Built in splitter for WinTV-HVR2250

Help with tuners from ATI, Hauppauge, AverMedia and more.
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spinnaker

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Built in splitter for WinTV-HVR2250

#1

Post by spinnaker » Sat Nov 05, 2011 2:27 am

I just bought a Hauppauge WinTV-HVR2250. It is supposed to have a built in splitter which I assume can connect one antenna / cable to both channels. But I do not see how to configure the splitter. How do I do this?
Last edited by spinnaker on Sat Nov 05, 2011 11:34 am, edited 2 times in total.

adam1991

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#2

Post by adam1991 » Sat Nov 05, 2011 8:15 am

spinnaker wrote:I just bought a Hauppauge Built in splitter for WinTV-HVR2250.
you bought a *what*?

It is supposed to have a built in splitter
*what* is supposed to have a built in splitter?

which I assume can connect one antenna / cable to both channels.
to both *what*?

But I do not see how to configure the splitter. How do I do this?


Ummmmmm.....I have a 2250. And I just went and checked Hauppauge's documentation on that piece. So let me go back to basics and ask:

are you trying to connect an over the air antenna? Yes or no.

Are you trying to connect cable TV from the wall? Yes or no.

Are you trying to connect a cable or satellite converter box? Yes or no.

spinnaker

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#3

Post by spinnaker » Sat Nov 05, 2011 11:45 am

So I had a typo in my original message. But you knew that. What's with the attitude?

What difference should it make on the input? Right now it will be over the air. The antenna arrives next week. I need to be able to connect the antenna to both antenna inputs. But it seems this can be done internally on the card as opposed to an external splitter. The documentation mentions an "on-board TV antenna splitter" but it does not give any details on how to use it or even if it works for straight cable or a cable box.

adam1991

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#4

Post by adam1991 » Sat Nov 05, 2011 12:07 pm

No attitude. I honestly have NO idea what you said--hence my questions. I didn't see any typo, or anything that looked like a typo. You missed a crucial word completely, which completely changed what you were saying and made it meaningless. No one can read your mind; we depend on what you write to have meaning. In addition, you say "both channels" but THAT doesn't make any sense either. Now I understand you mean "both tuners".

Those are not typos, those are complete information game changers. With nothing more than gobbledygook, no one here can help you. Hence, my request for clear information. I mean, you DO know that "I just bought a Hauppauge Built in splitter for WinTV-HVR2250" is WAY WAY different from "I just bought a Hauppauge WinTV-HVR2250. It is supposed to have a built in splitter", don't you?

Why the attitude toward people who are taking time out of their lives to help you? I guess I could have ignored you and let you hang--would you have preferred that to my asking you to be clear so that I could help?

The input makes a difference because I thought it would be handy for folks to be absolutely clear what you're trying to accomplish, and the input is the place to start. The 2250 offers many inputs, and even comes with a "breakout" cable--something that SOME people would (incorrectly) call a "splitter". But you're not using that.

OTA from an antenna. Great.

So, you plug the antenna in according to the directions. The 2250 itself is built to do what it needs to direct whatever signal is coming over that wire--OTA, analog cable, or clear QAM--to both onboard tuners.

Read the docs again, and you'll see that the documentation does mention how it works for straight cable, cable box, and OTA antenna.

spinnaker

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#5

Post by spinnaker » Sat Nov 05, 2011 12:30 pm

I have been around forums for a long time offering many many hours of my own help. I know what it takes. Sorry but it sure sounded like anti newbie attitude to me.

The only documentation that I am aware of is the installation guides.

http://www.hauppauge.com/site/products/ ... r2250.html

I searched the both PDFs. It seems to be the same printed docs that came with the board. There is only one mention of the word splitter in one of the guides. and it says

"WinTV-HVR-2250 dual tuner PCI Express board, with on-board TV
antenna splitter and dual hardware MPEG-2 encoders"

And that is it. If you are aware of another link to documentation then I would appreciate that you share it.

It is in the WinTV software docs which I do not have that software installed. I am using WMC.

richard1980

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#6

Post by richard1980 » Sat Nov 05, 2011 12:53 pm

If you look at the WinTV-HVR-2250 Quick Install guide you will see a picture that shows 2 coax connectors. Only one is for TV (the other is for radio). Connect a signal to the top coax connector on the card. The card has a built-in splitter that will pipe the signal source to the two onboard TV tuners. Set up the tuners in WMC and that's it. I'm not sure what kind of configuration you want to do, but there is nothing to configure for the splitter. Like any other splitter, it just works.

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#7

Post by richard1980 » Sat Nov 05, 2011 1:05 pm

And to be honest, the original post was about as confusing and "newb" as can be. It's better now that it has been edited, but it still doesn't make much sense (specifically, the part about "connect one cable/antenna to both channels"...replace "channels" with "tuners" and it will make sense. And of course, asking how to configure a splitter makes no sense either. You can't configure a splitter. It just works.)

