Media Center Windows 7 bug with ATI graphics cards.

[nightblood]

This bug is effecting one of my clients. Whenever you play live TV or recorded TV through windows media center the video and audio cuts in and out every few seconds and last about 1 second at a time. Microsoft has acknowledged this bug but hasn't release a fix for it yet. Does anyone know a way around this?

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2008334/

[camaroguy1998]

I'm also having issues with Win7 MC but not the one you're client is experiencing.
I dont have any problem with live or recorded TV but I do have a problem when you convert the wtv files to either dvr-ms or mpg files, the video and audio are no longer in sync. Its pretty bad too, close to a 2 sec. delay on the video!
I am using the onboard ATI grafix, 3200 I believe! When I try to play the dvr-ms file with any 3rd party player I get the stuttering like you described. I've been emailing with MS for the last 2-3 weeks with no resolution, they now want to call me and go from there! Have you talked to MS yet?

Post any remedies or whatever happens, I'm curious to how MS is going to handle your problem and mine!

[Major_A]

No issues here with a HD 3850.

[Apoptosis]

Give the new 9.12 drivers a shot that just came out today.

[Illuminati]

I'm having an occasional system lock-up problem but not an audio/video sync problem... I'm running an HD2600XT.

[Major_A]

Out of curiosity, what system chipsets are you running that are having issues?

Win 7 x64 Ultimate
Cat 9.11 with HD 3850
Intel P45 chipset

[nightblood]

ATI 4350 using HDMI here. I tried the new drivers and the corruption still happens. SB700 chipset. I am not using onboard video.

[Major_A]

Maybe it's an AMD northbridge issue more than a ATi video card issue?

[nightblood]

I believe it is a video card issue. I have read posts on other forums where people changed to a nvidia card and that solved their problem.
What is very interesting is that not every channel causes the problem.

[Major_A]

I don't use MC very often so maybe I just haven't encountered the issue yet.

[nightblood]

I found this I will give it a try and let you know if it fixes the problem.
* Run regedit
* Browse to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Video\
* In video there will be several subkeys. One of these is for your graphics card. To locate it you will have to look through each in turn - each will have a video folder inside it. The "service" value inside the video key is the clue you need - I have several that start RDP which is presumably related to remote desktop so they're not right. I also have one which is called atikmdag. This is the one!
* When you've found the correct subkey of video expand the key 0000 (if you've got the wrong one you probably wont be able to expand 0000)
* Expand "UMD" and then "DXVA"
* Create a new string value called VForceUVDH264
* set the value to 0
* Reboot. Test BBC-HD. You will get 5-10 seconds of initial corruption but playback should then become normal and should remain that way thereafter

This tweak will disable gpu acceleration of playback of all H.264 files - so if you have a blu-ray collection you're going to be decoding with the CPU - expect much higher CPU usage. Any modern dual-core CPU should be plenty capable however.

Once Microsoft issue a fix for this problem simply go back into regedit and delete the key to restore normal functioning.

[nightblood]

It didn't work.

[nightblood]

I replaced an ATI card with a Nvidia card and now there is no more video corruption. However all the TV shows that were recorded with the ATI card that had the corruption still have it.