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
Getting to Know the Colossus
When Hauppauge introduced the original HD PVR in 2008 its component plus TOSLINK (optical S/PDIF) capture of 5.1 Dolby Digital and up to 1080i analog video was a revolutionary, and long overdue, shift for the home theater PC (HTPC) based digital video recorder (DVR). Finally there was a viable option for recording DRM-free high definition (HD) content. The device was far from perfect however, suffering from stability (I RMA’d four personally); furthermore, as a large external USB device, it didn’t provide the most appealing form factor for many installations. Today we’re looking at Hauppauge’s second iteration of the HD PVR concept, this time as a standard height PCIe x1 device dubbed Colossus. It offers all of the previous capture options while adding HDMI input to the feature list.
Hardware
The single slot, full height PCIe x1 card has a simple layout with all of the components exposed. There is not much to point out besides the lack of any cooling on the ViXS encoding chip and the presence of Hauppauge’s standard analog connection header along the top. To utilize the auxiliary inputs a daughter card (not included with the Colossus) is required. I have one in the parts bin so it was possible to test the feature, which adds s-video and a second composite/stereo capture option to the options provided directly on the device.
Looking at the native inputs we find HDMI, two breakout connectors for component (YPbPr) / stereo audio, two TOSLINK (optical S/PDIF), and a port to attach the infrared (IR) receiver/blaster. The top breakout/TOSLINK combo provides input and the bottom output for audio/video pass through anytime the PC is powered including standby (S3), hibernate (S4) and soft-off (S5) states. HDMI is the most interesting not only because it is new, but because of the usage scenarios it could enable were the full capabilities of the connection provided. Unfortunately (and understandably due to legal and licensing issues), this is not the case; instead, the HDMI input provides the same feature set as component plus TOSLINK (up to 1080i and Dolby Digital support). Most important, there’s no support for High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP), so HDMI capture will not work with devices that require it.
In practice, the HDMI link did record most channels/programs from the cable STB (Set-Top Box), but it was not 100% reliable as some files had no audio or video—I assume because HDCP was active in those cases. I did not notice a significant difference between HDMI and component output from the RNG 110 (using Comcast in Chicago), but results will vary between STB and providers so it is worth an attempt if the box has an HDMI output, because the streams will skip a digital to analog conversion.
There’s plenty in the package besides the card; you get a remote with IR hardware and batteries, two breakout dongles, analog audio/video cables, a driver CD (not shown), and some “value-add” software including a copy of Arcsoft ShowBiz. One of the applications Hauppauge provides with the Colossus is a system tray application that drives the IR receiver and blaster, but compatibly with other software products is very limited for the remote and changing channels with the included device is very clunky. Only one blaster is supported per PC, there’s limited set top box compatibility (none of the Pace profiles worked with the RNG110 used in this evaluation), and we experienced general stability issues both with the system tray executable and IR blasting in general.
All of this led us to a cursory evaluation of the remote. For those using this—or any STB based capture device—options like FireWire, serial, or Ethernet based channel changing are much better options. I would prefer an OEM/bare version of the card with just the dongles for those planning to use it with SageTV (or when drivers are available, Windows Media Center), passing the savings for unnecessary hardware and software to end users. The current package starts at $139 online, so removing the frills should get the Colossus down to $100 or less.
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Casper42 - Monday, April 25, 2011 - link
PS: This is even worse with U-verse here in the USA.Microsoft developed product (aka MS Media Room) that streams over Multicast IP networks to a Windows CE 5.x based STB/DVR, and is supported by MS/AT&T with a Xbox 360 client, but yet there is no Win7MC Client that can do the same on a PC thats 10x faster?
Absolute lunacy. I'm sure it exists but companies like Cable Labs are preventing it from being released. Just think, 100% digital copies of the shows you want delivered straight over a simple network connection. Its so easy it must be illegal!
