Pixelating on LiveTV and Recorded TV

[me@mpking.com]

System Specifics.
Intel E8400 processor
4GB of RAM
400GB SATA HD (Think it's a 5400 RPM, could be a 7200 but not sure)
Windows 7 64 bit
HDHomerun Prime. (3 tuners) Firmware:20130328
Gigabit network (all devices are directly plugged into a single Gigabit Switch)
dvrmstoolbox 64bit
comskip

Additional System Stuff
Drobo NAS
MyMovies
Movies are stored on the NAS

Problem description:
Pixelation and (small) audio cutouts while watching LiveTV and RecordedTV. If I rewind, the cutout and pixelation are in the same place.

History:
Set the system up in September of 2012. No issues
Sometime around October 2013, the pixelation started.
I disabled Comskip processing, and pixelation was GREATLY reduced, but still showed from time to time, (only I noticed it really at this point). I decided to disable comskip because I noticed that when I had 3 shows recording, right after other shows recorded the pixelation was greatest.

Tonight I re-enabled Comskip processing (it was pissing me off not having it, but less so than the pixelation) ( wrote a different word than pissing, but I like the censor filter's word so much better, I left it)
I went and got a fresh donators copy of comskip, and enabled the play nice option so that between 1700 and 2300 it would sleep 10 milliseconds between frames.

And the pixelation came back. (I didn't really expect it to disappear, but I could hope the play nice option helped it)

I don't believe it's the network. The movie playback from that is picture perfect. However I'm always willing to look at anything to fix this.

Guesses:
Disk IO issue? Not sure how to test this. (I remember back in XP days, if your HD threw an error, XP would put your HD in a "Safe Mode", does Windows 7 have anything similar?)
CPU Starvation?

Help me, Help You, help me. (Just had to use that line)

So, where do I start, is there any info you need?

Mike

[me@mpking.com]

Ran IO meter after 11pm so that Comskip was running full tilt

Not sure how to read this. According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IOPS#Examples I'm Fine

[me@mpking.com]

Nobody?

[exodus454]

I'd put my money on some type of network latency issue.

I've been through troubleshooting similar problems with my windows 7 and then windows 8 setups. I always thought it as something obvious like comskip or some other program/service/lan traffic/etc but through troubleshooting it seems that's not the case. There are SO many little under the hood settings in Windows that Microsoft never took the time to optimize for media center.. I've been trying to iron out my issues since day 1 with WMC about 2 years ago.

First thing I'd do is try watching your network/CPU useage while recording and see if you can make any connections between the issues you're seeing with recordings and what's actually going on with the PC. If you open up the windows performance monitor you can see all that stuff and break it down by process. Also look at the disk queue for your recording drive, if it sits consistently above 0.5-1.0 while in use then you might have a failing or insufficient disk. If the issues you're seeing are being recorded it's probably an issue on the supply side.

The gigabit can be the source of many issues too, I'd try updating network drivers from the chipset oem. Same goes for tuner firmwares. Make sure you're running a quality Ethernet switch too, if your tuner isn't plugged directly into the PC. For instance if you have a dell (just an example) with a realtek chipset in it, get the latest drivers from realtek instead of through dell.

Flow control and network speed settings can make a difference too. I get MUCH more stable wmc performance by turning flow control off and dropping the Ethernet speed to 100mbps full duplex. My whole LAN is gigabit other than extenders.

I'd also try disabling any antivirus/firewalls for now too (including windows firewall/defender/security essentials), sometimes their on-access scanners can cause latency issues.

Comskip definitely can and will screw stuff up if its not being nice, I'd try try disabling processing for awhile and see if that makes a difference. Also try checking the resource monitor while comskip is running - if you're seeing solid 100% CPU, maxed out memory or a high disk queue then there's a problem with how its setup. Keep an eye on memory useage too, its possible 4gb isn't enough and the system is swapping stuff out to the disk.

Those are probably good starting points. If you can do some more digging and report back then we can probably start narrowing down the problems.

Good luck!

[me@mpking.com]

For posterity sake:

It was the network card driver. I can only assume that in October of 2013, that my driver changed, maybe via windows update. I went and got the latest version, and the pixelation disappeared.