Hauppauge - HD PVR 60 USB Video Recorder - Black

Before I dive into my review of the product, allow me to explain what I mean by "budget capture card". (Anything sub $120.00) Now that I've gotten that out of the way I'll begin my review. I've had tons of experience with Hauppauge capture devices over the years using the HD PVR 2 as my "daily driver" capture card to record footage for my Youtube Gaming Channel. Hardware: The hardware is fairly small (3.2 x 7.5 x 8 inches) and doesn't take up too much space. It's sleek with a silver finish across the top with that actually looks pretty nice. I was skeptical about the color scheme at first but it works well with the black finish around the device. To my surprise there is a blue LED strip that lights up when the device is powered and during recording. It looks great! Also, there's a push-to-record button at the top corner edge to trigger recording if you're unable to get to your computer. Just press the button and the recording process begins instantly. The rear I/O of the device has three ports, an HDMI IN (from the source) HDMI OUT (to connect to your TV) and a USB port. Setup: The HD PVR 60 setup process is a breeze (as with the HD PVR 2) and can be done in as little as two minutes. Just connect the provided USB cable to the device along with your HDMI cable to the "HDMI IN" slot, download the Hauppauge Capture software and you're good to go! There is no power cable to connect as the device is powered from your computer's USB port. (this is extremely practical and a welcomed change as the older devices included a bulky ac adapter.) Software The Hauppauge Capture Software is streamlined and user friendly. Its very simple to use! The video quality settings, microphone input levels, game sound levels, and face cam settings are all located on the main screen for easy access. In addition the tabs across the top of the program allow for easy video editing, streaming and uploading to Youtube. There is also an option for skip back recording which I rarely use but it's useful if you're playing a game and forget to hit record. Bottom line is it just gets the job done. There are other 3rd party applications that are compatible with the PVR 60 but I won't mention them in this review. The software allows you to export recordings in MP4, MT2S and TS formats. It is also can capture video at a bitrate of up to 16Mbps and 48k audio at 384kbps. I find the software extremely simple to use. It just works! Video Quality The video quality of the card captures is quite impressive. It uses a H.264 AVCHD high definition video encoder, which allows recording resolutions to 1080p 60 frames per sec at up to 16mbps. Simply put, the recording a crystal clear, crisp and super smooth! The image quality will rival any non PCIE capture cards. Personally, I record gameplay at a constant 16Mbps bitrate and capture about ten minutes of gameplay at at a time. The file sizes range anywhere from 4GB -5GB per file. (NOTE: this can be easily adjusted for lower file sizes by adjusting the bitrate. I just wanted to give you an example of file sizes to obtain the best possible image quality) Cons Despite the many things that I love about this card, there are a handful of negatives that I must list here because this card/software are not 100% perfect. - The software (or hardware) sometimes disconnects after long periods of continuous recording. Could be a USB connectivity issue or perhaps overheating? Or Firmware? I'm not really sure - Image quality sometimes appears fragmented or pixelated. To be fair this has only happened once so it may be an anomaly but still it's worth mentioning. - 16Mbps bitrate recording. This is just my personal preference but I'd like to see this a bit higher. I've seen other competitors cards offer bitrates up into the 20's and I'd like to see this product up into that range as well. Conclusion This is an amazing product that I highly recommend! Image quality is great, sound is great, and despite a few cons its still an amazing capture card. Especially at this price point. You won't be disappointed.

This capture device is alright, it does get the job done, but there are so many limitations. First of off the device if barely supported by Hauppauge. The drivers and software have so many issues and there hasn't been an update to patch anything on over a year. On still images the mic recording will sound like you are slowing down a record or cassette tape and get glitchy, the software is slow and crashes once in a while, and image quality isn't the best, it does show artifacts sometimes even when set at the highest bitrate you can record, which is 16 MB/s. The company won't provide a basic driver to allow using this with any capture software, so that means no using it with OBS Studio. You are forced to use their capture software, which isn't very good. It is very basic software, but good for people new to recording. At least it has multitrack audio recording, which is great for editing audio after recording to find a nice balance of sound between a mic and game audio. You can check out the quality of the device on my YouTube channel, search for Claydood. Mario Kart 8 has been the only game I've played that runs at 60 fps, the rest are 30. I would suggest paying extra for a better device.

The Hauppauge is a great card, very easy to set up. The only issues we have from it is the inability to work with OBS to stream, which could change in the future. The internal streaming from Hauppauge is also very slow and lacks the ability to change many settings and manipulate your stream the way you want. Capture works perfectly. Overall, a good system to work with.

Recording quality is clear and crisp but the pass-through signal for regular TV produces a somewhat dim picture. Also the capture software does not produce files that play correctly in QuickTime or in iTunes. Otherwise it is probably fine for gaming and streaming

I was hoping HD PVR 60 would be an improvement over the 1512, with advertised 1080p at 60fps, but there are Frame Skips every very seconds, and the picture quality is worse. (I returned for refund).

i bought this for cheap but after recording i noticed that the audio from the video were low quality. to this day i haven't figured out if there is a way to fix it so just be warned before buying this product, other than that it does 1080p 60fps.

I have used this for about a month and it's great stuff. It is fairly fast for recording at 1080 or lower resolution, I would have preferred a higher resolution(gonna have to buy a 1080 Monitor to run a secondary), but I knew this going in and should have thought it through alittle better, records at full speed, It's awesome, My Twitch streams NEver looked better. It's like night and day went from using Xsplit gamecaster alone getting like 15-25frps now i can get 60fps streaming and It's beautul. There's an Instant recording button( I never use it) but if there ever is a moment you are doing great in one of your favorite games, just hit that and boom your recording. Been a great month, but still need a second monitor to keep using this for my setup.

Like the capture capability. The editing software could be better, but you can get good programs from the web