Excellent capture card for that free expresscard slot

I got this with my HP dv9500t laptop which I bought from HP.com. It retails for $180 I think, but as an addition to a customized laptop it is $130.

Although the name here on Epinions says its a capture card, it is in fact a tv tuner card, a digital one for that matter.

What you get in the box:
1x HP expresscard digital TV tuner
1x driver cd
1x USB IR receiver
1x MCE compatible remote for USB IR receiver
1x IR cable for USB IR receiver for use with STB's
1x Minicoax cable
1x component cable for hooking up DVD player, XBox or the sort
1x mini antenna (with built in minicoax connection)

Some packages will include a Red/White RCA extension cable.


OK first off, the unit is a rebranded non-existent Hauppauge product. It is a Hauppauge HVR-1500, which doesn't exist anywhere except in Hauppauge driver INF files. If you call Hauppauge for support, they will offer none and tell you to talk to HP for support (I've tried it, trust me).

Second, there are three different model numbers I am aware of:
438587-001 Revision A
438587-001 Revision B
438587-002 Revision C

The first one, 438587-001 revision A, was the initial version of this card. I got it in my first HP dv9500 which I ended up returning to HP. This particular model DOES NOT support QAM. It is listed in the Hauppauge driver INF as CX885.M7717 = "HP Digital/Analog TV Tuner".

The second one, 438587-001 revision B, is some rogue revision. I've heard of a single case of a person having this model. I personally have never laid hands on this particular model, but I heard it uses the same driver as the third item in the list, meaning it should support QAM.

The third one, 438587-002 revision C, is the version I currently have in my hands. It is the second revision which most people have. It supports QAM. It is listed in the Hauppauge driver INF as CX885.M7797 = "HP Digital/Analog TV Tuner".

If you view the Hauppauge driver file you will see four entries:
CX885.M7710 = "Hauppauge WinTV HVR-1500 (Model 77xxx, Hybrid ATSC)"
CX885.M7717 = "HP Digital/Analog TV Tuner"
CX885.M7790 = "Hauppauge WinTV HVR-1500 (Model 77xxx, Hybrid ATSC/QAM)"
CX885.M7797 = "HP Digital/Analog TV Tuner"

M7710 and M7790 are those rogue Hauppauge branded HVR-1500 units which I have never seen. M7717 is the HP branded one that I mentioned above, the first revision, that is the same as the M7710 HVR-1500 without QAM. Similarly the M7797 is the HP brand M7790 with QAM.

Its also particularly interesting to note that the non-QAM unit (438587-001 rev. A) comes with a driver CD which has an older INF that makes no mention of the M7790/M7797.



OK with all the technical stuff out of the way...

It is a great card. It plays well, the quality is great and I enjoy watching ATSC tv on my HP laptop with this card. There are pros and cons of the card but I want to get into some non-technical stuff to clear up some confusion with the card.

First, if you look around the web for information about this card (as far as OFFICIAL information goes), anywhere, you will not see a single mention of the terms "HDTV", "1080i", "720i", "720p", "1280x720", "1920x1080", or "widescreen". I tried calling HP (before I owned the card) to find out this information and they were absolutely clueless, so too were their online help. It led me to believe that this card could only pick up standard definition TV. Well, I am here to tell you that it does all the HDTV and widescreen no problem. Widescreen, hdtv, 1080i, 720p, etc. - all that works fine with this card.

Second, the description for the card says that it can only be used with Vista and Vista Media Center. It makes no mention of XP and XP Media Center. Well I am here to tell you that XP is an acceptable operating system for the card. Yes, the card works great with Vista and Vista Media Center, but the card ALSO works with XP and XP Media Center. The drivers from the CD installed perfectly fine in XP and XP Media Center played the tv signal perfectly fine, both SDTV and HDTV. So if you have XP, no worries as the card is fully supported by XP.

Finally, because HP wants to hide the fact that it is a hauppauge card, trying to use the Hauppauge WinTV application will fail as the HP driver cd lacks some critical files (namely the SoftPVR software and the Hauppauge MPEG decoders). Well, you can use the Hauppauge driver package (just goto the Hauppauge website and download the HVR-1600 driver package which includes drivers for the card, as well as WinTV6) and be set. I just went ahead and installed the whole package and WinTV6 worked perfectly fine. Personally, I prefer to use WinTV over Windows Media Center.


That aside, the card is great, as stated above. It does get very hot, though. On my HP laptop, the expresscard slot resides over my secondary HD slot, so my secondary HD becomes warmer than it should when the HP tv tuner card is in there. The TV does not even need to be turned on to generate the heat >:|!!!

I like the USB IR receiver. My brother's laptop came with a TV tuner built in and it uses an MCE remote but depends on the built in IR receiver and it doesn't always work. The USB IR receiver that comes with the card works in any computer and installs without much hassle. It works from a very far distance. I never tried out the IR cable for use with a STB (set top box) since I do not have a STB on any TV (i use analog cable in the house).

I have tested the card with many programs and so far have only found a handful of programs which will work with digital part the card, let alone the card itself:
Vista Media Center
XP Media Center
Hauppauge WinTV
HP Quickplay
Cyberlink Quickplay
Orb
WatchHDTV

The QAM component does not work with Media Center or Orb as these programs dont recognize the QAM component and offer no scanning capabilities with it.
HP/Cyberlink quickplay and WinTV fully recognize the QAM component and offer full scanning with it. My coax line is not really full of quality QAM programming, so it is nothing really to be writing home about. WinTV offers a digital signal monitor plugin to monitor SNR of digital signals and all my QAM signals are complete junk with so many uncorrectable errors!

Windows Media Encoder, VLC, and other non-HDTV supporting programs do not work with the digital component of the card. They do work with the analog component, but getting the audio to work is another story :P. WME and VLC do not seem to recognize an audio component coming from the card, so if I decide to do some streaming with the card with WME I am forced to lead an audio cable from my tv into my microphone port (which is not a great solution).


Other things worth noting:
The mini-antenna is not really good. It has a suction cup on one side so you can put it on a wall, but the antenna itself is just a standard rabbit ear - no amplification at all.
There is a delay in switching between analog and digital signals. The delay is like 5-10 seconds.
There is a blue light on the unit which indicates when it is in use. Blue = in use, no light = not in use.


There are not many other available options when it comes to the market of ExpressCard TV tuners. I know there is an avermedia card, but it does not support QAM and the remote is junky looking, though the card does do FM tuning which is something the HP card does not do.
I personally think the HP card is worth the pricetag, though I'm sure you can find a few people on craigslist or ebay who are selling it for much less. Just make sure to ask the model number and if it ends in -002 it supports QAM :).