Installing the WinTV-HVR-1250
WinTV-HVR-1250 MC and MC-Kit for Vista Media Center

Quick Installation Guide

Hauppauge Computer Works, Inc. 91 Cabot Court, Hauppauge, NY 11788 tel: 631-434-1600 fax: 631-434-3198 tech support: 631-434-3197 techsupport@hauppauge.com www.hauppauge.com
The WinTV-HVR-1250 can be used to watch and record TV with Microsofts Media Center application in Vista Home Premium or Ultimate. It will also work with the Hauppauge WinTV v6 application for Vista Home Basic. To install, switch off the computer and remove the computer cover.
ote: Your PC could be damaged by electrostatic discharge. Avoid this by contacting the chassis of your PC before you install the WinTV board.
Contents of the WinTV-HVR-1250
Locate a free PCI Express slot. Unscrew and remove the meta-
cover plate which covers the back of the empty slot.
Plug the WinTV-HVR-1250 board into a PCIe slot,
WinTV-HVR-1250 Hybrid NTSC/ATSC/QAM PCI Express WinTV-HVR Installation CD-ROM
and screw the WinTV-HVR-1250 metal cover plate to the PC.
Replace the computer cover
TV connector: cable TV or ATSC antenna Composite video
For Vista Media Center kits, you will also find:
Media Center Remote Control transmitter and two AA batteries Media Center Remote con-
TV connector: either cable TV
for analog and clear QAM digital or a TV antenna for ATSC TV.

Composite video input:

Composite video Input (RCA)

S-Video Stereo audio

trol receiver/blaster box
IR transmitter cable (blaster cable) USB cable for the Media Center remote control receiver/blaster box
S-Video: S-Video input connector. Left/right audio input: Stereo
audio input using 1/8 mini stereo jack, from the audio output of your source
2. What is ATSC digital TV, and how does the WinTVHVR-1250 work?
ATSC is the over-the-air digital TV for North America. ATSC digital TV typically requires an antenna for reception, and is currently broadcast in 200 cities with over 1500 TV stations. Microsofts Media Center can be used to watch and record high definition ATSC digital TV programs when using the WinTV-HVR-1250. Note: ATSC digital TV is NOT digital cable TV or digital satellite TV. Currently Vista Media Center cannot display digital cable TV or digital satellite TV. ATSC digital TV is transmitted in several resolutions, from standard definition which is similar to cable TV, up to high definition which has about 16 times the resolution of normal cable TV. In any resolution, ATSC digital TV gives sharper pictures than analog cable TV and near CD quality sound. WinTV-HVR-1250 has a built-in tuner for analog cable TV, clear QAM digital cable TV and digital ATSC TV. It uses your PCs CPU for displaying both TV programs on your PC screen. Note: The WinTV-HVR-1250 can receive clear QAM digital cable TV, but currently Vista Media Center cannot display digital cable TV. The decoding of high definition ATSC is very processor intensive, and the smoothness of high definition TV programs depends upon how fast your PC is. Other PC activities that consume CPU resources might affect the display of ATSC digital TV. Slow video, jerky video and momentary pausing of video are all results of a CPU which is temporarily being used by other activities. For the best ATSC digital TV reception, a roof top Wideband or High gain antenna is recommended. In the U.S., a good ATSC digital antenna selector can be found at TitanTV.com under Resources.

Installing the WinTV-HVR-1250 driver
ote: the latest WinTV-HVR-1250 software can be found at www.hauppauge.com/pages/support/support_hvr1250.html
Installing the WinTV-HVR-1250 Windows Vista driver After plugging the WinTV-HVR-1250 in a PCI Express slot in your PC, turn on your computer. Windows Vista will load. The Found New Hardware window will appear.
Insert the WinTV-HVR Installation CD-ROM in your PCs CDROM drive. Note: If the CD auto play opens a window, close this window. Click Locate and install driver software (recommended). Then click Dont search on-line. Click Next. When the driver is installed, click Close.
Installing SoftMCE for Media Center
After installing the driver, browse the WinTV-HVR Installation CDROM and run Setup.exe. Then click on Install WinTV. This will install SoftMCE. SoftMCE is Hauppauges analog cable TV recorder for Windows Media Center. It is required if you want Media Center to be able to receive analog cable TV channels.
6. Install the Media Center Remote control receiver/blaster (only for WinTV MC-Kits)
The Media Center remote control receiver/blaster box is a small USB device which both receives remote control commands and transmits commands via its IR Blaster to change channels on a cable TV or satellite set top box. To install the Media Center remote control receiver/blaster, simply plug one end of the supplied USB cable into the Media Center remote control receiver/blaster box and the other end into any USB port on your Vista Home Premium or Ultimate PC. Media

