New York, USA, Nov. 9, 2000 - Hauppauge Digital, Inc. (NASDAQ: HAUP), the leading manufacturer of TV and data broadcast receiver products for personal computers, today announced retail availability of its WinTV-PVR-pci, the company's Personal Video Recorder for PC's.
WinTV-PVR allows PC users to watch TV in a window on their PC screens, plus can pause live TV, create instant replays, record TV shows to disk, and create Video CD's from television programs.
The pause and record functions of the WinTV-PVR make use of a high quality MPEG2 hardware compressor, which can store studio quality video on a PC's hard disk. MPEG2, the same advanced technology used to create satellite TV broadcasts and DVD movies, provides high quality video and audio while minimizing hard disk usage.
While displaying live TV, WinTV-PVR can pause the TV show using a feature called "Program Pause". The TV program can later be continued from where it was stopped without missing any of the show. Also, any portion of the paused show can also be replayed, giving the user their own instant replay.
TV shows can also be recorded to disk using the built-in MPEG hardware compressor. Once recorded to disk, they can be played back either on the PC in a window or full screen. Since the built-in MPEG compressor does not require the CPU, recording can be done without affecting other PC applications. For example, a PC user can surf the net at full speed while the WinTV-PVR is recording a TV show to disk.
The WinTV-PVR also allows TV shows to be recorded in a Video CD format onto CD-ROMs for playback on home DVD players. Each CD-RW disk, the preferred media for Video CD's, can contain up to 1 hour of television.
Ken Plotkin, Hauppauge Digital's Chief Executive Officer, said "WinTV-PVR is delivering features WinTV users have been demanding: the ability to record and pause live TV on a PC, create their own instant replay's, plus archive TV shows onto CD-ROM."
He continued, "Being able to record a TV show onto CD-ROM, and then play this in a home DVD player, will create an incredibly compelling new use for PC's. We expect that the WinTV-PVR will start a whole new category of video products for the home and will help drive the PC into the home entertainment center."
Compatible with Microsoft Windows 98 and WindowsMe, the WinTV-PVR occupies a single PCI slot and allows the user to watch or record TV while performing other tasks on the PC, since it uses minimal amounts of CPU power.
Ken Aupperle, Hauppauge's President said "The WinTV-PVR-pci is the first in a line of digital video recorders which have been under development for 1 1/2 years. We foresaw the impact that affordable, high quality MPEG compressors could have on people's TV watching and TV recording habits, and started to develop a line of easy to use, affordable consumer products based on this technology."
WinTV-PVR-pci is available for $249. - from retailers worldwide. The package also includes an infrared remote control and a built-in FM radio receiver for listening to FM radio stations on the PC.
WinTV-PVR will be demonstrated at Comdex2000 in Las Vegas, November 13 to 17, at Hauppauge's booth number L6026.
Hauppauge Digital, Inc. (NASDAQ: HAUP) is the leading developer and manufacturer of analog and digital video, TV and data broadcast receiver products for personal computers. Through its Hauppauge Computer Works, Inc. subsidiary in the U.S. and its Hauppauge Digital Europe Sarl subsidiary in Europe, the Company designs and manufactures analog and digital video boards for TV-in-a-window, digital video editing and video conferencing. The Company is headquartered in Hauppauge, New York, with sales offices in Germany, London, Paris, The Netherlands, Sweden, Italy, Singapore and California. The Company's Internet web site can be found at http://www.hauppauge.com.
