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How-to use the HD-PVR with Windows Media Center

The HD-PVR is a device that connects between a set-top box (such a your cable tuner box) and your computer (HTPC). It uses component video and S/PDIF optical audio connectors.

Earlier this year, Hauppauge released drivers for Windows 7 Media Center that let you use the device as one of your tuners within media center. In the community these are often referred to as the ‘native drivers’ since they come from Hauppauge rather than DVBLink which provides another solution for this to work.

People have had various experiences getting these drivers working. For some people they are great and others have a bad experience. My opinion is that this has to do with the other things running on your HTPC including background processes and codec packs.

While we all can hope that this should “just work”, there are many variables involved which combine to make it hard. Here is how I have it working with success. Much of this has been learned by my own experiences and the helpful people over on The Green Button. Hopefully it will help others get up and running.

First, my system specs:

  • Atom ION
  • 2GB RAM
  • Gigabit Ethernet
  • Windows 7 32-bit
  • Hauppauge 2250 Dual Tuner Card
  • HD Homerun Dual Tuner
  • HD-PVR using native drivers
  • My set-top box is a Scientific Atlanta 4250HDC

Getting started: Set up your set-top box correctly

The first thing you need to do is lock your set-top box to output only one resolution. By default, my SA 4250HDC had several resolutions checked. I changed this to ONLY 720P. The HD-PVR doesn’t seem to like the resolutions to change when you change channels

Next, be sure your set-top box is set to output Dolby Digital audio.

I can’t tell you how to do this on all boxes but here is basically how it is done on the SA 4250 (hopefully this will be close for some of you with other boxes)

  • Press the Settings button on your remote
  • Under Quick Settings, select Devices – Audio:Digital Output
  • Ensure Dolby Digital is selected
  • Still in settings, scroll right to Display
  • Go into Output Resolution and be sure to check only 1. On my box the dots on the left of the resolutions indicate which ones that will be used. I use 720P as progressive is best in my opinion. What ever you decide, choose either 720P or 1080i. Lock it in as only 1 so the box isn’t trying to switch depending on source.

Make sure Windows 7 is up to date

Run windows update (might as well)

There is a Windows 7 hotfix that is not part of windows update yet. The notes on it do not indicate that it would help in this case but in my opinion it is a must for Media Center. I really do think it helps with channel changing. You can get it here: New functionality and performance improvements for the Windows 7 graphics platform (http://bit.ly/fRjCsw)

Set up and install the HD-PVR

Tip: If you have Windows Media Center set to start automatically with Windows, you might want to change that option to off. The installation process may take a couple reboots so this will help speed things up and minimize problems. For reference, this setting is in Media Center under Tasks – Settings – General – Startup and Windows Behavior.

Download the installation package and installation instructions from the Media Center tab of HD-PVR Support (http://bit.ly/ag73Cn)

Note: You do not need all the Arcsoft software provided with your HD-PVR for this to work.

Run the component cables and optical audio from you set-top to the HD-PVR input jacks.

Follow the instructions to install the HD-PVR down to the part about installing and setting up the IR utility.

Now, before you go on, take the time to make sure your HD-PVR is completely isolated from your other USB devices. 1Geek1Tool provides great instructions on How to isolate your HD-PVR (http://bit.ly/f4NdiH).

Once you have finished that process and your HD-PVR is on its own physical USB controller continue with the HD-PVR setup instructions to set up the IR software and the the MCE Installer.

The HD-PVR is considered a Digital Cable tuner when using the native drivers so you can easily install it along side your ATSC and QAM tuners.

After the tuners are set up in Media Center, disable background scanning to help improve performance:

  • Open up REGEDIT and go to
  • [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Media Center\Service\BackgroundScanner]
  • Create a new DWORD value, and name it PeriodicScanEnabled  and set the ValueData to 0
  • Close Regedit, and reboot the box.

Note: Don’t forget to enable the switch to start Media Center with windows if you disabled it in the tip above.

Helpful Utilities

GuideTool is a handy tool for quickly editing your channel list (useful whether you use the HD-PVR or not). You can find it here: http://bit.ly/hBaw60.

