Competition for the Hauppauge HDPVR

[Miller]

Until now if you wanted to record something in HD from a premium channel that you could only access with a box you could either go with the mostly painful cablecard route, or use the Hauppauge HDPVR. It's a great product, but it has had no competition either, until now. Meet AverMedia's version of the HDPVR called the USB HD DVR:

http://www.geektonic.com/2010/02/avermedia-usb-hd-dvr-capture-content.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Brentevans+%28GeekTonic%29&utm_content=Google+Reader

http://www.missingremote.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=4598&Itemid=1

Looks like it's very similar, except no optical sound port. Now we just have to see which pvr software will support it. If nothing else maybe it will bring down the prices for the HDPVR.

[The Dude]

If nothing else maybe it will bring down the prices for the HDPVR.

That's the biggest thing right there. Hopefully it drives down the price of the HDPVR or makes Hauppauge have to innovate even more and come out with a dual tuner unit. Or both. 

[Miller]

You know the other thing that I think will help the competition are the cablecard offerings from Ceton. I know, don't drink the kool-aid, but seriously, if they do come out and work out well I can see that being a major player against the HDPVR. I just got a price disclosures list from Comcast and the boxes are $5-6 (I forget exactly), but the cablecards are free for the first one and only $2 for each additional one. That's pretty reasonable in the grand scheme of things.

[The Dude]

That is pretty interesting. I really haven't spent much time reading up on the cablecards just because I've seen so many articles saying they're coming out soon for so long that I've kind of taken an I'll believe it when I see it approach with the whole thing but if that's the case that would make building a PVR actually much more reasonable. At least for people using cable it would.

[Miller]

I really haven't spent much time reading up on the cablecards just because I've seen so many articles saying they're coming out soon for so long that I've kind of taken an I'll believe it when I see it approach with the whole thing...

Ain't that the truth!!