[. . . ] WinTV-HVR-1600 Personal Video Recorder What is ATSC digital TV, and how does the WinTV-HVR-1600 work? ATSC digital TV is a over-the-air digital TV for North America. ATSC digital TV typically requires an antenna for reception, and is currently broadcast in 200 cities, with over 1500 TV stations. Note: ATSC digital TV is NOT digital cable TV or digital satellite TV. ATSC digital TV is transmitted in several resolutions, from "standard definition" which is similar to cable TV, up to high definition which has about 16 times the resolution of normal cable TV. [. . . ] Here are the video formats and the amount of disk space per hour used: MPEG1 VCD . 65 Gigabytes/hour MPEG2 2. 0MBits/sec (Full D1) . 9 Gigabytes/hour MPEG2 2. 0MBits/sec (Half D1) . 9 Gigabytes/hour MPEG2 12. 0 MBits/sec (Full D1) 5. 4 Gigabytes/hour MPEG2 12. 0 MBits/sec (CBR) 5. 4 Gigabytes/hour DVD Standard Play 8. 0Mbits/sec 3. 1 Gigabytes/hour DVD Long Play 6. 2Mbits/sec 2. 4 Gigabytes/hour DVD Extra Long Play 2. 5 Mbits/sec 1. 2 Gigabytes/hour SVCD Standard Play 2. 5Mbits/sec . 8 Gigabytes/hour Note: CBR is constant bit rate, VBR is variable bit rate. If you would like to burn a DVD, then chose either DVD Standard Play, DVD Long Play or DVD Extra Long Play. DVD formats record at 720x480 (720x576 with PAL video sources) using 48. 0 kHz stereo audio. If you want to watch the recorded video on your PC, for the best video quality chose MPEG2 12. 0MB/sec or DVD Standard Play. Video is recorded at 480x480 (480x576 for PAL video) at a datarate up to 2. 5Mbits/sec. For creating Video CD's for playback on your home DVD player, chose the MPEG1 VCD format. Once chosen, the Quality Level format is set for both the Pause and Record modes. The format cannot be changed while Recording or while in the Pause mode. To set up an event for timed watching or recording, run WinTVScheduler and click on the Add Program. The items that need to be set for each event are: Time to Begin Program: set to the desired start time. Click on the hour to set the hour, the minute to set the minute and the second (if you feel this is necessary) to set the minute to start the program. Note: It takes about 10 seconds to launch the WinTV and set up for recording, so set the Time to Begin Progam to 10 seconds before the time your TV show actually starts. Note: you need to leave at least 30 seconds between scheduled programs to give the recorder time to set up its disk buffers. Program Period: one time, daily, weekly Date to Begin Program: todays date is the default. Change this if you want to schedule on another date. MPEG compression formats & record directories To set the directory where your video recordings will be stored, click the PREF button (Preferences menu) on WinTV2000, then Capture and then on the MPEG tab. Set the DVCR File Path to directory where you would like to store your video recordings. The WinTV-HVR supports several formats for MPEG video compression, called Quality Levels. The differences in these formats are: The higher the datarate, the better the video quality you see from live TV and your recordings. The higher the datarate, the more disk space which will be required. - - Replay button: While in the Pause mode, hitting the Replay button acts like the Instant Replay you see on TV broadcast sporting events: the audio/video goes back in time and you repeat what you have previously seen. Each click of the Replay button causes audio/video to go back 10 seconds. For example, if you want to repeat the audio/video you saw 10 seconds ago, you would click the Replay button once. If you want to see the video you saw one minute ago, you would need to click the Replay button six times. For extended replay times, you might find it more convenient to grab the Video Position indicator control bar and move it to the left. [. . . ] Symptoms include: black screen but you can hear audio, failure to scan for channels, you can't change MPEG formats without errors, bad audio/video sync, and others. You uninstall WinDVD through the "Add/Remove Programs" in Control Panel. You will still be able to play DVD movies in MediaPlayer, since the WinTV-HVR installation provides a MediaPlayer compatible DVD player. Problem: Poor Reception or Not detecting all channels: Poor TV reception is generally the result of an weak TV signal. [. . . ]