problems recording with Windows Media Center

How do I determine the exact tuner card that I have? I checked under device manager but it does not differentiate which HVR 1250 it is. It came with my PC, but the manufacturer did not list which one it was either. I got this computer only a couple months ago so I assumed that the tuner would be Windows 7 compliant. If it is not compliant, why would I be having this particular problem. Why would it only show up on these two channels and not others?

Coming back to your suggestion about signal strength, when I perform a signal strength test inside Windows Media Center, those two channels that are giving me the problem usually have either five or six green bars. The thing that these intermittent glitches is that they are exactly the same length every time they occur. It's not like a sudden drop in signal strength, which could be regained within a second or perhaps several seconds. It probably would not be the same length every time. I have seen it occur probably over 100 times and it always 3 seconds. Plus it almost always happens the same number of times during a show. Perhaps you are right about this being a signal issue, but I am still not quite understanding why it would be an issue.

Do you happen to live near an airport?

Just a thought I had as a plane buzzed over...

When you are recording, are you running other programs or maximizing/minimizing WMC?

Could another program or service be causing the issue? Do you know how to start with minimal startup items and services (including no AV, etc) running?

dmehling said:

How do I determine the exact tuner card that I have?

It should be marked on the card somewhere, you may have to physically remove the card to see it or perhaps Hauppauge support could point out how to identify the model numbers...

It depends. About half of the programs are being recorded while I am working on other things on my computer. Other times the recordings are done very late at night when no other programs are active except background programs. Regardless of what is going on, there is no difference. Are you suggesting that other programs may be taking away resources from the recording process? I have kind of ruled that out. If I'm watching a program live everything is fine, but the minute I click on record, the problem will begin occurring sooner or later. I can actually see it happen as I'm watching the program while it is being recorded. As that was going on I had my task manager open showing CPU usage for all 8 of my virtual CPUs. I could see absolutely no change in CPU usage for any of my processes when the glitch occurred.

Perhaps there may be a comptaibility issue with another program/service and disk access.

have you run the full uninstall utility from Hauppauge, then ran their latest W7 installer, then re-run WMC setup from the beiginning using custom not Express setup?

Also, the usage meter may not see very short spikes.

Quick question do you happen to have a Western Digital Green drive?

I don't have that particular hard drive. Also I was able to pretty conclusively determine that I have the 1196 model. Is that the Windows 7 compliant model?

When you say run the Windows 7 installer, are you talking about the Win TV 7 program? Or are you just talking about the drivers for Windows 7?