At some point, Hauppauge must have planned on shipping the myTV with a cable with a mini USB connector on one end and a full-size USB slot on the other because it was blanked out on the list of package contents that came with our review device.
Reading files from SD cards proved to be basic but reliable. The menu just shows the files and folders present. It's worth noting that you have to access the card from the correct main menu setting – movie, music or photo – in order for the player to recognise the relevant file types. Pop a card in with a mixture of AVI video, MP3 audio and JPEG image files and open the card via the movie view and all you'll be able to see are the AVI files. To play the MP3 files you need to navigate back to the main menu and click on the music icon.
Navigation around the myTV player is simplicity itself
File support can best be described as adequate. The myTV runs to MP3 and WAV audio files; JPEG image files; and MPEG 1, 2 and 4/ISO, MP4, DivX 4/5, and XviD, but no further. Frankly, we think it would have been worth Hauppauge's while to have included support for both WMV and H.264 video, and Flac audio.
The video player handles .SRT subtitle files, though, and while ID3 audio file tags are supported, album art is not.
Hauppauge doesn't appear to supply any earphones. We don't think this is such a big deal as bundled phones are usually hopeless and, more to the point, the two speakers – one on the front, one on the left side – produce a very fine sound indeed. So long as you're in a tolerably quiet environment, the Hauppauge is quite usable without headphones. If you need 'em, there's a 3.5mm socket.
COMMENTS
The world may have moved on since 1977
but those fugly buttons seem to have dropped through a timewarp with its other end firmly planted somewhere before the '80s
A tease
It won't work in Ireland, New Zealand, Estonia and all other countries just launching Digital TV as you need MPEG4 decoder, not MPEG2 on the DVB-t signal.
Sony fell on this one with the PlayTV (which can in theory do MPEG4 as the PS3 actually does the decoding, but as the PS3 Firmware only does MPEG2 currently for playTV). They announced it for Ireland, New Zealand, Estonia & etc.
320x240 is a bit feeble :(
It would have to record streams as is, so with MPEG2 DTT time would be poor. About twice recording time in MPEG4 DTT countries :-) With a 4Gbyte SD card you would get maybe 2hrs max BBC1 (MPEG2) or 4hrs MPEG4 (not UK), of course it doesn't do MPEG4. Several DTT tuners have MP4/DivX SD card players and none do MPEG4 from tuner.
Record onto SD would be useful
What a tease: a Freeview receiver with an SD card. The tease being the missing link between the two - being able to *record* TV programmes onto SD card so that the device becomes one of the first, if not the first, solid state Personal Video Recorder. And portable too.
Sandisk have the VMate SD/SDHC recorder but it is not portable and is only for analogue video.
