A peek under the hood: Windows Media Center’s PVR in Windows 7

A common question we see in the community is “why didn’t show x or show y record when scheduled?”

I thought that an article outlining some of the inner workings Windows Media Center for Windows 7 uses to determine what gets record and when. A caveat: the PVR is a complex beast so not everything will be covered. Also the type and number of tuners can affect how the PVR behaves.

In the descriptions below the machine will have NTSC and QAM tuners. So two shows can be recorded at once and the configuration will have SD and HD capabilities.