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WinTV-HVR-1250

Quick Installation Guide

for Windows Vista (all versions)

QI-WINTV-HVR1250-V1A · 2/1/2008   © Hauppauge Computer Works, Inc. 2007, 2008

WinTV-HVR-1250 board

Remote control transmitter

with 2

AAA batteries (on some models only)

Remote control receiver cable

with velcro dot fastener (on some
models only)

WinTV-HVR Windows  Installation
CD-ROM

with:

· WinTV application with 

SoftPVR™

· WinTV Scheduler

· WinTV Utilities

1. Contents of the WinTV-HVR-1250 package

To install, switch off the computer and remove the computer cover. The
manufacturer of your PC supplies instructions on removing the PC cover.

N

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.

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.

3. Installing the WinTV-HVR-1250 board

You can now connect the leads
provided to the WinTV-HVR-1250. You
will only need to connect using the 

S-

Video

or 

Comp Vid In

or 

Left/Right

Audio In

if you are using a external

audio/video source.

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/Composite:

Video input

connector. For either S-Video or
composite (composite video requires
the S-Video to composite adapter). 

Left/right audio input: 

Stereo audio

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

4. Connecting the Aerial and IR cable

5. Install the WinTV-HVR-1250 driver 

To start the WinTV software installation,
click 

Start

Run

then type your CD-

ROM drive letter (for example: D:\) and
then 

Setup.exe

Chose a language, and click 

Next

.

Once the installation procedure is
finished you will see the 

WinTV Icon

on

your desktop. It is also listed in the Start
menu under the Program files and

Hauppauge WinTV

” folder. 

Can you now click on 

Start / Shut Down

and

Restart

to re-start the computer.

6. WinTV Software Installation

Clicking on the 

Record button

will cause the 

Record menu

to roll down

and start recording. Click the 

Playback button

to open the 

Playback

menu

.

Recording TV with the WinTV

When recording clear QAM and ATSC digital TV, the recording format is the
same as the digital TV resolution of the TV program.  These recordings will
consume a large amount of hard disk space. For example, if the TV
program is being transmitted at the highest ATSC resolution, called “1080i’,
the recording will consume 5.6 Gigabytes of disk space per hour of
recording.

When recording analog cable TV using SoftPVR, the ‘DVD’ MPEG-2 format
will typically consume 2.8 Gbytes per hour. 

Record and Playback menu

Recording TV

Click the 

Record button

on the WinTV application to open the Record

control bar, automatically generate a file name and start recording your TV
program.

Clicking the 

Record button 

while recording will start an automatic timer.

Click the Record button once for 15 minutes, twice for 30 minutes and so
on.

Configuring the record formats

When recording analog TV, WinTV uses your PC or laptops processor and
Hauppauge’s SoftPVR to
make the recording. The
default recording quality is
DVD. To configure the
directory to store video
recordings and to check the
analog recording format, click
the 

Pref button

and then

Movies

Note: 

since ATSC digital

recording uses the format the
original TV program is
broadcast in, there are no
other recording format options.

Time counter -

the time is specified in a Hour:Minute:Second format.

Stop:

Clicking the Stop button will stop the video you are recording or

playing back.

Play:

Clicking the Play button will playback from disk the last video file

created. When playing a video, you can rewind, fast forward, replay 10 sec
or skip forward 10 sec using the buttons on the control bar.

Pause: 

Clicking the Pause button while Playing will pause your

audio/video.

Rewind button:

Clicking the Rewind button will play the video file in

reverse. Clicking the Rewind button again will continue the playing of the
video.

Fast forward button: 

Clicking the Fast Forward button one time will fast

forward your video at 2X speed. Clicking the Fast Forward button two times

Running WinTV for the first time

To start the WinTV application, double click on the 

WinTV

icon on your

desk top. When you run WinTV for the first time, a message says 

Would

you like to scan for channels now?

Click 

YES

.

