Wednesday, February 04, 2009

Hauppauge HD-PVR on Media Center Arrives

Hauppauge HD-PVR
Wouldn't you know, it wasn't Microsoft that brings Hauppauge HD-PVR support to Media Center - instead it was the crafty user-developers who hacked together a solution for us.  Yes it's true, Media Center users can now use Hauppauge HD-PVR with their Media Center software!


All TV Channels including those Encrypted Thanks to the "Analog Hole"
For those two of you who don't know the significance of this, the Hauppauge HD-PVR allows you to take your cable box or satellite box and connect it to your computer to tune live and recorded TV to your media center.  [Read More about the Hauppauge HD-PVR here].  That includes HD, SD, encrypted or not thanks to the HD-PVR's use of the analog hole.  The HD-PVR can take any component out and convert the analog stream into h.264 video with AC3 5.1 Dolby Digital Sound.

DVBSBridge ADD-ON PROGRAM FOR MEDIA CENTER
The hack uses DVBSBridge which was originally designed to enable DVB-S channels in Vista Media center and XP MCE 2005.  The new HD-PVR functionality for DVBSBridge adds the following features:

  • High-Definition H.264 Video with AC3 5.1 Dolby Digital Sound
  • Set-top box control from Media Center though HD-PVR's own IR Blaster
  • All the goods that Windows Media Center has to offer... DRM free!

System Requirements

  • Windows 7 or a Windows Media Center with H.264 support for Live TV
  • For SDTV (480i) capture, H.264 decoding using a software-only codec might be enough, depending of your CPU
  • For HDTV (1080i/720p) capture, H.264 decoding might requires hardware accelerated codec, since your processor might not be able to cope with the decoding of the stream. As a result, Media Center’s rendering might starts lagging frames
NOTE: Windows Media Center uses different codecs depending on the H.264 input source. The Live TV/Recorded TV uses Microsoft’s own codec and external media (AVI, MKV) uses the codecs from DirectShow. Note that under Windows Vista TV Pack, the H.264 hardware acceleration is restricted and thus we recommend using Windows 7 for HDTV usage.

MORE INFORMATION AND DOWNLOAD
You can view the entire DVBSBridge procedures here: http://dvblogic.com/download/Manuals/dvbsbridge_pd_configuration.pdf
 
For more information on DVBSBridge, check out their forums at www.dvbsbridge.com
Download the HDPVRBridge program here and let me know how it works for you!  Thanks to GhostLobster for the tip!

NOTE:  Their server is getting hit pretty hard right now so it could take you a while to get the download.

Feel Free to DIGG this story ;)