I've been using my Hauppauge PVR-250 card to record shows with the Hauppauge TV scheduler if I'm out, and it works very well. But once its finished recording, I'd like Nero to start and create a VCD from the recorded file without me doing anything - so that a disc is waiting for me when I return.

Possible?

Unless your hauppage scheduler can somehow run an action after recording is complete I think some kind of program/batch files will have to be written. If it were me I'd write a program to monitor a directory. If a new file appeared in the directory I'd try to open it for writing every minute- this would not succeed until the recording was done recording the file. Once I opened it then I would run Nero using the command line (if that's possible) telling it to burn the new file to CD. A lot of work but possible.