I have been experiencing video tearing for quite some time now.....would show up as a quick horizontal line/glitch across the screen during fast action. I wasn't sure what the issue was even called, much less how to solve it.
Well, it ends up a simple fix, enable Aero in Windows 7. I have been a long time "Classic Windows" setting desktop user. It has something to do with vertical synch / buffering. The only way I could get smooth tear-free video in JRiver was to enable ROHQ, at the cost of about 30% CPU use watching an uncompressed blu-ray. Actually the issue appeared worse watching standard DVD's, which really baffled me. I tried everything under the sun, latest beta drivers, etc. for my Radeon 7750, was already looking to get a different video card.
Now that Aero is enabled, Youtube videos no longer tear, and can now run everything in JRiver with ROS, smoother than ever with minimal CPU use.
I am not sure about Windows 8, other OS's, or Nvidia chip issues with tearing, just hope this helps others that may unknowingly have this issue that can be remedied with a simple desktop preference change, at least in Vista or Win 7.
Absolutely love this software.....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screen_tearing