To understand how the Hauppauge HD PVR works, you need to think outside the box, or more accurately imagine more than one box.

When I think of a PVR or DVR or even a VCR, I visualize an all-in-one unit that includes a tuner, a timer and a hard drive or at least a cassette tape - ah, the 20th Century. To label Hauppauge's Model 1212 silver and black box an HD PVR (high definition personal video recorder) is a bit misleading.