Getting Windows 7 media center to work on Hauppauge PVR 150
August 11, 2009 8 Comments
I was one of those crazy people downloading Windows 7 RTM from MSDN on Aug. 6 when it was first available. Even though it is dog slow, I have to say it is well worth it. I am very impressed by Windows 7 so far. Yes, the UI is cool, but more importantly, it is super fast and responsive. I was running Win XP before on my work laptop. After switching to Windows 7, I felt everything, including startup/suspend/resume, happens much faster. Windows 7 also uses less memory. I used to only be able to run one VM at a time before I max out my 2G memory, but I now can run two VMs comfortably at the same time while all my development tools are loaded.
I am so impressed that I decide to upgrade my home PC to Windows 7 as well, which leads to the topic of this post. My home PC has a Hauppauge PVR-150 which I use to record TV shows. Unfortunately, Windows 7 does not work out of the box. First of all, Windows 7 does not have the driver out of the box. This is no big deal, I simply download the driver. (Note, the driver does not work if you have more than 4GB memory on 64bit OS). The more serious problem is that Media Center would hang when you start watching live TV or record new shows. The first picture may show, but it would not show any video or audio. Worst of all, there is no error message, so you cannot tell what is going on.
After tinkering around with it for hours, I start to suspect that the codec is not working properly. So I installed the Nvidia PureVideo codec. Then I used the Media Center Decoder Utility to switch the codec from the default to PureVideo. Guess what, it now works. I believe there is also a free codec on sourceforge, but I have not tried it yet. It is surprising that the default would not work out of the box. I guess Windows 7 still has a lot of kinks to work out, but overall, it is the best Microsoft OS I have used.
Huan Liu's Blog 
I have the same problem. But when I try your solution it does not solve it. The effect remains the same. As soon as the media center wants to configure the TV card, it shuts down. After this the MC detects no TV card any more
The only thing I can think of is to try a different codec. Post back if you found a solution to your problem. Thanks.
Sorry for commenting Off-Topic but which Word Press theme are you using? It’s looking cool.
Thanks, Jese. I believe it is “Cutline by Chris Pearson”
Getting Windows 7 media center to work on Hauppauge PVR 150 .Thanks for nice post.I added to my twitter.
I have Win7 and am bidding on a used PVR-150. Have you had and any other problems since your original post? Have you tried recording anything from a VCR or analog camcorder with the PVR-150? If so, how have things worked out with that?
It works flawlessly ever since then. I have not tried VCR or camcorder, but in theory, there should be no different. Good luck on your bidding.
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