Vista - choppy video and audio using Media Center

Last week I recieved a new Dell Studio Slim 540s Desktop factory equipped with a Hauppauge 1250 TV tuner. The computer is running Vista SP1 Ultimate 64 bit operating system. I went through the set up instructions and found that the Live TV video and audio being feed to my 47" LCD screen TV by Windows Media Center was choppy. BlueRay disc, DVD and music file playback are all fine. I uninstalled the ATI Radeon HD 3450 video card and connected the HDMI cable directly to the HDMI cable outlet on the motherboard and I still had choppy video and audio. While the video card was uninstalled I attached a 20' flat panel LCD monitor to the motherboards VGA port using the monitors VGA cable and still had the problem. Only Live TV through Windows Media Center is problematic. I have spent 3 hours online with Dell tech support and after they had tried all they could think to try they suggested I reset the computer operating perameters to the factory settings and told me they would call within 48 hours to ensure the problem was fixed. I did as they suggested and the problem was not fixed. After 72 hours and no call from Dell I called Dell tech support and spent another 2 hours without any positive results. The call resulted in the Dell support technition sugesting that I have my local cable system operator check the cable signal and connections. I had the local cable operator send out a couple of technitions to check the signal going to my system and they found no issues. They did notice that the static that was displayed on the monitor when the cable was disconnected from the tv tuner still appeared to be choppy. My TV works great with the cable connected direct. I have replaced the TV tuner with a new tuner exactly like the tuner that was installed from the factory, remember this is a new computer, and still had choppy video and audio. As you can tell I have systematically eliminated the systems additional components as the source of the problem. I am now left with 2 options; 1) The Vista operating system is the problem or 2) The processor is the problem. Maybe there is something I am overlooking. I am open to any suggestions.

For what this is worth, I had a similar problem with Vista Ultimate 32 bit, on a home built system - quad core with 4 gig ram etc etc
After 3 months of struggling to get live TV to function, a friend who works for a software company suggested that I try increasing the size of my virtual memory.
He suggested tripling it - since i have a 320 gig HD I increased the size to 16 gig.
Now the live TV functions perfectly.
It's worth a try - you have nothing to lose.

I have the same problem, also on Studio Slim 540s. I am looking for a solution. It is good to know that you have gone through all these options to no avail because Dell support is trying to get me through the same process. They simply have no clue.

I am running into the same problem using Media Center, the video is choppy with Live TV, the computer is a HP m8120n Media Center, Vista Premuim Home 32 Bit. When it was new the Tv worked fine, but after 6 months reception became choppy and Curuit City stated there was nothing wrong with it, that this is a common thing and to deal with it. (even though it was under warrenty) Im currently playing email tag with a Microsoft support tech trying to figure out the problem. Problem is only when playing live TV and recored TV using WMC, Media PLayer it works fine to watch recorded TV. I'll post more if ever get any info from microsoft.

I think I've solve my problem for now. I went to Support for WinTV-HVR-1250

download and installed the WinTV software from the site. The package comes with a newer driver for hauppauge 1250 TV tuner. I also have the impression that installing WinTV software did something to the tuner too. So installing both the driver and the software did the trick. I am not sure if updating the driver alone is sufficient.

Hope this helps.

Thanks x9wu1!

I was having this problem with a straight-out-of-the-box Dell with Vista Home Premium x64 and the Hauppauge 1250 tuner.

I didn't have to install the software, just the drivers. Now all is well!

Hi All -

I had the same problem with my new out of the box Dell XPS 430. I installed the driver now all is well.

Thanks!

I have a PVR-150 and Ultimate 64 and had LiveTV jitters. I found the link on the Hauppauge site that had just the PVR drivers without all the other software. Ran this driver package and everything works now. Hauppauge really hid the driver file.

Here's the URL I used:

Hauppauge Computer Works : Support

Here's the data on the link:

Media Center drivers in a zip form (complete Hauppauge WinTV for Windows Media Center CD-ROM)

WinTV-PVR Media Center driver CD version 3.2
With support for the MCE versions of the WinTV-PVR and WinTV-HVR series, WinTV-NOVA-S-USB2, WinTV-NOVA-T-Plus, WinTV-NOVA-T-USB2.
New: now supports the WinTV-HVR-1200, WinTV-HVR-1250, WinTV-HVR-1400, WinTV-HVR-1500, WinTV-HVR-1600, WinTV-HVR-1700, WinTV-HVR-1800 and WinTV-HVR-2200.
Note: Currently, the WinTV-PVR-150 and WinTV-PVR-500 receivers used with 64-bit versions of Windows are limited to less than 4GB of memory.
New: now includes an Autorun for easier installation of all drivers and SoftMCE (Hauppauge's MPEG-2 Media Center software encoder).
To install:

• Download this file.
• Unzip it to a directory which you will remember (suggestion: wintv).
• Run Setup.EXE from this CD.
• Click Install drivers. This will uninstall the old driver, and install the new drivers plus our SoftMCE encoder (used on those WinTV products which use software MPEG encoders).

Note: If this is a new installation, when you boot Windows, you will see the New Hardware Found message. Hit Cancel and then run SETUP.EXE from this CD.
Name: MCE_CD_32.ZIP
Size: 20.1 Mbytes
Version: 3.2

Spoke too soon. The jitter is certainly less pronounced but not eliminated. Part of the problem is that even during Live TV, video is being buffered to the local hard disk. That was a problem for me along time ago with the ATI product line.

My next step is to try the full Hauppauge software suite.

Sorry, if I'm being too simply but have you tried a defrag?