Choose “Cable TV” to scan your cable TV for both 

analog

and 

clear QAM

digital cable TV

channels. If you choose “Antenna”, both over-the-air

ATSC digital TV

and 

analog channels 

will be scaned.

Click the 

Scan button

and WinTV will automatically scan for channels. The

scanning process takes about
10 minutes. The scanning
process for ATSC will scan from
channels 2 to 68.

Channel names

Click your 

right mouse button

in the 

Channel Name

box to

see a list of channels which
have been scanned. You can
also see the channel list by
clicking 

Menu

Channel Suite

Manager

Sources

and then

chosing either 

analog

ATSC

or 

clear QAM

The ATSC digital TV channels
that are found will appear in the
channel listing box. The Name
is the name as defined by the broadcaster. The Channel number is created
by the WinTV application. For ATSC digital channels, since each primary
channel might have several subchannels, the channel number is calculated
so that channel 22.2 would be listed as 1222. Channel 7.2 would be listed

TV Connector

for

analog or digital TV

signal

Left/Right Audio

input (Line-In)

Remote control

receiver connector

S-Video/Composite

video input connector

Installing the WinTV-HVR under Vista

Boot into Windows Vista. Insert the 

WinTV-HVR Installation CD-ROM

in

your PC’s CD-ROM drive.

When the 

Found New Hardware 

box

opens, click 

Locate and install driver

software

.

Click 

Continue

. If you see a message

which asks about searching on-line, click

Don’t search on-line

.

Click 

Next

.

Click 

Close

.

Hauppauge Computer Works, Inc.

Telephone:

631-434-1600

91 Cabot Court

Fax:

631-434-3198   

Hauppauge, NY 11788

Tech Support:

631-434-3197

[email protected]

Sales:

[email protected]

Web site:

www.hauppauge.com

ATSC digital TV is a 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. WinTV-
HVR-1600 cannot receive digital satellite TV.  You can receive digital cable
TV channels if they are broadcast “in the clear” (called “clear QAM”).

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 single TV tuner built-in, which can receive either
analog and digital cable TV or digital ATSC TV. It uses your PC or laptop’s
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.  

The portable antenna (supplied on some WinTV models) is designed
primarily for ATSC digital TV reception, and will work within 10 miles of an
ATSC transmitter (reception might be limited by obstructions such as steel
buildings). 

For the best ATSC digital TV reception, a roof top ‘Wideband or Highgain’
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 WinTV-
HVR-1250 work?

7. The WinTV v6 application

“Always-on-Top” mode 

Always on Top

allows WinTV to be visible on your Windows desktop, on

top of any applications. To turn on, click the 

Always on top button

. It will

turn green. To turn off, click this button again. A convenient way to use
Always-on-Top is to make the TV window in the no-title mode small and
make the TV window in the title mode larger. Then you can switch from a
small window to a larger one by clicking the right mouse button.

To hide the WinTV toolbar (No-title mode)

Click your 

right mouse button 

in the WinTV’s video window for the no-title

mode. To restore the toolbars (the title mode), once again click your right
mouse button in the video window. You can set the size of the window
differently in each mode.

Pref button

Click the Pref button to open the Preferences menu:

View:

These are the settings for the On Screen Display of the TV channel

and Audio Volume plus controls for the Toolbar mode (Title mode),
NoToolbar mode (No Title) and Full Screen (TV mode).

Movies:

Here is where you configure the video and audio setting for

SoftPVR. You can set the movie record directory (DVCR Record File Path),
the MPEG Quality settings, and the Audio settings.

Snapshot:

Set the size of your captured image, and settings for

capturing motion or still images. Note: VMR must be the graphics setting
to enable snapshot.

Audio:

Your audio settings are configured here.

Color: 

Adjust the color of your TV picture here.

Menu button

Click the Menu button to open the TV setup menu. Here is the main control
bar for TV channels, and duplicate controls for other functions:

Suite Manager:

Configure the TV tuner (scanning, naming, channel

preset,etc) setting up ‘favorite channel lists’)

Configuration: 

Duplicate configuration menus for colour, audio, MPEG

settings, etc.

