Hauppauge Colossus HD PCIe card
TV and gaming captured
Review When I first looked at the box containing the Hauppauge Colossus I wasn’t quite sure as to what its exact purpose was. I saw the words “HD Video Recorder,” “PCI-Express,” and “HDMI” thinking I could use it to record almost anything and then I noticed the asterisks.
Hauppauge's Colossus: break out the old VHS tapes
Hauppauge uses the packaging to flaunt it product towards console gamers wishing to record their games and as an HDTV recorder as a PVR alternative. Yet from a gaming perspective most recent major releases already allow action to be captured very easily over the relevant on-line service. Still, if you felt the need to have your gaming exploits uploaded onto your phone or PMP, then the Colossus will oblige.
Xbox 360 and PS3 users should note that although the box says HDMI can be used with these consoles, the manual says otherwise and I was not able to get my Xbox to play ball over HDMI. What you need to do instead is use the component interfacing. That said, the support forums suggest you might have more success with a PS3. So, your mileage may vary.
WinTV options
Even if you use the HDMI input on the Colossus card, there is no HDMI output for pass-through so you’ll be outputting to your TV using Component and SP/DIF. If you wanted to use HDMI to hook up a set-top box to record TV broadcasts, you'll probably run up against HDCP protected content issues art some point. So while you might be able to record the weather, the film that follows is likely to be blanked out – moreover, the input resolution is only 1080i.
Manual scheduling
HDMI woes aside, you can use Colossus as a DVR with the included WinTV 7 software, although for reasons mention above, you'd be safer opting for the component interfacing to do this. I found WinTV 7 easy to use and managed to set scheduled recordings as well as pause and rewind live streams.
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COMMENTS
Sledgehammers and nuts.
Surely you'd be better simply connecting your console to a second input on the screen, or if it doesn't have one, using a £10 HDMI / DVI switch.
Or were you referring to playing your console in a window on your desktop, which I would have thought would be an awful experience.
...missing the point.
This is not supposed to be a single box solution.
> The software was clunky
This is something that you use together with suitable 3rd party software just like you would any other video device or card. Whining that this thing doesn't come with it's own software is much like whining that a GPU doesn't come with it's own games.
The software that comes with this thing is really just to let you make sure the card is working before you try and integrate it with something else.
aren't there laws about false advertising ?
I've had a few Haupage cards in the past. None were as good as the adverts claimed. The adverts were correct, but the clever wording always lead you to believe their cards were more capable than they actually were. Their support was non-existent. Luckily I was able to sell the cards on for the price I paid for them.
So here we have an over priced card with misleading claims - sounds like Haupage
re: No HDMI or DVI out?
"Has the reviewer made a mistake? Is there not even DVI out for DVI to HDMI (which is just a connector and does support HDCP)"
You know it's not a graphics card, right? The only thing it can output (on component) is whatever it's being fed from the input - nothing from the PC. Not great not having an HDMI passthru, but not life threatening for what it's intended.
Agreed!
Yeh I bought one of those. That was my first (and last) Hauppage purchase. The software was clunky (even for its time) and it was a real git to get working. I seem to remember software updates were few and far between, and soon after I bought it Hauppage quickly moved on to their next TV card (and that was, it seemed, the end of support for the WinTV PCI). I vowed never again, and I think having seen the screenshots for this card (not particularly slick IMO) I'll stick to my vow.
Now when I consider buying either a capture or TV receiver card I try to wait at least 6 months from launch date to work out whether it's worth the outlay (i.e., by checking the forums to see just how many issues a card has and whether the manufacturer is actually doing anything to fix them). There are just too many factors that can result in problems (drivers, hardware compatibility with motherboards / BIOS, etc) and being an early adopter in this area just isn't worth the grief IMO.
