It's Tuner Time

If you have been reading carefully, you know that there is one very important card that I have not installed yet. While I wait for my schedule to align with Judy's so that I can get the correct wireless G card from here, I'll install the Hauppauge HVR card.

1. Locate the serial number for the card and write it down. If you do not do this, there is a utility that you can run later and get the serial number directly from the card.
   
2. Really power down the machine by turning it off at the power supply. Just because you told Windows to power down, does not mean there is no power flowing to the motherboard.
   
3. Remove the case cover, hard drive cage, and support bar.
   
4. Remove the full sized bracket from the HVR card and install the low profile bracket. Also replace the full sized bracket on the Auxiliary A/V panel with the low profile one.
   
5. Remove the PCI slot covers for the PCI-Express x1 and PCI-Express x16 slots. These are the two PCI slots farthest to the left, when viewed from the back of the case.
   
6. Install the HVR card in the x1 slot. This is the far left PCI slot. Replace the screw removed from the slot cover.
   
7. Install the Auxiliary panel in the x16 slot. This is the middle left slot. Replace the screw removed from the slot cover.
   
8. Plug in the cable for the Auxiliary panel into A/V slot closest to the back of the HVR card.
   
9. Reassemble the machine.
   
10. Plug in the A/V breakout cable into the A/V input connector on the HVR card's panel (mounting bracket).
    
11. Install the ATSC antenna cable or the cable system to the TV connector on the HVR card.
    
12. Turn on power and boot.
    
13. Windows will detect the new hardware. Tell it not to install the software for it.
    
14. Do not bother with the Hauppauge installation CD. Go to www.hauppauge.com, locate the support page for the 2250 and download the latest Drivers and WinTV. The downloaded file will create a directory named C:\Hauppauge.
    
15. Using Windows Explorer, open C:\Hauppauge. Within this directory will be another directory with the current installation CD. Double click on setup.exe.
    
16. Select the language to use.
    
17. Click on Step 1: Install Drivers. The latest drivers will be installed.
    
18. Click on Step 2: Install WinTV. The WinTV installation will performed. I believe that it attempts to scan for channels during the installation. If you have the antenna or cable system already connected to the 2250, then let rip. If not, then you can setup the Tuner later.
    
19. Click on Register to register your card. If you don't have the serial number, download and run the ProdInfo utility.
    
20. Start the WinTV application. The Device Setup Wizard will start. Select whether you are connected to a ATSC antenna (Digital ATSC) or a cable network (Clear QAM Digital cable). (Note that you can not select both ATSC and Clear QAM.) If you are using cable, also select analog TV to locate the analog channels that the cable service is providing. Finally, if you want to use the A/V inputs, select Add Composite/S-Video inputs as channels. WinTV will scan for channels, first the digital ones and then the analog ones. The scanning process takes about 10 minutes.
    
21. Click on the gear button in the bottom of the WinTV display. A tabbed dialog will open. The General tab is the initial tab. On this tab is a group of radio buttons labeled TV Shape. Select the shape of your TV.
    
22. Click on the All Channels tab. A list of the scanned channels will appear. If you're luck, the information about the channels will already be in the list. If not, select one, right click and, from the pop up menu, select Watch. As soon as you identify the channel, right click again and select Details. A new window will open with details about the channel. Change the Name field to be the desired name and press OK. Repeat this for the other channels.

When I setup the HTPC, I spent a large amount of time rearranging the current components such that my current DVR would still run. I wanted to have it as backup while I experimented with the HTPC as a DVR. There's a signal splitter on the cable and I had put the digital devices (cable box and HTPC) on one half of the split and the analog devices (SD DVR and VCR) on the other. What I didn't realize was that the RF output of the cable box was merely meant to drive the cable input of a TV set. In other words, it didn't pass through all of the cable channels. (I should have realized this, but I was thinking that it was like a VCR.) So, the first time that I had WinTV scan for channels, it found only one. I scratched my head, moved the tuner card to the other half of the splitter and then things worked much better. It wasn't until then that I realized what was happening. So, my old DVR is now without a signal. I'll have to mull over what to do about that, but that is not a topic for this blog.

As part of this grand last step, I have removed the HTPC from the monitor I was using while installing software, and connected the HTPC directly to the LCD television, using an HDMI cable that I bought at, of all places, Target.

When I booted the HTPC using the LCD television as the display, there was a noticeable pause. At first I thought that the machine was searching for the monitor, but then I realized that the BIOS does not know how to display to the HDMI port, so the pause was merely the machine's normal boot. I just couldn't see it.

I have watched a few programs on the machine, and I'm very pleased with the results. However, I haven't tried the DVR software that WinTV provides. I'm not quite sure what is going to happen when the time comes to record and the HTPC is in a sleep mode. Also, the remote doesn't seem to be working and whenever I wake up the machine from sleep mode, Vista puts up a login screen, requiring that I keep a keyword connected to it.

There's still plenty to explore here, including evaluating different DVR software. So, I guess the real fun is just beginning.