The Hauppauge! HD PVR is one of the best and most expensive capture cards on the market and is popular amongst gamers looking to capture in-game footage of themselves and friends. Unfortunately, the $200 or more spent on the Hauppauge! HD PVR won’t save you from these unfortunate flaws of the Hauppauge! HD PVR. 

ArcSoft Total Media Extreme

Most gamers that have bought or are considering purchasing an Hauppauge! When playing pkv games, these are not the things you will have to be concerned about but otherwise, it is something that you need to give a thought to. HD PVR are under the assumption that once they buy the HD PVR, they’ll have everything they’ll need to start showcasing their awesome in-game ownage, but that just isn’t the case. The Hauppauge! HD PVR comes bundled with a free copy of ArcSoft Total Media Extreme which is used to capture live video from the HD PVR to your computer – but ArcSoft Total Media Extreme is more of a problem than a solution for the HD PVR. The bundled ArcSoft Total Media Extreme software freezes often, doesn’t capture video as great as Adobe Premiere or Sony Vegas, and if you lose your ArcSoft Total Media Extreme disk that came with the Hauppauge! HD PVR, you’ll be forced to call ArcSoft’s tech support because you won’t be able to download the software from Hauppage!’s or ArcSoft’s website.

1080i but no 1080p Support

After shelling out $200 + tax to capture your in-game gaming footage, you might be bummed to find out that the HD PVR doesn’t have true HD support. If your console of choice is the PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360 you’ll have to switch your console’s settings because if you’re using 1080p output, the Hauppauge! HD PVR won’t work at all – and will only display a black screen.

No HDMI Out

In addition to not supporting true high definition and having crappy bundled software, the Hauppauge! HD PVR doesn’t support HDMI output – and only offers component and composite output. Having no HDMI output might not seem like a big issue if you’re using your HD PVR with your HDTV, but if you’re using a computer monitor [like me] no HDMI really limits your video output options. I managed to fix my Hauppauge! HD PVR to computer monitor problem by buying an HDMI out convertor on Amazon.com for about $45 that converts component video output to HDMI output.

Can’t Game While the HD PVR is Off

I’m not a big fan of leaving all of my electronics running all night [with my computer being the exception] and I find it a bit annoying that I have to power on my Hauppauge! HD PVR every time I want to play a game; regardless if I want to capture video or not. It would be awesome if the HD PVR had a standby mode that allowed HD PVR owners to use their personal video recorder without fully powering it on, but I guess we’ll just be stuck having to waste extra electricity running the Hauppauge! HD PVR whenever we want to play our favorite video game consoles.