Hauppauge WinTV-PVR-USB2

An analog USB tv tuner device from Hauppauge.

It is supported under Linux.

Note: Do not confuse this product with the WinTV-USB2, as they are two totally different devices

Overview/Features

It has a mpeg encoder/decoder on board which makes it an excellent device for nearly all systems with USB 2.0 support. USB1.1 is not ideal - it works, but not as well as on USB2.0. The stereo audio is excellent.

It works perfectly for watching tv as a v4l2 device in mythtv and xawtv. The device's status as supported in TvTime is unknown as of 5/2008.

It also functions as an FM Stereo tuner. Depending on your kernel version, it may work "out of the box" with kradio or gnomeradio. Check Mike Isley's site for more information.

An HDTV version of the device has been released by Hauppauge. It seems likely it will eventually replace the pvrusb2 at some point in the future. As of 5/2008, both devices are widely available, but the newer HDTV-equipped device isn't widely supported in the Linux kernel yet. Hauppauge reports there will be support for the new device in the 2.6.26 Linux kernel version.

Components Used

Identification

Output of lsusb -v:

Making it work

Firmware

Firmware is required to make the device functional. AFAIK, the firmware is widely distributed and totally legal to download and use in a GPL environment. Search Google with the phrase "pvrusb2 firmware" (no quotes) and you should find a copies of the firmware.

Drivers

The device is supported by the pvrusb2 driver. The author of the excellent device driver has a site devoted to its maintenance, including firmware extraction instructions should you need them) located at http://www.isely.net/pvrusb2/pvrusb2.html.

For debugging purposes, watch dmesg carefully while you plug/unplug the pvrusb2.