video breaks up on live or playback only - recording okay

When watching live or playback, the video breaks up with this green hashing and stuttering. It is not poor signal pixelation. I can playback the same recorded files shared to my desktop computer, and they look perfect. So it's recording properly. This appears to be strictly a rendering issue of some kind. Also watching ripped MKV files with VLC works perfectly. So this issue also seems to be Media Center specific. Or perhaps a codec kind of thing. This issue just started recently, and has gotten worse in the last few days. But I have been trying a lot of different stuff, so might have made it worse myself. Not sure if my integrated video is going out. Tried different HDMI cables, and using different ports on the TV. Updated all software, video drivers, and tuner card drivers to the latest. No difference. During playback, the CPU doesn't go past about 15% utilization, so not CPU bound. Attached photo of the green crap.

Thinking about maybe just replacing the whole guts of the system with a new cpu/mb, specifically an AMD A10-5800k processor with the integrated video, which should be a pretty big bump up from the 880G video.

AMD Phenom II X2 555
Biostar 880G Motherboard
Hauppage 2250 Tuner
WD 2TB AV-GP Hard Drive

You may hav3 checked this already, but I would verify that I have the most updated video drivers installed first.

Sorry, just saw where you said you did that

Yeah, I tried a few different versions. Last time I tried the autodetected version from here:
AMD Driver Autodetect

Not sure why this would only seem to impact media center. The video bit rate is much higher on the locally recorded shows. It almost seems like a video hard decoder horsepower issue. But why would it get worse with time? Going to check to see if I can find out what the video clock is running at. Maybe it's overheating or something and underclocking drastically.

Get the one from last month AMD DRIVERS 32 or AMD DRIVERS 64.

It looks like a CODEC issue to me. For playing most everything through Media Player of Media Center, try Shark007 Codecs for Windows 7. Be sure to get the latest of both the 32 and 64 bit, they work together. On each, go ahead and choose "Shark Suggested", those are the settings for windows media players. Now you should be good to go.

When it asks you if you use Play To or Live TV, be sure to say "YES".

I tried several different versions of the graphics drivers. Reinstalled the chipset drivers. Installed the Shark007 codecs (32 and 64), as you suggested. None of these actions seemed to make any difference.

I measured the temperature on the north bridge. It's 155 degrees F. That seems very hot to me. Wonder if my integrated video is just physically damaged.

Ewwww that's almost 70°C and yes that's extreme. Has it always been that way? My CPU is recommended < 55. I would have to say that it's fried and it's time for a video card. But is this the only program giving you trouble? If so it may still be good. I guess some video GPUs can handle 90. Try one of Futuremark's benchmark tests like 3dmark 11. It shouldn't be that hot however unless you were running such a program. What were you doing? What is your cooling situation like? How did you gauge temp?

Yeah, that's pretty hot. Not sure if it's always been that way or not. I know CPUs should be a lot cooler than that. VLC plays MKV files just fine. It only seems to be Media Center that is having problems. And it's that temp just sitting there doing basically nothing. I measured the temp with a kitchen probe that I set on the heatsink and let sit there for a while. So the actual junction temp is probably quite a bit hotter than that.

So it's only media center. Hmmmm. I have the same tuner card and have never seen that particular form of "bad video". Does it ever change? Is it ever good? Heat and power issues are usually sporadic. Shut it down and let it cool off then go straight into media center. I have a feeling you've already done this dot dot dot. still thinking.

I just recently did a repair install of Windows 7 due to the fact that the Media Center receiver service was somehow corrupted to the point where I could not even begin to set up TV (It was already setup). To do this you launch win7 setup from within windows. it nicely kept my installs intact including settings and personalizations. I would recommend trying that if this issue is consistent and unwavering only in media center. the very last step before testing the newly refreshed Media Center would be to install the shark codecs. They offer a lot in the way of MKV file playback and thumb nails, flv, pretty much everything becomes wmp and wmc playable.