View:

For setting an exact TV window size: 320x240, 640x480 etc.

Configuring an external A/V source in WinTV 

To bring video from an external audio/video source, you will need audio
and video cables from your set top box.

When using an external audio/video source such as a satellite TV receiver,
VCR, cable TV set top box, camcorder, game console etc, you will need to
connect the S-Video input connector or Composite video input connector
for video and the Audio input (Line-In) for the sound.

To configure the external A/V source, in the WinTV application click 

Menu

/

Suite Manager

and 

Sources

. To add the S-video or Composite source,

highlight the entry and then select the 

Video Format

from the drop down

list. NTSC is the commonly used format in North America.

Select 

Add

to finish. Then click 

Close

. To select an external audio/video

source, click the Up and Down channel buttons to cycle through TV,
Composite and S-Video sources. The external A/V source is at the end of
the channel list.

TV 

Mode

Pause

Record

Playback

8. Watch, pause and record TV

as 1072.

Some clear QAM channels are not broadcast with channel names.
Therefore, the WinTV application simply enters these with channel numbers.
For example, in the channel list you might see a channel named ‘2002
qam-2’. This means that this is a clear QAM channel where your local cable
operator did not include a channel name with this channel.

Not all QAM channels can be viewed. WinTV will detect all QAM channels
but only those which are broadcast without encryption (‘in the clear’) can
be watched.

Rescanning TV channels

If you want to rescan for TV channels, click 

Menu

Suite Manager

. To scan

analog cable TV channels, under 

Sources

, highlight 

Analog source

and

click 

Auto scan

.

To scan for digital cable TV channels, under 

Input Sources

, highlight 

Clear

QAM source 

and click 

Auto scan

.  

To scan for ATSC digital TV channels, under 

Input Sources

, highlight 

ATSC

source 

and click 

Auto scan

During the scan for digital TV channels, the Signal Status will show a quality
level and the locked box will be checked if a channel is detected. 

Other changes to channel listings

If you want to add names or fine tune an analog channel, click 

Menu 

/

Suite Manager

Sources

. Choose 

Analog Source, ATSC source or clear

QAM source

. You will see a list of your channels. Click on the desired

channel. Click the Tune button to change channel. You can change the
Name to the name of the station. To fine tune an analog channel, unclick
AFT and then use the Finetune slide bar.  When finished, click 

Close

.

Changing channels

You can change channels by clicking the Channel Up or Channel Down
buttons on the WinTV application. You can also type a channel number (for
example: 27 or 1021) and WinTV will tune to that channel. If the entered
channel does not exist, you will see a black window. You can also right click
in the Current TV channel box, where you will see a list of channels.

Changing the TV window size

You can change the size of the WinTV window by grabbing any corner and
dragging the video window to the desired size.

Displaying TV full screen

When you click the 

Full screen TV button

, TV will appear full screen on

your PC monitor. When finished watching TV full screen, 

right click your

mouse button

.

If you see video with a black box around it, click the Pref button then click
TV mode tab. Check the box which says “Allow resolution change”.

Snapshot Still

capture

Freeze picture

CFG

Configure Snapshot

Mute

Setup 

Menu

Full screen

Remove toolbars

no title mode

Minimise

Close

Channel surf

Channel down

Channel up

Last channel

Current TV channel

Click your right mouse button

in the TV window to remove

toolbars. Click again to

restore toolbars. 

Record

Playback

Volume

Always on Top

Snapshot viewer

window:

Double click on each

thumbnail to see

image full size.Click

and hold your right

mouse button to see

image options.

Pause

TV-Mode

Channel List

Click your right mouse button

here to see the channel list

Connecting the Remote control
receiver cable

Plug the 

remote control receiver

cable 

into the 

Remote Control

Receiver Connector

.

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.

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