Recorded video issues

[baron164]

I've been running WMC for since XP Media Center. I am currently running Windows 8 MC. I'm having an issue when playing recorded shows I get a lot of pixilation and choppy playback. It varies from lasting only a few seconds to making entire shows unwatchable. I have not noticed this issue with live tv, only recorded shows. If I pull up the video and watch it on a different machine it still has the same playback issues so I believe it's happening during the recording. I have 2x Hauppauge dual-tv tuners so I can record 4 HD QAM stations at once. Disk utilization does not seem to be an issue and this issue has only been happening for a few weeks and this machine is about a year old. I'm wondering if one of the QAM tuners is going or if there is a signal strength issue. I tried using an amplifier and it did not appear to help the issue.

And like I said the issue appears to be random. Sometimes a show will record without issue and sometimes it will be unwatchable. For example, I recorded a show on CBS, the entire hour long show was almost unwatchable. However the show afterwards had significantly fewer hiccups. However I've been trying to test out recording but I can't reproduce the issue at will. Even recording four things at once won't necessarily trigger it.

I'm wondering if anyone has had this issue or might be able to give me some tips.

[lithium630]

Where did you put the amplifier?

[baron164]

The amplifier was between the wall jack and a splitter being used to split the line for the dual tuners. Since I have not had any of these issues with live TV I'm thinking it's not a signal strength issue. I can play other video files without playback issue such as MKV's for example. I only seem to have issues with recordings.

[lithium630]

Try putting the amp directly where the coax enters the house, before all splitters. You are amplifying all the noise along with the cable signal.

[baron164]

I updated the device drivers and my video drivers and that didn't help. I did put the amplifier I have in after the splitter for the cable modem but before the main cable tv splitter in the house but it seems to have made things worse. After a day I lost my HD QAM stations, they wouldn't come in at all and media center said it was a weak signal. When I removed the amplifier my stations returned. The regular stations were fuzzy with the amp in and then when I pulled the amp their quality improved. I'm assuming this amplifier is defective so I'm returning it. It's a GE 24 DB amp (with return path) that I picked up from Walmart. This still does not help me, I'll probably pick up a different amp to see if a different amp helps. But like I've said, the issue only occurs with recordings. I've yet to have the issue during live TV.