So I can see where adam1991 is coming from. Don't fault him for your post not making any sense. That said, I think adam1991 could have done a better job at responding (the "yes or no" stuff is uncalled for IMO). But to be fair, when I first read the original post, I just laughed and moved on. The post was such nonsense I wasn't even going to waste my time. That reminds me of the guy that was in here a few weeks ago asking about "System 7 Media Center" (wtf is that?). I don't have time for people that don't at least have a basic level of understanding, and based on what the OP originally said, it looked like you had no level of understanding. At least adam1991 was willing to take the time to try to make things clear.

adam1991

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#8

Post by adam1991 » Sat Nov 05, 2011 1:28 pm

http://hauppauge.com/site/products/data_hvr2250.html

WinTV-HVR-2250 has these great features on one half height PCIe board:

* Dual tuner TV board for your PC:
o Dual digital TV receivers for ATSC or clear QAM. Watch and record two ATSC or clear QAM digital TV programs at the same time. Watch and record all ATSC and QAM formats, including the high definition 1080i format. Clear QAM digital TV channels are TV channels which are broadcast "in the clear" on your cable TV network.
o Dual built-in hardware MPEG-2 encoders for recording analog cable TV, for the best system performance. Watch and record two cable TV programs at the same time. When recording analog cable TV, the dual built in hardware MPEG-2 encoders let your PC run at full speed!
o Built-in antenna splitter allows you to make one connection to either cable TV or an ATSC antenna, and watch and record up to 2 channels.


The marketing materials pretty much sum things up:

* dual tuners
* Digital formats: ATSC or clear QAM
* analog cable TV (includes MPEG encoders on board to relieve your CPU of the encoding task)
* One connection lets you tune 2 channels

What the materials DON'T clear up is, any given tuner can be configured for EITHER analog (NTSC) OR digital (ATSC OR clear QAM). It is NOT the case that a given tuner can tune both analog AND digital simultaneously. Shoot, that would be four tuners, really...anyway, it's just two tuners.

Windows Media Center works great with this unit. When you hook your antenna up, run through MC setup and make sure it knows to look for ATSC tuners. It will find them.

And you simply hook up the single antenna cable per the instructions. Both tuners will use it. (THAT'S what the marketing materials should say--"simple and easy to use; connect one antenna or cable TV cable, and both tuners will automatically use it to tune channels independently"...)

spinnaker

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#9

Post by spinnaker » Sat Nov 05, 2011 2:18 pm

richard1980 wrote:If you look at the WinTV-HVR-2250 Quick Install guide you will see a picture that shows 2 coax connectors. Only one is for TV (the other is for radio). Connect a signal to the top coax connector on the card. The card has a built-in splitter that will pipe the signal source to the two onboard TV tuners. Set up the tuners in WMC and that's it. I'm not sure what kind of configuration you want to do, but there is nothing to configure for the splitter. Like any other splitter, it just works.
Thanks that make sense now. I guess I was just not looking at the picture closely enough. At first it looked to me like both were for TV or maybe I assumed it because of the coax connector or maybe a combination of both.

Is there a way to chose a tuner in WMC? Or does WMC just do it for you? With Tivo, you can pick the tuner you are viewing so basically you can view two channels at the same time. You cannot view them at the same time but if watching live and using that method both channels will be buffered so if you switch between tuners you can review the buffer.

I know you can just simply record one but it is still kind of nice to switch live TV and keep the buffer feature.

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#10

Post by spinnaker » Sat Nov 05, 2011 2:22 pm

adam1991 wrote:http://hauppauge.com/site/products/data_hvr2250.html


What the materials DON'T clear up is, any given tuner can be configured for EITHER analog (NTSC) OR digital (ATSC OR clear QAM). It is NOT the case that a given tuner can tune both analog AND digital simultaneously. Shoot, that would be four tuners, really...anyway, it's just two tuners.
Yeah I think that what confused me. I saw the two coax connectors and a reference to the splitter and I assumed you could have two different feeds. One ATSC and one clear QAM. Of course you would just get one channel for each and I am not sure why someone would want to do that anyway but who knows.

adam1991

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#11

Post by adam1991 » Sat Nov 05, 2011 2:54 pm

WMC chooses the tuner for you. It's all invisible, and it all just works. If you're recording only one thing and you choose to watch live TV from the guide (why anyone would watch live TV I don't know), just select the channel you want to watch and it comes on.

If you're watching and 7MC suddenly wants both tuners for recording, it will pop up a warning and ask you.

If you're recording two things and suddenly want to watch live TV, 7MC will pop up a warning and ask you which recording you want to dump.

Just dive into it, release the impulse to control things, and watch how easy it really is.

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#12

Post by blueiedgod » Mon Nov 07, 2011 3:31 pm

spinnaker wrote:
richard1980 wrote:If you look at the WinTV-HVR-2250 Quick Install guide you will see a picture that shows 2 coax connectors. Only one is for TV (the other is for radio). Connect a signal to the top coax connector on the card. The card has a built-in splitter that will pipe the signal source to the two onboard TV tuners. Set up the tuners in WMC and that's it. I'm not sure what kind of configuration you want to do, but there is nothing to configure for the splitter. Like any other splitter, it just works.
Thanks that make sense now. I guess I was just not looking at the picture closely enough. At first it looked to me like both were for TV or maybe I assumed it because of the coax connector or maybe a combination of both.

Is there a way to chose a tuner in WMC? Or does WMC just do it for you? With Tivo, you can pick the tuner you are viewing so basically you can view two channels at the same time. You cannot view them at the same time but if watching live and using that method both channels will be buffered so if you switch between tuners you can review the buffer.

I know you can just simply record one but it is still kind of nice to switch live TV and keep the buffer feature.

You can set tuner priority in the advanced TV set up, or from the guide by selecting which tuner you want to tune a particular channel. However, I don't really see a point in your set up. It is worth while for people like me who have 4X CableCard tuners and 4X ClearQAM tuners, and we don't want to "waste" a CableCard tuner tuning Clear QAM content if a ClearQAM tuner is available, in case there is something on Cable that will need a CableCard tuner later...

As to switching between two channels, you would have to hit record for the channel that you are switching away from to maintain the recording and abilitity to go back.

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