Hauppauge DEC2000-t Digital TV Adapter

[Chandler]

I'll keep this review reasonable short for once ;)

Basically, this is a Terrestrial Digital TV adapter, which can function as a stand-alone set-top box, or when connected to a computer via USB allows viewing and recording of digital TV.

It promises a lot but unfortunately due to abysmal software fails to deliver.  Expect 90-95% processor usage even on 1GHz+ machines (they recommend 500MHz - it's using WinDVD 4 so should run well on this) and frequent software crashes.

I bought one and after two weeks of messing around with it, on two different computers it's going back.  I've yet to see one satisfied user of these things.

Overall Score: 3/10

DISCUSS HERE

[Chandler]

In otherwords, you should buy a new computer along with the software, and even then it might crash. :)

Exactly ;)

On a related note however, I did have Hauppauge UK Technical Support contact me, through Quantex Zone for feedback on their product, and future improvements I feel that should be included.  I was rather impressed by this.

Recently, things have started to improve, a new version of the software and drivers has been released and stability seems to be much improved.  Hauppauge are working with Technotrend (who design the box and software) to get new features and bugs fixed.

New score: 8/10

[Chandler]

Just an update.

With recent software updates to this box, stability is now very good, and I scheduled nearly 20 films to be recorded automatically over Christmas.  It didn't let me down once and so I'm very impressed.

There are also new features, it's now possible to play recordings back to the device (the other way down the USB cable) and have the box decode it and display on TV.

New rating: 9.5/10