Hauppauge buys Pinnacle's PCTV business

[Ryokurin]

http://www.betanews.com/article/Haup...ers/1231456650

In a sense, this kind of proves what I figured few years ago about Avid eventually getting out of the consumer business because they refused to let M-Audio develop 64-bit drivers for their consumer cards. Anyhow, at least its going to a decent company, it could have been Creative, who probably would have just shuttered it for example.

[reggie14]

Originally Posted by Ryokurin

Anyhow, at least its going to a decent company, it could have been Creative, who probably would have just shuttered it for example.

This isn't good for consumers. We've lost one player in the TV tuner/video capture business and got nothing for it. Hauppauge is just going to shut down their business to sell more of their own products. Less competition is almost always a bad thing.

[Ryokurin]

Maybe later, but its not the case right now.

Hauppage said the product line would continue to operate under the name PCTV Systems, separately from the existing Hauppage WinTV product line, and would continue to develop new products for the PC and the Mac from its offices in Braunschweig, Germany. WinTV development will continue in New York and in Taiwan.

I'm actually hoping it results in better products eventually.

[reggie14]

It's got to be just a matter of time before Hauppauge shuts down some of the operation. They're not going to run two independent research, development and production lines that do the same thing. That seems like an awful business strategy. Maybe they'll be able to combine the two development teams and just keep the best people, but I think that's going to be hard.

But, we still have AVerMedia around to keep Hauppauge on its toes. Hopefully they'll come up with a HD-PVR competitor.

[SHS]

I wouldn't count on anything from AVerMedia nor ADS Tech with something like HD-PVR in fact the only thing I see new is it all gear at Surveillance/Broadcast/Transcoder Products when come H.264 Hardware Encoder.

[mikejaner]

I hope they shut them down. They have the $H!##!3$# service I have ever experienced. I bought the PCTV HD Wireless, and they didn't put any updates out for more than a year, even though it was really buggy. Hava put updates out for their version, which Pinnacle just rebadged, and I was able to finally get the latest Hava firmware to install over top of it, after more than a year. I think the hava team got word that Pinnacle wasn't updating their software, and finally made it work, in an unsupported manner.
I also had a few other products for them in the past which they didn't respond to me for support on.
I hope Pinnacle goes down in flames big time. Can you tell I hate them?

[reggie14]

Originally Posted by SHS

I wouldn't count on anything from AVerMedia nor ADS Tech with something like HD-PVR in fact the only thing I see new is it all gear at Surveillance/Broadcast/Transcoder Products when come H.264 Hardware Encoder.

I don't think that bodes well for us as customers of PC-based DVR gear. Unless there's a major change with how cable companies are dealing with HDTV (i.e., unencrypted QAM), I think failing to develop a product similar to the HD-PVR is basically throwing in the towel. Are there any companies that will continue to compete with Hauppauge?

[SHS]

reggie14 I don't think they have throwing in the towel just take good look at what going on around world dramatic decline of stock prices across a significant cross-section of a stock market which pettey much means we are all in a Global Recession which also mean less spending by consumers and companies reduce demand for exports/imports so there just to late to jump in to the game.
This what I think some of it all boil down to more about high profit margins aka greed and all most no update on bug fix as mike piont out from min other companies you don't see that from Hauppauge in fact you did see that from 3dfx in good old day of Voodoo they do ever thing in there power to make there consumers happy camper far better then any one else, why do think I gone with them after 3dfx shut done BooHoo I want my beta Rampage I'm also know as SHS-3Dfx and SHS-SBLive to so I keep my beta Voodoo 6 dran it got ZAP, so I end up building new system with a GF6 at the time and if an of you recall nVidia was just as bad about not doing any update in fact so was ATI, S3 and even Intel and min other boy the time sure have changes.