Hauppauge Colossus: HD PVR with HDMI Support
by Andrew Van Til on April 14, 2011 5:40 PM EST- Posted in
- HTPC
- Home Theater
- Hauppauge
System Impact
While recording quality is critical, it cannot be the only criteria used to measure a “tuner”. We performed some additional testing to assess the overall impact on a typical HTPC system when using the Colossus. It is more difficult to create a “worst case” environment with a full height card than would be possible if it were low-profile, since we can’t put the Colossus into some of the smaller HTPC cases. However, we did try to simulate use in a hotter chassis by utilizing the highest TDP CPU we had on hand as well as removing all but one of the case fans in the Ahanix D4 used in testing. Here are the specs for our test HTPC; this is hardly state-of-the-art, but it works well for our purposes.
| HTPC System Specifications | |
| Case | Ahanix D4 (Modified for better cooling) |
| Cooling | SilenX 60mm (Exhaust) |
| PSU | Antec EarthWatts 380 |
| CPU | Intel Q6600 (4x2.4GHz 105W TDP) with retail HSF |
| Motherboard | ASUS PK5-Pro |
| RAM | 4GB (2x2GB) ADATA DDR2-800 |
| Storage | 500GB Samsung F1 (7200RPM) |
| GPU | NVIDIA GT 430 |
| Optical | Lite-On iHOS104-04 |
| OS | Windows 7 32-bit |
With our test setup, we measured five temperatures at sixty-minute intervals while recording HD content. The five points we measures are the system (chipset), CPU, hard drive, and case, and the surface temperature of the ViXS encoding chip on the Colossus. System, CPU, and hard drive numbers were captured using SpeedFan, while internal case temperature was measured with a thermometer placed inside the case. We used an infrared thermometer to check the ViXS chip (after briefly removing the top of the case).
As we can see from the graph above the Colossus has almost no thermal impact in its environment, with the only significant gains measured by the hard drive and the card itself—both understandable given that is where the majority of recording load is realized. While temperatures weren’t noticeably impacted, we also checked system power use.
| System Power Draw | ||
| Baseline | Colossus Installed | |
| Idle | 68.5W | 76.1W |
| Recording | N/A | 77.1W |
Taking a look at power usage, the system’s draw was measured at the wall with a P3 Kill-A-Watt EZ P4460. We checked power draw first without the Colossus, then installed it and checked idle and recording power use. I was somewhat surprised by the initial difference (7.6W) after installing the card, but after looking at the results while recording where the delta between the two states is probably due to additional hard drive load it appears that the card does not utilize a low power idle state when not capturing data.
Having had a somewhat rough experience with the original HD PVR’s stability, we put the Colossus through a series of extended stress tests. The good news is that I was not able to reproduce the lockup problems that plagued its predecessor. Unfortunately, the device consistently caused BSODs (Blue Screen of Death) after sixteen to twenty hours of continuous recording. The conditions required to reproduce this issue are uncommon for HTPC DVR use so it is unlikely that most users would experience it. However, it does make the device currently unsuitable for some scenarios like a security system. We notified Hauppauge of the issue and provided a memory dump to help isolate the root cause. Hopefully they can trace the problem and patch it in the near future.
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bobbozzo - Saturday, April 16, 2011 - link
I think he wants to capture and stream to another PC live.e.g. the client PC has no tuner, and uses a 'TV server' to watch live content.
jnmfox - Thursday, April 14, 2011 - link
I see you have Sage with the Diamond UI installed.Is anandtech.com going to do a review of SageTV?
I got SageTV set-up a couple of months ago and love it. Sage is a great HTPC option, hopefully more people can be made aware of it. The HD-300 extenders are a great option to get content to you HDTV; small, low-power, customizable, high WAF.
babgvant - Thursday, April 14, 2011 - link
I'm a big fan of the Diamond UI. SageTV V7 is a solid platform, but the stock UI leaves a lot on the table; the Diamond team has done an excellent job of making it second to none in this space.Bob-o - Thursday, April 14, 2011 - link
I'm running Kubuntu linux on a machine in my home office. Is SageTV my best option for recording TV on this platform? I know about Myth but have never tried it.My HTPC in the living room is a modest machine running XBMC, mounting a disk from the office machine using NFS. I'd like to leave that as-is.
Thanks!
babgvant - Friday, April 15, 2011 - link
There is a Linux version of the SageTV server, so it should work but I've never tried it.queequeg99 - Friday, April 15, 2011 - link
Sage keeps the linux version as up to date as the Windows version. However, it is clearly aimed at OEMs so support can lag a bit (i.e. you better feel reasonably comfortable messing around in linux).tno - Thursday, April 14, 2011 - link
That said, it reminds me, bittersweetly, of all the time I spent configuring my HTPC when I had it fully loaded with tuners, drives and some complicated quiet cooling. When it occurred to me that I spent more time fiddling with it than the household cumulatively spent watching TV I needed to simplify. Now we're down to a quiet, low-power, SSD-only uber streamer. Only thing that ever breaks now? Netflix.eselig - Thursday, April 14, 2011 - link
Before anyone seriously considers this card, please be aware that Hauppauge has a proven history of not supporting their equipment. Essentially, this card will work for Windows 7, but when windows 8 comes out, they'll put out the drivers for whatever their new card is, but nothing legacy. After getting burned by them twice this way, I've learned my lesson and will never buy a Hauppauge card again.Anthony Toste - Friday, April 15, 2011 - link
That wrongAre you cry about lack 64bit drivers for old 250/350 well that not possable you see the can't fix after all it frist made in 2001/2 by iCompression know as iTVC15 which I think is base on 16/32bit hardware so there for Windows 64bit OS will not work
Oh think Hauppauge has a proven history of not supporting their equipment boy you should look at all other capture device out there which are far woste then Hauppauge.
silverblue - Friday, April 15, 2011 - link
AverMedia's support isn't the best either. I got a Nicam Stereo TV capture card in 2004 which was then not supported in Vista. Perhaps I should've spent more, however I was eager not to get something priced far more that offered basically the same (i.e. Hauppauge).My AverTV Studio203 is sat in my PC doing nothing as there's no drivers for it, nor was there a new version released after I bought it... shame. Not a stunning card, all things considered, but decent capture cards aren't exactly two a penny, and spending money unnecessarily isn't my cup of tea.