I need some suggestions for a problem I'm having with either my TV tuner card or Windows Media Center. When I record TV programs I have this problem where the video periodically freezes for about 3 seconds, and then resumes. However, those 3 seconds of footage are completely missing. When it freezes, the time counter continues, as if the signal was temporarily lost. However this is very much unlike the usual issues with digital TV. When there is temporary loss of signal, it is never more than 2 seconds. The glitch I'm having is also always the same length of time. It never varies. It doesn't do it on all channels. It is only on two public broadcasting stations. It doesn't matter when I record; every program has these glitches. For a 30 minute program, it might do this four or five times. I am thinking that it is not my hardware or software since it doesn't do this on every channel. Any suggestions on what might be the problem?
What kind of tuner card are you using? hardware or software encoder? I never seen this problem with the hardware encoder tuner cards since they bypass the cpu completely. With the software encoders that require the use of the PC's onboard soundcard, I notice a similar problem once. I fixed it by installing a PCI soundcard. If your cpu is always maxed at 100 percent that could be a symptom of a soundcard problem. The only other thing to check is see if your drives are heavily fragmented. My video data drives can get 70 percent fragmented if I forget to do stay on top of them. That causes me problems.
The card I am using is a Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-1250. I'm not sure whether it uses hardware or software encoders. I have a separate sound card and the latest i7 processor, so even if it used software encoders that should not be a problem. Regarding the fragmentation of hard drives, how quickly would they get fragmented? This is a very new computer. I started recording programs shortly after I got the computer and I have always had this glitch. The fact that I get perfect recordings on some channels leads me to believe that something other than my PC is the problem.
There probably is something wrong with the channels. Since it only does it on 2 channels. Everything else seems fine on your PC. I use a coreduo e2140 to record from 4 tv tuners at the same time, so a I7 would be more than capable to record from 1 tuner card. Having a separate soundcard reduces your CPU usage so that rules out a soundcard problem.
