Windows 7: Choppy sports playback on MC

OS: Windows 7 RC, 64-bit
Video Card: Intel X3100



Watching live sports in Media Center (via HDHR) is a nightmare. The audio is perfect, but the video will be slow motion for a few seconds then really fast to catch up, then slow again, etc.

I have tried the pre-release WDDM 1.1 drivers as well as the most recent Vista drivers from Intel. Both exhibit the same issue. The Vista drivers were slightly better but still difficult to watch.

I did not have this problem in Vista and regular TV shows are fine. Any advice?

Can you fill in your system specs so we can help you better.

Sure:

Processor: Intel T5800
Memory: 4GB PC6400
Hard Drive: 500GB WD Scorpio Blue

It looks like you hardware should handle it fine, so if you installed all your drivers and you say that all other channels play fine and it's only the sports channel, do think it may be the signal strength of that particular channel that is causing the problem? Do you have any other playback software like Power cinema so we can rule out Media center as the problem?

I don't think it is a signal issue since, a basketball game on ABC will have this issue but Lost will be fine.

I do not have any other video playing software but I will download some tomorrow and report back.

Is it the same when it's in full screen mode and windowed mode?

I have similar symptoms when streaming movies to my Xbox360 from the main box. Especially when the on screen action gets busy (say a crowd, glittering water, stuff like that) the video framerate dips horribly, then chops to catch up. Is there a way to fiddle with buffer settings, bandwidth usage etc?

Update:

I googled my butt off on this problem. Sadly, besides the nice way bandwidth measuring tool in media center, there's nothing in the way of options to tweak. So if your network is not the culprit (all green, like it is with me) tinkering with media center aint gonna help jack sh1t.
All's not lost however! I found out putting the xbox' system resolution a tad lower made the framedrops much less annoying. Apparently the problem is not with windows7 or the media center, but with the 360 not being up to spec for full 1080p output. Drop it to 720p and things get better.