Random Choppy Playback on Extender

[makaveli]

Merry Christmas everyone!

I have been using a W7 Media Center for close to 10 years. There have been some headaches, but I enjoy it immensely. Recently, I noticed choppy playback on various channels when viewing via an Extender. Before I get too far in, here is my setup

P8Z68-V PRO
i7 2700k
16 GB of RAM
256 GB SSD for OS
FlexRaid 12TB for Recordings
AMD SAPPHIRE Radeon R7 240 Video Card
Ceton InfiniTV Eth 6
Xbox 360 Externder 1 (direct connected)
Xbox 360 Externder 2 (direct connected)
NETGEAR 24-Port Gigabit Ethernet Smart Managed Plus Switch (JGS524E)
tp-link Archer AX11000 wireless router
Cox internet and cable in SoCal
Cisco Tuning Adapter and Cable card provided by Cox
The entire house is wired with Cat6a
Shark Codecs
EPG123
RecordedTV HD

A few months ago (if I had to guess more than 3 months ago but less than a year), I noticed that I could not view all of the channels without some stuttering. Things like ESPN (1003) would be fine indefinitely, but NFL RedZone (1334) would display picture that would stutter for a fraction of a second. I always found it odd that it never impacts the sound. Remember this was the same PC I have used since the beginning with little issue when watching live TV. To my knowledge I did not make any changes to the managed switch or wireless router. Coincidentally, I upgraded to the latest video card drivers in hopes of fixing the issue (AMD 20.q1.1-feb14). As has happened to others, it messed up the DRM on my PC and rather than spending time fixing the issue I thought it was an opportune time to start from scratch.

Instead of reusing the 256 GB SSD, I purchased a new Samsung 860 EVO 500GB 2.5 Inch SATA III Internal SSD (MZ-76E500B/AM). Using a 4TB USB hard drive I pulled off all of the non copy protected shows in my Recorded TV folder. Then I used a clean install of Windows 7 and updated to a internet blessed update for Windows Media Center. Thanks to this forum and the hosting of old software by the folks at EPG123 I was able to get back to operational within a couple of hours. I punted on FlexRaid this time and elected to use RAID from the motherboard, I chose RAID 5 after the drives ran through a quick reformat. A lesson from the last install, with FlexRaid, since it was not a physical drive, it would not allow me to have the LiveTV buffer on that drive and reboot the PC. If I did so, I could not watch live TV, recorded worked fine. I would have to move the Windows Media Center recording drive to a physical drive and reboot, then all was well.

I did not install any Codecs this time, but I did install EPG123 and RecordedTV HD. With this clean install I copied the RecordedTV folder to my new 12TB RAID drive. From the HTPC I can watch any channel perfect, no lapses in video or sound. Then I reconnected the Xbox 360 Extenders; same issue, some channels I can watch all day without a skip, some like RedZone stutter every 5-30 seconds. Here is where it gets interesting and is possibly a hint. In early October I got a note from Cox saying that they were dumping the special HD channels. For example ESPN on channel 3 for SD and 1003 for HD, would now just be be 3 so they could get back some of spectrum to add even more crap people will never watch. Around that time I began to see more channels begin to stutter. For example, I was able to watch NBA games on TNT through September without any issue. When the NBA came back earlier this week, I attempted to watch on TNT and that channel now stutters. Same goes for the main HBO and Starz channels, up until a few months ago I could watch them perfectly on an extender, but now they stutter as well. To make diagnosing the issue even more difficult I was unable to watch some of the other Starz Channels for example, Starz Edge, Starz In Black, Starz Comedy since this issue began. Plenty do not stutter, ABC, NBC, FOX, CBS etc, but that number seems to have dwindled. Final note, this impacts LiveTV and recorded. For example, if the channel stutters live, it will also stutter on recorded. If it is fine live, it will be fine on recorded. My only hypothesis is that it is either a codec change with Cox or SDV channels using the tuning adapter are the ones that are stuttering and the other channels are fine.

I am hoping someone from the Green Button has had a similar issue and has since fixed it. Thanks in advance.