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I was looking for a way to record High def television on my Quad cord computer running MS Windows Vista. I first bought the Hauppauge 850, but I soon found out that it would not record QAM from cable, so I returned it and bought the 950Q. I tried using the Windows Media Center, but it didn't have a QAM tuner. I installed the tuner on a Windows 7 PC, and the Windows Media Center software worked great. It was very easy to schedule recordings. However, I didn't like the format of the recordings. I wanted a format that I could use in my video editor. I eventually was able to install the WinTV software that came with the tuner. At first, I had a lot of problems with the install, probably due to my anti-virus software. Once installed, it worked better than expected. I have not had any problems with it locking up so far. I figured out how to configure the software to record in mpeg-2 format, so now I can play the videos on my Blue-ray player, or use them in my video editor.
What's great about it: Can record high quality videos.
What's not so great: Software is bit difficult to install