Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-1250 MC, WinTV-HVR-1250 MC-Kit Vista Media Center Quick Installation Guide

WinTV-HVR-1250 MC and MC-Kit

for Vista Media Center

Quick Installation Guide

• WinTV-HVR-1250 Hybrid NTSC/ATSC/QAM PCI Express

• WinTV-HVR Installation CD-ROM

For Vista Media Center kits, you will also find:

• Media Center Remote

Control transmitter

and two

AA batteries

• Media Center Remote con-

trol receiver/blaster box

• IR transmitter cable (blaster

cable)

• USB cable for the Media

Center remote control receiver/blaster box

1. Contents of the WinTV-HVR-1250

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. Microsoft’s 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 PC’s 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.

2. What is ATSC digital TV, and how does the WinTVHVR-1250 work?

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 Microsoft’s 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.

• 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,

and screw the WinTV-HVR-1250 metal cover plate to the PC.

• Replace the computer cover

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: S-Video input connector.

Left/right audio input: Stereo

audio input using 1/8” mini stereo jack, from the audio output of your source

3. Installing the WinTV-HVR-1250

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 PC’s CDROM drive. Note: If the CD auto play opens a window, close

this window.

Click Locate and install driver software (recommended). Then click Don’t search on-line. Click Next. When the driver is installed, click Close.

4. Installing the WinTV-HVR-1250 driver

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 Hauppauge’s 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.

5. Installing SoftMCE for Media Center

TV connector:

cable TV or ATSC

antenna

Composite video

S-Video

Stereo audio

.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.

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 Hauppauge’s 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. Here’s a link to an ATSC antenna selector: http://www.antennaweb.org/aw/address.aspx

Troubleshooting

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 supplémentaires de réception de télévision, Canada.

To set up the TV tuner in the Vista Media Center application: go to Ta sk s / 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.

7. TV tuner setup in Media Center

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

6. Install the Media Center Remote control receiver/blaster (only for WinTV MC-Kits)

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 receiv- er on your set top box. Then run the TV Tuner Set up under Media Center (see below).