Troubleshooting

.Some notes on system compatibility
Decoding high definition HD TV is very CPU intensive. A graphics card with at least 64MBytes of memory and the latest graphics driver from the manufacturer makes the decoding task easier. Typically a 2.2 GHz Pentium 4 processor or equivalent with a graphics card having 64MBytes of memory is required to properly decode ATSC digital TV on your PC. A 1.6GHz AMD Sempro computer tested in the Hauppauge lab used 50% of the CPU for playing ATSC 640i format, and 90% of the CPU when playing ATSC 1080i, the highest definition ATSC format. In some cases, either a faster processor or more graphics memory might be required. Slow or jerky video and a noisy TV picture indicate system performance problems. Jerky video with live ATSC digital TV Jerky or distorted video can be caused by two things in your PC or laptop: a slow CPU which cannot decode the ATSC TV signal fast enough, and a graphics system which cannot keep up with the high datarates of ATSC TV.
Center will automatically load the drivers for the MCE remote control. This will take one or two minutes. To test the receiver, click the Start button in the middle of the remote control. Media Center should open. If you have a satellite set top box and would like the Media Center remote control receiver/blaster to change channels on the set top box, plug one end of the IR transmitter cable into the back of the Media Center remote control receiver/blaster box and position the other end (the transmitter end) over the IR receiver on your set top box. Then run the TV Tuner Set up under Media Center (see below).

Many times, improving the performance of the graphics display will fix the jerky video display of ATSC digital TV. Here are some tips on improving graphics performance: - Use the latest graphics driver: graphics drivers are often tweaked to improve performance, especially the built-in graphics on laptops. Check the Microsoft Windows update site to download the latest graphics driver for your computer. For Dell computers, check the Dell website for the latest graphics driver. - Use Hauppauges Primary program to optimize graphics performance: Primary.exe is used to change the display mode of a graphics card for TV watching. This does not affect any other Windows program. Primary.exe is found in the Hauppauge WinTV program group. The default mode used by WinTV is Force Primary. Force Primary uses your processor to move the digital TV image into the graphics memory. It is more CPU intensive but often fixes display problems on some laptops. To use hardware graphics acceleration, close your TV application, then run Primary. Click Allow VMR. Close Primary and rerun your TV application. The Allow VMR setting will allow your graphics system to use hardware acceleration for video decode. Note: graphics hardware acceleration does not work on all systems. If this setting does not help, or if your TV application does not respond after a channel change, then your graphics system cannot use hardware graphics acceleration. In this case, re-run Primary. Click Force Primary and Close. Only some channels are found during ATSC channel scan If you are only receiving some known TV channels when scanning, it means your TV antenna is not adequate to pick up the channel. You will need either an antenna signal booster (a Radio Shack antenna amplifier will work) or a high gain antenna. Heres a link to an ATSC antenna selector: http://www.antennaweb.org/aw/address.aspx
TV tuner setup in Media Center
To set up the TV tuner in the Vista Media Center application: go to Tasks / Settings / TV / Set up TV signal. To set up the TV tuner in Windows XP Media Center: in the main Media Center menu go to Settings / TV / Set up TV Signal. You will see a message: Set Up Your TV Signal. Click Next. In Confirm your Region, make sure your region is selected. Click Next. You will see Automatic TV Signal Setup. We recommend selecting Configure my TV signal automatically. Click Next.

ote: if you only see digital antenna at this point, then you did not install SoftMCE for analog channels. To fix this problem, repeat step 5 and reboot.
You will then see a message saying Examining your TV signal. Media Center is determining the type of TV connection you have. When it is finished, it will tell you whether you have a cable TV, antenna or set top box connection. After determining the type of signal, you will see You are Done! Now you need to set up the Electronic Program Guide. You will see a message: Set Up Your Program Guide. Click Next. The Program Guide Set Up Wizard will move you through the completion of the Program Guide set up. When you are finished with the Program Guide Setup, click the MyTV button on your Media Center remote control to start watching TV.