Some people experience what is often called the Dual Tuner or Double Vision bug. This is where though you have only one HD-PVR showing up as 2 digital tuners. Fortunately, Mikinho of Missing Remote and The Green Button has written a piece of software that makes it easy to do a quick reset so only 1 tuner shows up. You can get it on Missing Remote here: http://bit.ly/hlN1Hj (note: you have to log in to see the attachment.)

Channel changing notes

The above instructions get you up and running with the HD-PVR’s built in IR port. Some people have issues with the built in IR blaster being causing long times changing channels. Here are some notes I’ve gathered:

How to increase the video bitrate and turn off the blue ‘bling’ LEDs

There isn’t a nice user interface method of change things like bitrate or that bright blue “bling” light. To do that you need a utility like GraphStudio. This isn’t hard, it just takes a few steps.

  • Download GraphStudio http://bit.ly/goE0aa
  • Ensure your HD-PVR isn’t recording a show then shut down Media Center
  • Run GraphStudio
  • Click Graph – Insert Filter
  • In the filter chooser dropdown, scroll down and click on WDM Streaming Encoder Devices
  • Select the Hauppauge HD-PVR Encoder in the left pane then click the Property Page button.
  • Click the Hauppauge H264 Encoder tab
  • Here you can change the Bitrate from its default 8 to 13.5 Mbps. You can also check the “Disable bling LEDs” box
  • Be sure to click the Apply button after any changes
  • That’s it! Simply close GraphStudio, start Media Center back up and enjoy some TV.
  • Note, there are also some settings for Luma and Chroma. I didn’t change these. If anyone has changed them in a way they think increases picture quality, I’d like to hear about the results.

Other Notes

  • The HD-PVR can take a lot of processing power. I suggest not running background processes such as Show Analyzer if possible. If you are having trouble and you must run these processes, at least try turning them off for a bit as a trouble shooting method.
  • Valkyrie-MT’s notes on getting this to work with Dish Network: here http://bit.ly/fJHL5F
  • Valkyrie-MT’s info on changing the audio to RCA if you absolutely have to: here http://bit.ly/fRzaK7
  • Media Center keeps all its tuners, channels, recording, EPG and other information in a single database file. If for some reason you want to take things back to a clean state, you can follow How to reset your Media Center database http://bit.ly/e0fC3V

Main Web Sites and Threads

The thread on The Green Button is the best place to go to get your questions answered. If you have other tips or helpful utilities I have missed, let me know in the comments below.

*** change log ***
12JAN11: Optimized the page for printing.
12JAN11: Fixed links to Missing remote that moved when they redesigned the site. Also added a link to some details on DirectTV channel changing over the network.
27DEC10: Added a link to my IR Server Suite note.

15DEC10: Added a link to uspino’s notes about Tivo channel changing. Also added a link to my notes on disabling other Hauppauge tuners.

15OCT10: Added section about increasing bitrate and disabling bling lights
14OCT10: Added a link to Mikinho’s Double Vision Quick Fix in the Helpful Utilities section


This entry was posted on Sunday, October 10th, 2010 at 12:14 pm and is filed under 7mc, How-To, media center. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

43 Comments »

  1. Thank you – SO useful!!

    Comment by Payam — October 11, 2010 @ 11:24 pm

  2. Great tip on using Graphstudio to tweak driver settings! I’m still using DVBlink with 2 HDPVRs and am quite happy with it. Unfortunately anytime I try and enter the DVBlink settings tool, somehow everything gets screwed up. This is very useful!

    Comment by George Lewis — October 18, 2010 @ 10:26 am

  3. Thanks a ton for compiling all this info. It saved me hours on setup! You rock.

    Comment by shelbycsx — December 22, 2010 @ 8:46 am

  4. I am unable to receive HD resolution from my UVerse STB, according to Graphstudio, when using it with Media Center. I have my STB set to 1080i. Any ideas?

    Comment by christexaport — December 25, 2010 @ 9:07 pm

  5. [...] wrote a post a little while ago about How-to use the HD-PVR with Windows Media Center. A lot of people, including me, have experienced slow channel changes with the internal HD-PVR IR [...]