Shadowmaster625 - Monday, April 18, 2011 - link
You can say that again. Every time I buy a TV tuner card, even the ones that get the best reviews on newegg and other sites, I end up being sorely disappointed and am left wondering what the heck all those people were smoking when they recommended the card. These things just do not work and it will take me a hell of a lot of convincing to fool me into trying another one. Especially when a seedbox only costs $8 a month. lol. I just let some other sucker record my stuff for me. (What is the difference anyway?)strolfey - Monday, April 18, 2011 - link
It was briefly mentioned that none of the PACE codes worked with the RNG 110, but then the ir blaster wasn't ever mentioned again. Did you get a different code that worked with it? I bought the HD-PVR last december and haven't actually used it since because of that issue, and hauppage never got back to me on that or other issues I've had. Google results on the issue at the time were mixed, with some saying that it worked with the old comcast code (fairly certain they're liars since most of the results were talking about how comcast changed remotes and lots of people had problems) and many saying they returned the STB back for an older model.babgvant - Wednesday, April 20, 2011 - link
I was not able to find a code that worked with the Pace STB. It should be possible to train the blaster, but the software doesn't work very well so it's better to go another route (FW, ethernet, serial, USBIRT, etc).don_k - Thursday, April 21, 2011 - link
What's the word on Linux support for these cards, anyone know? Hauppauge site claims no support as of yet.http://www.hauppauge.com/site/support/support_colo...
chordo - Saturday, April 23, 2011 - link
Hauppauge has released a new driver plus beta software to integrate Colossus with Media Center. Pretty good start, although it only currently supports stereo audio. According to the website, optical will be supported in the next release. I have been using DVBLink up to now, and I have not had any problems using optical (no audio sync issues).Octavean - Saturday, April 23, 2011 - link
I have two Hauppauge HD PVR units. I bought my first unit in 2008 and I have never really had any significant problems with them. I started off using the bundled OEM Arcsoft TotalMedia Extreme software and then graduated to the DVBLink solution. I also beta tested the Hauppauge Media Center solution but found the DVBLink solution to be more stable.I bought one Colossus for ~$139 or so via the special pricing for the pre-order and I am very pleased with it. It is extremely stable when used with DVBLink and has never shown any sign of an issue small or otherwise.
Right now I use a Hauppauge HD PVR USB in the bedroom and a Hauppauge Colossus in the living room. An HP MediaSmart EX490 Windows Home Server provides whole house DRM free entertainment to every system by acting as a repository ~12TB.
I wouldn’t trade two Hauppauge HD PVR / Colossus 1080i / 720p DRM free streams for 4 Ceton InfiniTV quad streams with DRM.
heric1 - Friday, May 27, 2011 - link
About this comment : "the final result is an 8.33% fail rate". I am curious to know if the last driver version (29111) was tested...? The release date was 4/22/2011.http://www.hauppauge.com/site/support/support_colo...
The web site pretends this release fixes:
-"Colossus audio lost when another recording starts in Sage TV"
-"My player loses audio if the audio format changes in the middle of a recording"
I think it's also the first version with MCE integration:
"This version now has support for Windows Media Center."
Tosa - Wednesday, June 15, 2011 - link
I was in the market for a HD capture card and bought the Blackmagic Intensity Pro card just before the Hauppauge Colossus came out. (I don't want an external box like HD PVR). Price is about the same. I kicked myself for not waiting a bit for the Colossus and see how it perform.Anyhow I now have 3 month using the Intensity Pro, and compare it with this review. My use is to record from sat channels, and occasionally record games (HDMI connection, 1080i/59.94). After the usual teething problems with PC and the Intensity product, here's my experience:
- Record 1080i/59.94 for hours with no problems - no frame drops, no audio drops, no blue screen. Thus app & drivers are stable. (Windows 7-32)
- Can record to 480p
- HD quality is absolutely superb. Indistinguishable from the original, no matter what kind of scene, as critically viewed from a high end HDTV.
- The Intensity Pro record HD at a frame rate of 15 mbps, sustained.
- The only issue is it records using Motion-JPEG compression and thus yields huge AVI files at a rate of 35GB/hr. This is 'fixed' by importing AVI file into my video editor (Corel VideoStudio Pro X3) and convert it to H.264 compression and AVCHD file. The result reduce a 36GB AVI file to 6GB. The AVCHD file can be played by most players.
So the Intensity Pro is completely satisfactory. In this review, I notice that the Colossus:
- Record HD to 1080i at 30/fs only
- Bit rate is slightly less than 15mbps
- Record direct to AVCHD file, smaller size, and immediately usable
- Drivers not stable
But I can tell you this: both cards spits out a lot of heat. That's the nature of the beast. In my case, the Intensity card plus the Radeon HD 5670 graphics card generate so much heat I have to do a lot of cooling work to fix it.
arshaavin - Sunday, July 3, 2011 - link
Hi all, I wanna know where i can buy hauppauge hd pvr in india at reasonable price.I really need this.arshaavin@yahoo.com