fixed the issue. Only saving grace is that it looks like it heavily based on the SiliconDust HDHomeRun Prime which has reports of similar experiences, and they seem to be actively pushing out beta firmware to address these issues. Hopefully Hauppauge will quickly leverage SiliconDust's work to get functional units. Has promise, but in its current state unusable. I had to break down much of my HTPC and extender infrastructure and just revert to provider issued STB to placate family.

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I bought the Hauppauge Win-TV 2650 because Amazon had the best price and I am cheap. First, I have it up and running and want to pass on some information to help others.

If you have Time Warner Cable and the local office doesn't have the cable card ($2.50 a month) and free tuner adapter (required by my TWC) order it first when you order the Win-TV 2650. My cable card and tuner adapter came UPS from NC to NY. That way you won't lose any time hooking everything up when you get your Win-TV 2650. The Win-TV 2650 box says no remote, most reviews at Amazon and other sites says no remote. It does come with a remote and it works great. The IR receiver is built into the Win-TV 2650. At the time it was with-out remote because of 2011 Black Friday specials. So don't buy a remote.

Follow the guide that comes with your Win-TV 2650 and the instructions that you get with the Cable card and tuning adapter. Don't use the CD that comes with your Win-TV 2650. Go to Hauppauge web support page and download the latest software/firmware versions. I also installed the beta from their web site. In order to get HD channels the tuning adapter has to be used. Both cable card and tuning adapter need to be plugged into your computer with USB cable provided. I am using a 3-way cable splitter so that I have direct access to my TV, Win-TV 2650 and tuning adapter (my adapter is a Cisco STA1520). Time Warner Cable broadcast their channels thru SDV (HD) and this is why you need the tuning adapter. Otherwise you get a lot of channels but no HD channels.

The tech support, Barbara at TWC 1-866-606-5889; George at Hauppauge 1-631-434-3197 know what they are doing in their respective area. I spend approximate 2 hours total from hook-up, cable card activation and tuner adapter connectivity. Everything works and just love watching HD and the ability to record programs that I want to watch later. Just a note, the remote that came with the Win-TV 2650 stopped working and Hauppauge had me run the exe program in the downloaded zip file wintv-dcr-2650_ver_29310 .zip in a folder named IR and the program called WinTV-DCR-2650-IR.exe this will get your remote working.

I wrote most of this about 2 weeks ago and I am still having no issues other than WMC 7 in full screen locks the cursor so if you have dual monitors you need to make WMC smaller if you want to use the cursor on main monitor.

I have a Sceptre 23" HDTV, Samsung 22" monitor a WD Media player hooked up using a 3 to 1 way HDMI switch, model number: PET0301S ( which I bought from Amazon) so I can use HDMI for best picture.