    Pingback by How-to Set Up IR Server Suite with HD-PVR and Media Center — December 27, 2010 @ 11:40 pm

  6. This is *the* guide for getting the Hauppauge HD PVR up and running.

    That being said, I don’t own one yet, but I hope to very soon. I will be coming back to this page again and again over the coming months to get everything up and running as quickly and smoothly as possible.

    Thank you so very much!
    TC

    Comment by TC — January 7, 2011 @ 8:57 am

  7. [...] Hopefully it will eliminate some of the problems I’ve outlined in my post about getting the HD-PVR to work with Media Center. Still, I hope they don’t eliminate the USB version because the newer mini-itx boards only [...]

    Pingback by Hauppauge is taking its HD-PVR internal — January 7, 2011 @ 11:45 am

  8. I have not gotten Graph Tool to permanent turn off the Bling Lights. They stay off until the next restart of Media Center.

    Also many people are reported corrupted channel databases with the Hauppauge Media Center software, usually after a guide update.

    Forget about using the HD-PVR blaster. The channel changes took 15 seconds. Use IR Suite, and they are very fast.

    Comment by Michael — January 13, 2011 @ 11:26 pm

  9. Michael,
    Sorry to hear about the Graph Tool problem. Works fine for me.
    I have heard about the corrupt channel database problem but I have not seen it happen in my system. Not sure exactly where that comes from.
    Agree with you on IR Server Suite. That is what I use too.

    Comment by admin — January 14, 2011 @ 6:24 am

  10. RussT over on The Green Button believes that the Background scanner is the source of channel corruption. I mentioned above to disable this for other performance reasons so do so if you haven’t already.
    I don’t have time at the moment to update the blog entry so here is a link to RussT’s findings on TGB:
    http://thegreenbutton.com/forums/p/88810/517658.aspx#517658

    Comment by admin — February 1, 2011 @ 2:19 pm

  11. Hi – great tips, thank you very much!

    Comment by Mike Blair — February 19, 2011 @ 8:08 pm

  12. Forget my first comment.. Update to my general thanks:

    I managed to reduce the IR delay of the Hauppauge IR to zero and now it changes channels in WMC with NO delay, no ‘no signal’ screen, awesome!

    Time Warner Cable, SA 8240 HDC

    Thanks again!

    Comment by Mike Blair — February 19, 2011 @ 8:27 pm

  13. Is it possible for the HD PVR to act as one tuner and my existing HVR 2250 as a second OTA tuner? Can WMC distinguish the difference and set recordings accordingly?

    Appreciate the input. Thanks!

    Comment by Jim Robinson — April 10, 2011 @ 5:13 pm

  14. @Jim, yes. I have a 2250 also. The way I do it is, in Media Center 7, you can change which tuners go to which channels. So everything that standard cable (with no set top box) can handle I disable the HDPVR as a tuner for those channels.

    Comment by admin — April 13, 2011 @ 9:22 am

  15. Using DVBLink also gives the ability to watch TV on any Win7 laptop/PC in the house as well.

    Comment by William — May 11, 2011 @ 4:43 am

  16. Has there been any strides to overcome the dreaded BSOD with this setup? I have a theory I havent tried but plan to: Set my HTPC to reboot everyday at ~2AM and while it is rebooting use a simple outlet timer to “reboot” the HD-PVR at the same time…any comments on whether this will make a difference?

    Comment by whitedragon94 — May 19, 2011 @ 6:09 am

  17. Hmmm… Mine has never BSOD’d. I used to use a timer when I tried DVBLink but that was long ago and I think DVBLink has improved. I’m currently still using Hauppauge drivers.

    Comment by admin — May 19, 2011 @ 8:34 am

  18. Just to recap, my setup with the Hauppauge drivers was easy and flawless. The drivers would work with no issues for roughly 1 to 1.5 days then I would randomly get a BSOD. Once the computer rebooted, its like the cycle started again: 1 to 1.5 days then BSOD. This is why I made the last comment. I am currently using the trial of DVBLink but, to be honest, I dont particularly care for the setup and the way it works. If you can give me anymore pointers for the Hauppauge drivers, please do. For the record I do follow the instructions you have listed here.

