WMC live tv Pixelation and artifacts - Must be WMC

[johnnybravo2]

I have narrowed the issue down to my i3 on-board graphics card or wmc for the Pixelation issues. My bedroom pc can watch live tv without any issues. The living room pc had Pixelation and artifacts during live tv.

Does any one have thus issue as well with a third Gen i3?

[johnnybravo2]

Also, I forgot to mention.. I have an HDhomerun tuner and the quick tv app can view live tv without any issues.

[Crash2009]

Wow, that's very exhaustive troubleshooting. What have you eliminated to get to this point?

[johnnybravo2]

Ha sorry for leaving out a lot of the details. I'm typing from my cellphone. I've been tinkering with this for about a month now on spare time.

I was able to eliminate the HDhomerun since the bedroom htpc (running wmc) is working perfect. The bedroom pc connects to the switch same switch that has the living room pc and HDhomerun, so I know the network is fine. I also ran ping tests.

The only delta between the two htpcs is one is an third gen i3 (one that has the problem) and one has a phenom x4 965. Both use wmc for live tv.

Quick tv works perfect on both htpcs but wmc has issues only on the living room pc.

This leads me to believe it's something related to the Intel graphics chip and wmc. I haven't installed or changed anything outside windows updates.

[smcmillan2]

What version of Intel's HD graphics driver are you using? I'm using an i3-3220T with (from memory) 15.33.something and don't notice what you're describing.

[mcewinter]

Have you run a test for network pacet loss? Instructions on SDs forums. There are several NIC settings that you can tinker with if that is the issue.

Do your two machines have the same NIC and NIC drivers?

[johnnybravo2]

I believe I have the i3 3220 with the latest graphic drivers (updated last week).

No, both NICs are onboard but different chips so that is a delta. Also, both HTPCs have worked flawlessly for about a year. It's the past month or so when I have this issue with just the one. What NIC settings do you suggest?

[johnnybravo2]

BTW thank you for your advice (everyone).

[mcewinter]

If this problem arose over time then network packet loss probably isn't the issue but here's a link for good measure...

http://www.silicondust.com/forum2/viewtopic.php?t=5877

If you scroll down on the above page, you'll see steps to test for network packet loss.

You may be experiencing hard drive issues if the problem arose without making any changes prior. I've seen things get wacky as problematic drive reached it's capacity with recordings.

You can always enable debugging in the settings and open a ticket or post to SDs forums and they can possibly offer you some insight.

[smcmillan2]

I believe I have the i3 3220 with the latest graphic drivers (updated last week).

If by this you mean you are using the Windows drivers, I would use the drivers from Intel themselves: https://downloadcenter.intel.com/Search ... rodId=3711. Latest is from May.

Also, both HTPCs have worked flawlessly for about a year. It's the past month or so when I have this issue with just the one.

As this has just cropped up, have you checked your hard drive? People have experienced all sorts of problems when their Recorded TV drive was starting to fail.

[johnnybravo2]

After looking into the networking side of things all of my ping tests were perfect. I did find a thread that spoke about throttling in windows. After I changed the registry bit for multimedia throttling to 0xFFFFFF all issues have appeared to be resolved. I will update in a few days if the problem returns.

Thank you all for your help!

[mcewinter]

Do.you have a Realtek NIC by chance? Not that it matters. I changed that setting to FFFFFFFF with good results, I'm not sure what 0xFFFFFF represents but as long as it works. I'm glad you found a solution.

[johnnybravo2]

Same solution, 0xFFFFFF is just FFFFF in regedit. Thanks again.