BIOS: Technology Means Business

The WinTV USB2 is Hauppage's latest USB personal video recorder. It also lets you record analogue TV shows and home videos to hard disk over USB. While the low-cost solution is adequate for watching analogue TV, most users will want a box that provides support for free-to-air digital TV programs, the ability to listen to digital radio stations, and the inclusion of a portable aerial for TV viewing on the move. Like many products of this type, the WinTV USB2 also lacks HDTV/AC3 playback and subtitling teletext, and only supports real-time AVI and MPEG-2 compression, so you can rule out recording to DivX or VCD. There's no built-in Dolby Digital audio decoder (AC3), either. Used at home with a decent aerial and reception the WinTV USB2 should work relatively considering its reasonable price, but you're unlikely to be able to watch anything on the move and you'll likely outgrow its limited features in a hurry.

Pros: Low cost; audio-over-USB; supports scheduling
Cons: Doesn't support digital TV or radio broadcasts; no aerial supplied

Hauppauge has replaced its best-selling WinTV USB (£42.99) with the WinTV USB2 - the development dollars obviously went into naming it. The WinTV USB2 is a plug-and-play external TV adapter for laptop and desktop PCs. It plugs into a spare USB 2.0 socket on your PC and into a normal television aerial. Windows software then tunes the silver box to analogue terrestrial stations (BBC One, BBC Two, ITV 1, Channel 4 and Five) and lets you watch TV in a resizable window or at full screen.

The improved model offers enhanced picture quality thanks to a faster USB 2.0 connection, as well as the ability to record and share video with a new built-in MPEG encoder. The box is also powered by the USB port, so no external AC adapter is required, but Hauppauge doesn't supply a portable aerial for mobile laptop users.

The WinTV USB2 lets you record analogue TV broadcasts and home videos, but it's a real disappointment that there's no support for FM radio broadcasts. For this extra functionality you'll have to opt for the more expensive WinTV USB2-FM (£79.99 ex. VAT). Another significant feature missing is the lack of support for digital terrestrial TV broadcasts (DVB-T), a feature we would have thought most users now require. The tuner does, however, run on Media Center 2005 operating system.

Installing the WinTV USB2 can be time consuming and convoluted. Connecting an external aerial is easy enough, but your further have to connect the supplied audio cable from the Line-out port on the WinTV USB2 to your sound card's Line-in port. If your PC or laptop does not have a Line-in jack, you will have to enable digital-audio-over-USB 2.0 from the driver installation menu and further install some drivers.

If you intend to record from an external A/V source (such as a camcorder or VCR), you have to further connect the supplied cable from the source to the WinTV USB2's S-Video in port (composite video to S-Video converter supplied). After a few system restarts, software warnings and error messages, the whole installation process took us around 20 minutes to complete. Hauppage also failed to mention that the software requires at least Service Pack 1 when running Windows XP Professional.

Once the driver software has successfully been installed, you then have to scan for TV channels. Similar to other TV tuners, you have the choice of whether to select broadcast type (cable or antenna), video format (NTSC Japan, NTSC M, PAL B/G/M/N, or Secam), as well as pick the country you're currently in. After you have scanned for channels, you can add channel names and fine tune for a better reception. From here you can also add an external video source (S-Video or composite), which can have a different video format other than your TV standard (PAL, NTSC and so on).

Thankfully, the bundled software and infrared remote control are a breeze to use. The software lets you watch TV in a resizable window or full-screen, and you can set the TV window to be always visible on your Windows desktop. There's a host of other options too, such as the ability to change the annunciator font (used to display TV channels and the like), alter the resolution of still captures (320x240 up to 1600x1200 pixels), select between stereo and audio outputs, as well as alter image brightness, contrast, saturation and hue levels.

The built-in MPEG encoder in the WinTV USB2 allows you to record TV programmes or to digitise home movies from an external A/V source. Using the SoftPVR software you simply click on the record button at the bottom of the screen and then recorded video files are saved to your hard disk. Whilst recording, a counter displays the length of your recording in hours, minutes, and seconds. Once you press the stop button from the software the recorded audio/video file is then saved to your hard disk using the automatically-assigned file name. Clicking the play button will then automatically playback the last-saved file. Unfortunately, with SoftPVR you can only play and pause your videos, so the rewind and forward buttons are redundant.

WinTV-Scheduler software lets you schedule the recording of TV shows, should you not be around to record them manually. Not as elegant as a digital EPG, WinTV-Scheduler works by using the Windows Task Scheduler to launch WinTV at the chosen time. You can set the start and end times of programs, the frequency (one time, daily or weekly), date to begin recording, source and channel. The software then sets up a command line in Task Scheduler to run the main WinTV2000 utility, specifying a TV channel and a length of time to record. At the scheduled time, WinTV2000 opens and the record menu rolls down and starts recording.