    Comment by whitedragon94 — May 19, 2011 @ 9:20 am

  19. Wish I could think of something. What version of the Hauppauge drivers were you using? New ones (1.1.29111) came out last month but I haven’t had time to try them yet. Is your system BSODing with DVBLink? Seems like a lot of people on the thread over at the Experts Forum (old Green Button) like the DVBLink stuff though it is harder to set up initially. Tell me about you system, any other tuners? Recent install? I’m assuming Windows 7, 32 or 64bit?

    Comment by admin — May 19, 2011 @ 4:15 pm

  20. I just tried the latest Hauppauge drivers. Still using IR Server Suite for changing channels. I didn’t do a new set up of MCE Tuners, it just worked. I tried doing some channel changes. It is different. Not sure it is faster but seems smoother. Anyway, I was watching a show, hit stop and exited out of Media Center to do something else on the HTPC and I got a BSOD! I’ve never had a BSOD on this machine. I’m going to run with this for a few days and see if I get another BSOD. We’ll see if I can get past 1 or 2 days like whitedragon94 reported. The system was working fine so if it is unbearable I’ll reset it via WHS.

    Comment by admin — May 19, 2011 @ 10:24 pm

  21. I might have stumbled across the issue, maybe. I am running a Hauppauge HVR-2250 in my system as well. I completely uninstalled it (this was after I installed the HDPVR), rebooted, reinstalled it using the new MCE Kit (download from Hauppauge) for the tuner and then rebooted. Since that change I have not had a blue screen. This was the first time since receiving the HDPVR that I did anything to the 2250.
    BTW: I am running the new 1.1.29111 drivers for the HDPVR because its all I have acess to.

    Comment by whitedragon94 — May 20, 2011 @ 1:42 am

  22. @whitedragon94, Thanks for the comment. I’m running a 2250 in my system as well. Maybe I’ll follow your lead and wipe out my tuner set up and then set up fresh again. If we still get blue screens I’ll see if I can dig up the old drivers and put them somewhere.

    Comment by admin — May 20, 2011 @ 10:34 am

  23. I stumbled across the previous version of drivers, tried them but after 2 hours of tweaks I could not get the channels to blast at all! I have since went back to the current release and have not had the BSOD since but on occasion I now get the weak signal message. Has there been a fix for that yet?

    Comment by whitedragon94 — May 23, 2011 @ 3:15 am

  24. With the latest driver I was getting BSODs. I restored the computer to a known good state, uninstalled the 2250 drivers and the HDPVR drivers. Then I reinstalled everything fresh. Even went through tuner set up on Media Center. All was good for a little while then BSOD again. I went back to my known good state and left it. After all that I can’t say I trust those new drivers. I’m still using IR Server Suite for channel changing.

    Comment by admin — May 23, 2011 @ 9:06 pm

  25. I just wanted to update: I made a few changes to my setup using the new 29111 drivers and it is currently much more stable, I no longer get BSODs. I installed SP1 for 7 x64 (wasn’t previously installed) and using the 1geek1tool USB view app I made sure the unit was attached to its own USB controller. I found a simple way of doing this, at least on my MB, the back USB ports mounted on the MB are all 1 controller and the pin connectors (for front or back external ports) are on the second controller.

    Also, it seems Hauppauge is working on the issue as I eMailed their support department with the issues I was having and they replyed back (within roughly 2 hours!) asking for the memory dumb files of the BSODs. The reply was from Jeff Fox out of the NY Hauppauge office.

    Comment by whitedragon94 — May 30, 2011 @ 4:13 am

  26. Thanks for the update. Good news about Hauppauge. In my set up, I had SP1 installed and was still getting the BSODs with that new driver. Let me know if you hear back from Hauppauge about anything new.

