I have included a shot of the PVR 250 and the PVR 500 side by side for
those of you who might be interested. As you can see, the PVR 500
is a bit longer, but not double the size.
Traffic Jam
Installation of the Hauppauge PVR-500 MCE went without a hitch--with one exception.
In the above image, there are three red arrows--the top arrow points to the
back side of the red RCA connector with the middle and lower arrows pointing
to capacitors located near the edge of the motherboard. I was
unable to get the card to completely seat in either of the two PCI
slots indicated. The motherboard is an Abit IC7 MAX 3. The
spaces around all components--and the respective clearance
requirements--are covered exhaustively. I am sure somebody out
there could find out who went “slightly” off the specs, but I fall
asleep during that kind of heavy reading.
I tried the card in four other boards we have here in the lab, and
there
was no issue. As for the Abit board, it really was a simple
matter of using another slot. I honestly do not believe a
situation will ever arise where a user simply cannot install the card;
however, I am concerned a novice might “make it fit” and possibly crush
a capacitor. Needless to say, that would suck. So as always,
don’t force anything when building a PC.
Included Software
Here's my usual spiel on Hauppauge’s included applications. Yes, they
will work-- and do a fine job in fact. If however, you’re a
serious HTPC user, and anyone reading this review probably is, there
are much better choices out there. I personally use SageTV;
others prefer BeyondTV; or Windows MCE 2005. You can find quite a
few great bundle deals for the Hauppauge PVR-500 at PCalchemy that include the above-mentioned software. Just look at the menu on the left, near the top.
;)
;)
;)
;)