FCC Statement

FCC ID: H90WINTV CE Statement: This equipment has been tested and complies with EN 55013, EN 55020 and IEC 801-3 part 3 standards. CAUTION: Changes or modifications not expressly approved by the party responsible for compliance to the FCC Rules could void the user's authority to operate the equipment. Supplementary Television Broadcasting Receiving Apparatus - Appareils supplmentaires de rception de tlvision, Canada.
Hauppauge Computer Works, Inc. 2007-2008 QI-WINTV-HVR-1250 V1.4C 2/10/2008

WinTV-HVR-1250 and WinTV-HVR-1250 MC-Kits

Quick Installation Guide

QI-WINTV-HVR1250-V3 2/15/2010 Hauppauge Computer Works, Inc. 2009 - 2010 Hauppauge Computer Works, Inc. 91 Cabot Court Hauppauge, NY 11788 Telephone: 631-434-1600 Fax: 631-434-3198 Tech Support: 631-434-3197 techsupport@hauppauge.com Web site: www.hauppauge.com
WinTV-HVR-1250 has a built-in tuner for analog cable TV, digital ATSC and digital clear QAM TV. To receive ATSC, you will need an antenna. To receive digital clear QAM or analog cable TV, you will need a cable TV connection. WinTV-HVR uses your PC or laptops CPU for displaying TV programs on your PC screen. The decoding of high definition ATSC is very processor intensive, and the smoothness of high definition TV programs depends upon how fast your PC or laptop system is. Other PC activities that consume CPU resources might affect the display of ATSC digital TV. Slow video, jerky video and momentary pausing of video are all results of a CPU which is temporarily being used by other activities. For the best ATSC digital TV reception, a roof top Wideband or High gain antenna is recommended. In the U.S., a good ATSC digital antenna selector can be found at TitanTV.com under Resources.
Sales: sales@hauppauge.com
3. Installing the WinTV-HVR-1250 board
To install, switch off the computer and remove the computer cover. The manufacturer of your PC supplies instructions on removing the PC cover.
1. Contents of the WinTV-HVR-1250 package

WinTV-HVR-1250 board

For the standard WinTV-HVR-1250 products, you will find:
ote: Your PC could be damaged by electrostatic discharge. Avoid this by contacting the earthed chassis of your PC, before you open it or touch the pci card.
WinTV-HVR Windows Installation CD-ROM with
WinTV v7 application with SoftPVR and TV Scheduler
Locate a free PCIe slot. Unscrew and remove the metacover plate which covers the back of the empty slot. Plug the WinTV-HVR-1250 board into the PCIe slot, and screw the WinTV-HVR-1250 metal cover plate to the PC. Replace the computer cover.
Hauppauge remote control transmitter with 2 AAA

batteries

Remote control receiver cable Media Center Remote Control transmitter and two

AA batteries

For Windows Media Center kits, you will find:

4. Connecting the cables

TV connector: either cable TV for analog and clear QAM digital or a TV antenna for ATSC TV.
Media Center Remote control receiver/blaster
IR transmitter cable (blaster cable)
USB cable for the Media Center remote control receiver/blaster box
2. What is ATSC digital TV?
ATSC digital TV is over-the-air digital TV for North America. ATSC digital TV typically requires an antenna for reception, and is currently broadcast in 200 cities, with over 1500 TV stations. Note: ATSC digital TV is NOT digital cable TV or digital satellite TV. The WinTV-HVR can receive clear QAM digital cable TV (if you are using WinTV v7 or Windows Media Center with Windows 7 or TV Pack 2008), but it cannot receive digital satellite TV unless WinTV-HVR-1250 is connected to a satellite TV set top box.
ATSC digital TV is transmitted in several resolutions, from standard definition which is similar to cable TV, up to high definition which has about 16 times the resolution of normal cable TV. In any resolution, ATSC digital TV gives sharper pictures than analog cable TV and near CD quality sound.

ote: clear QAM digital cable TV is only available in some areas and through some cable TV operators. Contact your local cable TV company to see if they support clear QAM digital cable TV. To watch clear QAM digital cable TV, you need to be using Windows Media Center TV Pack 2008, Microsoft Windows 7 or Hauppauges WinTV v7.
TV Connector for analog or digital TV
Remote control receiver connector: to the
Hauppauge Remote Control receiver cable (on some models).
Remote control receiver connector (on some models) S-Video/Composite video input connector Left/Right audio input (Line-In) connector
If you are using an external audio/video source like a satellite or cable TV set top box.
Clear QAM TV channels are digital cable TV channels which are broadcast in the clear. These digital cable TV channels are broadcast in various resolutions, from standard
definition up to high definition.
then you will need to connect the S-Video input connector or Composite video input connector for video and the Audio input (LineIn) for the sound.
S-Video/Composite: Video input connector. For either S-Video or
composite (composite video requires the S-Video to composite adapter).
PC, double click on the WinTV icon on your Windows desk top.