    Comment by admin — May 30, 2011 @ 9:00 am

  27. Hi,

    I have been using TME 2.0 with my HD PVR for about 10 months – but I “decided” to mess up my sound / video drivers trying to get sound while recording an IE9 Flash stream to disk. Now, when I open TME 2.0 and try to capture, there is no drop-down selection for both the video input and audio input. My desktop is an HP Pavilion e9270t, running Windows 7 64 bit Ultimate. I did get TME to work with a Win7 64 bit Dell M4500 latop – but it is a loaner. DO you have any ideas how I can get my HP Pavilion working again? It has a Creative sound card, and I can get sound from the speakers while doing anything but trying to record video via the Hauppauge 1212 HD PVR. I tried reloading Win7 SP1 and that didn’t work. Is there codecs out there that I need to install ? HELP !!! I’ve been stuck for over 2 weeks now with really no hair left to pull out. I Thank You in advanced.

    Comment by KarlH — October 4, 2011 @ 7:38 pm

  28. Hi,

    Me again. I am thinking that I need to scrub the Registry and remove all Hauppauge – even the hard to remove H/W device entries. Cound Win7 think that I have two HD PVR’s, after installing and uninstalling 4-7 times now? I’ve read that only one device can exist – w/o having the DVBLink installed.

    Thanks !

    Comment by KarlH — October 4, 2011 @ 7:42 pm

  29. Karl, I think I would go the route of trying to delete all hauppauge and starting over. There is a utility that should be in the hauppauge directory or I think it is also on the Hauppauge site called hcwclear (or something like that, sorry, not at my htpc at the moment). That should clear out everything related to hauppauge.

    Comment by admin — October 5, 2011 @ 10:51 am

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  35. Thanks for the instructions. I got mine working. I have one problem, my TV provider is not listed in windows channel setup. So I had to use the cable company as the source for channels. I have a local IPTV service. There is no option to add a channel to that tuner. I also tried Guide Tool and it also will not allow me to add channels to that tuner. Is there any way to manually add additional channels? Otherwise, I can only setup channel numbers that match a channel that is in the cable lineup.

    Comment by Chris — February 3, 2012 @ 10:56 pm

  36. I played around with it after my post and was able to setup my channels. There is an XML file in c:\ProgramData\Hauppauge\MediaCenterService. I updated that file with my channel information. Then you need to make the file read only, otherwise it will get over written when you do a channel scan. During the channel scan it will take all the channels defined in that file. Then go and add the listings to each channel using Guide Tool.

    Comment by Chris — February 4, 2012 @ 12:34 am

  37. @Chris, glad you got it to work. To be honest, I didn’t know about that xml file (or have forgotten about it) so thanks for coming back and posting about it. Are you using the HDPVR IR blaster to change channels or some other method?

    Comment by admin — February 4, 2012 @ 10:36 am

  38. Hi, the link for david3663′s blog about how to setup the HD-PVR to use MCE blaster is broken, does anyone know where the instructions are or how to set it up? Thanks

    Comment by Eric — February 15, 2012 @ 5:59 am

  39. Thanks so much. This was a great help after stumbling for days… I now have a working PVR!!!

    Comment by JGArizona — September 18, 2012 @ 8:49 am

  40. My system is a Hauppauge HD-PVR, H21-200 Direct TV, win 7 Ultimate, Home built Duo Core Atom 4Gb 2Tb, DVBLink channel switching via IP… Hauppauge IR Blasters just dont work (IMO)

    Comment by JGArizona — September 18, 2012 @ 8:54 am

  41. Hi, I just wanted to give my thanks for posting this article. Especially the one about using the alternative “external” blaster. The built in one was just too slow for me. And I would never have figured out the IR Blaster Suite without your help! Thanks again!

    Comment by Chuck — February 9, 2013 @ 12:18 pm

  42. Can these approaches be applied to the newest Hauppauge HD DVR 2 model 1512? It looks like their page has different drivers, etc. for this one and doesn’t show a tab for Media Center

    Comment by Patrick — March 7, 2013 @ 12:50 pm

  43. I talked to a Hauppauge tech before I bought the PVR2, and he said that it would not work with Media Center, although they are working on it.

    Comment by Rob — March 29, 2013 @ 7:38 am

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