InfiniTV PCIe stuttering on HBO (mostly during True Blood)

[habsfan]

I had to reinstall Win7 on my HTPC with a Ceton InfiniTV PCI. Since I reinstalled, I'm getting some really bad flickering/stuttering on HBO, but mostly during True Blood. I watched a few movies earlier today, and had no issues at all. I'm not sure why just this one show (so far) is having a problem. I did not have this problem before I re-installed Windows. I think I had a different version of the video card driver, but perhaps it is a setting that needs to be changed too.

It was really bad at first on all shows, but I downloaded the latest drivers for my video card (EVGA GT 430) and now it seems to be just True Blood.

[kidego]

does it seem to happen on any other premium channel (showtime, Starz etc) or Just HBO? Might be something with the encryption/decryption of that channel with your Cable Card.

**I only ask cause I don't have any issues with it**

[barnabas1969]

Google "29/59 bug" or "29/59 issue". It is probably not your tuner or CableCARD. It is probably your display adapter or the display settings.

[rbmorse]

I don't get stuttering, but I do get quite a bit of blocking and other picture artifacts during True Blood. I see it at other times on HBO(SD) and other channels, but it seems something is really putting the bite on True Blood. Signal level and S/N are good.

[habsfan]

Thanks everyone. It does appear to be similar to the 29/59 issue that is mentioned all over the place. Its strange how it seems to be worse now than before I reinstalled Windows so I will have to go through all my video card settings. I wish it would do it on more channels/shows so I could test it easier. Wife isn't too happy when it only stutters on her favorite show.

[barnabas1969]

Thanks everyone. It does appear to be similar to the 29/59 issue that is mentioned all over the place. Its strange how it seems to be worse now than before I reinstalled Windows so I will have to go through all my video card settings. I wish it would do it on more channels/shows so I could test it easier. Wife isn't too happy when it only stutters on her favorite show.

If you search here and experts.windows.com, you'll find a Wiki with a link to some video clips that you can download which exhibit the 29/59 issue. You can use those to test.

It's possible that you installed newer video drivers when you reinstalled Windows. Newer is not always better.

[barnabas1969]

I see that you have a GT430 video card. There's a guy here who goes by the name "newfiend". He's your new best friend on recommending the correct version of drivers and the appropriate settings.

[JohnW248]

I'm running EVGA GT430s in two different machines, a Dell 9100 and a HP AMD Quad. I have found that none of the 300 series drivers are acceptable on my systems. The last know "good" version is 296.10. I would suggest you remove the current driver, reboot and then install 296.10. If you still see problems, run drivesweeper and remove all bits and pieces of NVidia and then install 296.10 again.

All the 300 series drivers I've tried had have various problems up to an including BSOD when playing video and skipping forward or back. At that point I decided it wasn't worth experimenting (and filing all those bug reports with Nvidia which didn't result in any "fixes") and went back to the last know good version I'd found.

[crawfish]

I'm running EVGA GT430s in two different machines, a Dell 9100 and a HP AMD Quad. I have found that none of the 300 series drivers are acceptable on my systems. The last know "good" version is 296.10. I would suggest you remove the current driver, reboot and then install 296.10. If you still see problems, run drivesweeper and remove all bits and pieces of NVidia and then install 296.10 again.

All the 300 series drivers I've tried had have various problems up to an including BSOD when playing video and skipping forward or back. At that point I decided it wasn't worth experimenting (and filing all those bug reports with Nvidia which didn't result in any "fixes") and went back to the last know good version I'd found.

The 300 series has been good to me. I think it was 295 that gave me driver restarts every few days, which I had never seen before, and ISTR considering a 28x series driver my own personal last known good version, that is, until the 300's came out. I've had a GT430 and GTX460 in use under 7x64 on Core 2 Duo, i5 750, and most recently the i5 4670 Haswell, all on Asus motherboards. On the Haswell system, I use Intel graphics for my monitor and the GT430 for the TV. It works great, and the GT430 finally gets to downclock as it's no longer driving both displays. No codec packs, ever, and I use WMC (DVR only) and XBMC (everything else).