Device Setup Wizard

When you run WinTV for the first time, the WinTV Device Setup Wizard appears. Select the TV source that you are using. On some model WinTVs, you have multiple tuners and therefore you can select multiple sources. For the WinTV-HVR-1250, you can chose either ATSC or Digital QAM and Analog TV. You cannot chose both Digital ATSC and Digital QAM.
Left/right audio input: Stereo audio input using 1/8 mini
stereo jack, from the audio output of your source.
Connecting the remote control receiver cable
Plug the remote control receiver cable into the Remote control receiver connector on the WinTVHVR-1250.
Position the round receiver sensor (at the end of the remote control receiver cable) where is can be seen by the remote control transmitter. This is normally at the front of your PC.
ote: If youd like to use the A/V inputs, please select External inputs (Composite/S-Video).
ATSC digital over-the-air TV
5. Installing the WinTV driver and applications
Turn on your Windows XP or Vista based PC, and boot into Windows.

Select Digital ATSC and click Next. In the ATSC Setup menu, click Next. You will see the Digital ATSC Scan scanning for digital overthe-air channels. The digital TV scanning process will scan from channels 2 to 51. As TV channels are found, they will appear in the Channel box. When complete, click
ew: If a 'Found New Hardware' wizard appears, please cancel it and allow windows to load fully before proceeding. ote: if the CD does not autorun, navigate to the CD and run the 'Setup.exe' file.
Insert the WinTV Installation CD-ROM in your PCs CD-ROM drive.

Next / Next and OK.

Hauppauge WinTV Installation CD window will appear on the screen.

Install the WinTV driver

Click the button labeled
ote: if you do not receive any ATSC digital TV channels, an antenna signal booster might be needed. After adding a signal booster, see below for instructions on rescanning and the Troubleshooting section for information on choosing an antenna.

Step 1: Install drivers.

A blue screen will open and begin installing the drivers for your WinTV. Once the drivers have installed, click on the Finish bar to exit.
Clear QAM Digital Cable TV
Clear QAM digital cable TV channels are those TV channels broadcast on a digital cable network which are unencrypted (free to view). If you have a cable operator who transmits clear QAM digital TV programs, chose Digital QAM and Next. Encrypted channels are automatically not selected. The resulting channels in the list might be both standard and high definition channels.
Install the WinTV applications
Click the button labeled Step 2: Install
The setup application will then open and begin automattically installing the WinTV application components. Once complete, click

OK then Exit.

ote: the latest driver updates are available at: www.hauppauge.com
ote: Windows Media Center requires TV Pack 2008 or Windows 7 to support QAM TV channels. You can also use the Hauppauge WinTV v7 application, or SageTV or BeyondTV for QAM TV reception.

Analog cable TV

Select your Country and TV Source from the drop down list. To automatically scan for channels, click Next to continue. Click the Scan button and WinTV will automatically scan for analog channels. The
6. Running WinTV for the first time
To run the WinTV v7 application for watching TV, recording videos and playing them back on your
scanning process takes about 10 minutes.

External audio/video sources
You can bring video into the WinTV from an external audio/video source such as a cable TV or satellite set top box. In the Device Setup Wizard, select Inputs and click Next.
To show the Channel menu as part of the TV window, click the Channel list always on icon at the top of the channel list. To turn on Closed captions, click on Show Captions. To manually schedule a TV recording, or to see which programs have been scheduled, click on Scheduler. To turn on the Always on Top mode, click on Stay on
click your right mouse button to view

Options menu

Playback menu Channel list TV Scheduler Close captions

External

You will be presented with the option to add a Composite and an S-Video Input. Please select your country (if not correct) and click Next. If you wish to connect a source not normally designed for operation in your country, you can configure the Video Format manually from the drop down list. Change the value from AUTO.

Always on top

Note: Pal BGHIDK is the commonly used format in Europe. NTSC is the broadcast format used in

North America.

Rescanning TV channels
If you want to rescan for TV channels, click the corner of WinTV v7).
Watch, Pause and Record TV
Setup menu (the gear button in the lower left
WinTV v7 is always recording video to your PCs hard drive while TV is being displayed. In this way, you can immediately skip back and replay the TV program you are watching. Clicking on the Pause button will cause the video to pause, while clicking the Record button will cause the current TV program to be recorded to hard disk.
Then click on the Devices tab. Choose your WinTV device by clicking on it, then click Tuner setup. Chose the TV format you want to scan, then click Next. Click Next and a new scan will be started. When the scan is complete, click Next / Next and OK.

