Having a problem with W7MC whereby the video seems to stutter slightly for a few seconds now and then, almost as if it's having disk bandwidth issues.  Does seem to happen when there's disk activity but even when this activity is restricted to physical disks other than the one W7MC is using.  The sound never stutters, just the video.

Never had any such problems on the same hardware with Vista so looks like something peculiar to W7.  Anyone had anything similar?

 

Are you watching the Video on an Extender? If you are........

 

Some of us were having a similar problem (Not really the same we were experiencing stuttering followed by freezing video or audio). The solution was to enable flow control on the media center PC NIC card.

Fraid not, this is on the machine itself.  The video just sort of "shudders" for a second or two as if the hard disk it's using was being thrashed and it was having trouble keeping up.

Seems to do it at the slightest provocation, even opening a web page can make it happen.  Something is very broken here in Win7 I think as I never had anything like this in Vista.

Tried making sure that you have the right drivers for the chipset loaded? also make sure that the disk's are in their highest performance mode in the bios (if there IDE).

Other things to check is the perfmon traces for the disks, see if something is using losts of bandwidth up

I'm having this exact same problem.  However, I have narrowed the stuttering down to just copy protected content.  When I'm watching CNN, or something, it's fine.  When I'm watching anything on HBO or another pay channel, I get the stutter once every four seconds or so.  I've upgraded the video card driver to the latest version, but I'm still looking around for a solution.

I had the same problem until I played around today.

 Got rid of my house's Homegroup and disabled IPV6 (Home requires IPV6 for PNRP).  Everything's been smooth since.

 I'm having the same or similar issue.  As the other poster mentioned it happens only on Premium channels not standard channels.

 

I removed Win7 again so I'm unable to try the fix as described.  If any of you do disable the Homegroup and IPv6 and no longer get the stutters can you please post that this is in fact a solution.

 

It does seem a bit odd though that disabling either of these services will have an impact on Premium channels stuttering in Media Center but ya never know and worth a try.

 This is not the solution to this issue.  Another 4 hours up in smoke....

Sorry for the delay in coming back to this.

I did indeed find that the drives weren't operating in the best DMA mode, so thanks for posting that and reminding me to check.

The problem has been alleviated to a large extent since I corrected the above but I'm still getting stuttering now and then whilst watching live TV.  To those who suggested protected content, I'm in the UK where we don't have such things so that's not the issue I'm afraid, thanks all the same.

As for the Homegroup & IPv6, not sure on this but don't really want to disable either as I make use of them.  Might try it though as a test if all else fails.  Are you saying that Homegroups won't work properly without IPv6 as I could happily disable IPv6 but need homegroup functionality.

I'm wondering whether it's something to do with the infernal indexing system interfering with hard drive access.  When it was stuttering regularly (every 15-20 seconds or so) earlier, I stopped the Windows Search service and it seems to cure the stuttering.  The service restarted a short while later (as it's on auto) but the stuttering seemed not to return.  This could have been a complete coincidence and I'll try it again the next time I get regular, bad stuttering.

 

Hmm, could be on to something here.

I seem to have a well reported bug with NVidia & Windows 7 where the refresh rate is stuck at 59Hz and won't stay put at 60Hz when I try to change it.  This could well be causing the stuttering issues.  Anyone else got something similar?

I'm having the same issues. I just upgraded from Vista32 to Win7/64. Media Center used to work like a dream with my Hauppauge 2250, now it's crap. When I try to watch live tv, it's almost like the signal is suddenly weak. The sound cuts out every 4 seconds or so, and the video freezes, pixelates, then resumes, all in under a second. It's maddening!! I've installed the latest Hauppauge drivers, video and sound drivers. Any ideas? Thanks, Cody

Mine seems to be solved. I run a HTPC to a projector. I used to run the projector at it's non-native resolution (1920 x 1280 or something like that) back in Vista. I had to run it at this resolution the first time I set it up, or movies wouldn't work properly. Once I installed Win7, it recommended something like 1280x720. I immediately bumped it back up and started working from there. I had many sound/video issues. On a whim, I decided to drop the resolution to the recommended setting and boom, it worked. Zero issues now, sound and video are perfect. Hope this helps.

Looks like the 59/60Hz thing was a red herring - makes no difference.

This is so damned annoying!  Vista was absolutely fine on the same hardware, but W7 is a disaster with regular, very bad stuttering and jerking.

 

 I was seeing a similar issue.  Occasional stutter when watching recorded video - audio was perfectly fine.  What seems to have worked for me is selecting a non-Aero theme (I selected the Windows 7 Basic Theme.)  After doing so, the stuttering disappeared.  I was a little skeptical of this solution, so I changed back to an Aero theme.  Low and behold, the stuttering was back.  Changed back to a non-Aero theme and again the stuttering disappeared.

 Hope you find a fix for your problem.

I am experiencing a similiar problem. The audio would have this slurriness to it as if it was being dragged. What is going on with windows 7?!?!?! I also have Low Bit Rate problems, video that kicks in and out and HDCP protected issues when I never had any of this before. SIGH!!