Oh yeah, It is MSE my bad.
Ok. Just a typo.
But you're saying you have both MSE and Avast installed? Why not just one or the other?
I can understand have one A/V plus something additional like Malwarebytes Anti-Malware, but two true A/V products? I really don't think this is relevant to the problem, but it's interesting.
I did install the extra codecs provided with Ninite.com should I try uninstalling that?
Well, I myself am ardently against installing external codec packs. In my experience, and for my own video collection, I don't need anything other than what comes with Win7. And using Winamp for audio and PotPlayer for video, I also don't need to install any 3rd-party codecs while still being able to play all audio and video formats, even those which might not be playable directly with Windows Media Player.
Since these external multimedia codecs obviously affect players, and it's your players which are behaving strangely, I'd definitely experiment with an uninstall of the codec pack and see if it makes any difference.
For that matter, if you have the easy ability to just take a "system image" backup of your currently installed system to an external USB 3.0 drive (so that you can easily restore it after your further experiments are complete), I'd suggest doing just that... and reinstalling a brand new Win7 again. That way you can truly determine at what point, if at all, your PAUSE/PLAY symptom actually starts happening or maybe never returns.
Start the fresh Win7 install from the beginning but keep it "pure", install motherboard chipset drivers, install additional hardware drivers for video and audio, complete all Windows updates, install your primary basic 3rd-party software products (including PotPlayer if that's one of them, as that doesn't involve or require external codecs). Do not install the Ninite codec pack.
And I'd suggest picking maybe just one anti-virus for now, say MSE (because it's non-intrusive and very quick and easy to install, and doesn't require any customization, and does not pepper you with solicitations to buy the non-free version or register after 30 days or whatever).
And before wasting any more time completing the rest of what would be your full Win7 reinstall, see if the PAUSE/PLAY symptom is now present or not. How you go from there depends on what you find at this point.
So you invest maybe a couple of hours in this side-trip, but your "system image" backup taken before embarking on this side-trip will allow you to restore your currently installed full system if that is warranted. But if indeed the PAUSE/PLAY problem is no longer present, then you've learned it must be from something else you had done previously that you hadn't yet done in your fresh start which is the "culprit". Could be the codec pack, or might be something else, but it's not coming from base Win7 and fundamental system and hardware drivers or the software products you've installed so far.
Whatever you learn during this "clean" reinstall experiment, if it does eliminate the PAUSE/PLAY problem then it will obviously have been worth the time. My guess is that the PAUSE/PLAY problem will not be present at this point.
I have a Xonar ST and I use the S/PDIF out, as well as the headset input happens on both, no audio.
So it might be when I took out the Xonar and put in and older Audigy card which didnt have driver support, so I had to find a really random driver.
Hmm...
But then I realized I had SPDIF on the xonar and installed that again and uninstalled the old driver and installed xonar drivers again.
Well, a few hours spent on a fresh Win7 reinstall experiment without any old Creative Audigy hardware or unsupported driver/software now is sounding even more promising. I wouldn't really trust old Vista or XP drivers for the Audigy (PCI?), if true Win7 software/drivers for the card were not available from Creative.
Could there still be remnants of those old drivers in the system?
I suppose.
But the fresh reinstall idea is sounding like a promising use of several hours, just to eliminate all of the other potentially relevant variables you have described which were part of how you reached your currently operational system which is exhibiting this PAUSE/PLAY symptom.
That's what I'd do if it were my machine and had this problem. It's clearly some software thing you did along the way which is responsible. In my opinion it is 100% guaranteed NOT to be present when doing a "quick reinstall" of Win7, just to prove it didn't come from Microsoft or your hardware vendors.