Monthly Archives: March 2010

I got my Hauppauge 1212 working in GB-PVR on Windows 7!

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I bought this thing several months ago, but getting it to work has proved such a Herculean task that I gave up after some time. I just don’t know enough about AV technologies for this. At least, that’s what I thought. I assumed it was one of those tasks that would be laughably easy if I had even the slightest idea how an H.264 decoder worked, but that, since I didn’t, proved tantamount to asking Sciurus carolinensis to glide in the air as gracefully as Glaucomys sabrinus.

Actually, however, it wasn’t that hard once I figured the process out. The trick to getting this thing to work is to use GB-PVR. Narrowing down my procedure to the things that worked, here’s how I managed to get the HD-PVR to work flawlessly:

  • Install GB-PVR (I used version 1.4.7)
  • Install Arcsoft Total Media Extreme. The purpose of installing this software with such an asinine name is not to actually use it, but to get the Arcsoft video codec. Using ffdshow/libavcodec in GB-PVR will not work so we need to use the Arcsoft codec. The HD-PVR should come with the Arcsoft software for free.
  • Click Start->All Programs->Accessories and right-click on the Command Prompt icon to choose “Run as Administrator”. Navigate to the codec directory:


    cd C:\Programs Files (x86)\Arcsoft\TotalMedia Extreme\Codec

  • Register ASVid.ax:

    regsvr32 ASVid.ax

    This will let you choose the Arcsoft video codec in the GBPVR configuration utility. It won’t up on the list of available codecs otherwise.

  • You should have gotten a confirmation window after hitting . Now in Windows Explorer, navigate to


    cd C:\Programs Files (x86)\Devnz\GBPVR

  • Copy the file named “config.xml” to the desktop. Now open it and add the following line (but note that you need to delete the single space after the opening brackets; I had to add those because WordPress is giving me problems with preformatted text):

    < PreferredHDPVRAudioFormat>AC3< /PreferredHDPVRAudioFormat>

    • This should enable audio in LiveTV mode.

  • Now open the GBPVR config application. Choose “Capture Sources” and “Add”. Look under “Analg HiDef Recording Plugin”. Then choose “Hauppauge WinTV HD-PVR”. I don’t have any channels or guides configured since I connect this to a set-top box and use the guide feature from the cable provider, but this is where you would configure guides and channel listings if you planned on using them
  • In the “Playback” tab choose “EVR” for the renderer, “Arcsoft Video Decoder” for “Video Decoder” and also for “H.64 Decoder”. I left everything else on “System Default” and it works.

    • Now if you start GB-PVR you should get both audio and video in LiveTV mode. Until I read about the line that must be added in config.xml, I had been using GB-PVR for recording, but when in LiveTV mode I would have to pause the video before I got any audio. If I paused for just one second and then unpaused it I would get audio and video just fine, but it was still irritating since it meant that I had to actually be recording the video to hear any audio (and I’d have to remember to empty the Temp directory for Live recordings every so often). This way though, you shouldn’t have to hit pause at all to get audio and video.