Recording your TV shows

If you want to record a TV show you are watching:
Using the WinTV v7 application

Close WinTV

To watch TV, click the Watch TV button. To see the TV

WinTV source selector

Click the Record button. The recorded file name will popup on the video for a few seconds as the recording starts. When you are finished recording, click the Stop button. Click the Playback file button and select the last file recorded to play the video you just recorded To play a video you recorded earlier, click the Playback File button and then move your mouse and click once on the video you want to play. Click Open and the file will start playing.

Channel list, click

Current channel name and number
Channel list display always on Fast channel select numbers TV Channel list
right mouse button in the TV
window to display the Options menu. Select Find Channel. You will see the channel list.
Configuration menu (Settings menu)
Program Info Playback file menu Watch TV
Record/Pause/Play controls Channel up/down

Volume adjust and mute

The recorded video file is saved in the directory set in Recordings directory. The default directory is MyVideos. To change this directory, click the Settings button and then the Folders tab. Every time you record a file, a new file is automatically created. The file will be formatted as (ChannelNumber)_(ChannelName)YearMonthDay_TIme. For digital TV programs, the quality level recorded is the same as it is transmitted by the TV station. Program info Settings Playback file Stop Record Skip back Skip back 10 seconds 1 minute Time bar Pause/Play Skip ahead Skip 30 seconds ahead 1 minute
To display the channel list all the time, while the channel list is displayed, click the Channel
list display always on button.
The Options menu is the main menu where you can select channels, turn on closed captions, open the TV Scheduler and many other of the most important TV control functions. To bring up the Options Menu, click your To see the channel list, click on scanned.
right mouse button once in the TV window.
Find channel. You will see the list of channels which have been
For example, if the TV station is transmitting a high-definition program, WinTV will record the program in high-definition. Close captions, parental control information and SAP audio is recorded with digital TV programs. For analog cable TV using the built-in hardware MPEG-2 encoder, the quality of the video recording is set to 6Mbits/sec. This will be a configurable setting in a future version of WinTV v7.

TV Scheduler

WinTV v7s built-in TV Scheduler allows you to schedule the recording of TV shows. Once a record event is set, WinTV v7 can be closed and the WinTV application will wake up at the desired time and tuned to the desired channel. When a scheduled record event takes place, the WinTV v7 application records in background so that you can continue to watch your live TV program, even as the recording progresses. The TV Scheduler can be found in the WinTV v7 Options menu. Right click your mouse button in the TV window to see the Options menu. Click

If you want to pause a TV show you are watching:
Click the Pause button. Your TV video will stop and the Time counter will start counting. To start the video from where you paused, click the Play button To rewind the video to the beginning, click the Skip to the beginning button. If your video was paused, click the Play button. To rewind the video 1 minute, click the Skip back 1 minute button. If your video was paused, click the Play button.
The Delay counter displays how much time you are behind the live video. For example, if the delay counter says 00:01:23, then the video window is showing video 1 minute and 23 seconds behind live video.
Scheduler. To set up an event for timed watching or recording, click the Add button.
Name: you can add a name to the recording. If you do not enter a name, the name will be in the channel/date format.
The items that need to be set for each event are:
Selecting FM radio programs
On those WinTV products which support FM radio, if you have scanned for FM radio staions in the section entitled Using WinTV for the first time you can change the WinTV v7 application to FM by clicking FM radio in the Source selector, found in the upper right hand corner of the WinTV application.
Channel: chose one of your scanned

channels.

Start time: set to the desired start time. Click on the hour to set the hour, the minute to set the minute. Note: It takes about 15 seconds to launch the WinTV and start recording. Duration: number of minutes in the

recorded program.

Configuration menu
The WinTV v7 Configuration menu is accessed by clicking the gear button in the lower left hand corner of WinTV v7. -
Recurrance: one time, daily, weekly. Note: If you set for Record Weekly, you must also specify the Day of the Week for the recording. Date to Begin Program: today's date is the default. Change this if you want to schedule on another date.
Source selection: leave set at WinTV to bring up the WinTV at the requested time and on the requested channel.
General tab: you can set the
Video Renderer which allows WinTV v7 to display video with a wide range of graphics systems.
Once these are set, click
OK. You can add more recordings, clicking OK after each event is set.
When you are finished click Close. The WinTV program does not have to be running for the Schedular to work. If WinTV is not running, it takes about 15 seconds to start WinTV and to start the recording of TV.
Devices tab: allows is where
you can re-scan for TV channels and set up the TV sources in WinTV v7.

Parental control tab: is

where you can set the Parental Control level.
Advanced options: you can set options such as Convert TV recordings to.MPG file

type and Game mode here.