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[CountryBumkin]

I noticed I get am getting an audio stutter or maybe "audio breakup" is a better term. It happens watching live TV, and starts a few minutes into the viewing. Then I hit the "back button" and that clears it up. it will come back again after a 15 or 20 minutes and a simple "back button" will clear it again.

I use the Hauppauge Colossus card (installed on server) and view mostly on Client machine. All my other viewing (recorded TV and movies) play back okay.
Has anyone else seen this behavior?

[Yaobing]

What audio mode do you use?  (WASAPI, or something else)

[CountryBumkin]

yes, WASAPI. No AVR in this system, just HTPC to TV HDMI input. Output to TV's speakers.

[gvanbrunt]

Had this issue (sort of) when I first got the card. Never could resolve and gave up on it at the time.

http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=67775.msg482543#msg482543

[Yaobing]

CountryBumkin, is your case similar to gvanhrunt's case?  Do you see the stuttering on channel change or just randomly?

I have a ready explanation if the stuttering is on channel change, but if not on channel change, I am not sure.

[CountryBumkin]

Yes it seems to be on channel changing. I will give it more attention tomorrow, but I think the stuttering starts a few minutes after the channel change, not immediately upon change. But maybe it takes me a few minutes to notice. I'll post back shortly. Thanks.

[RoderickGI]

I saw video stuttering, and a few audio issues, when I tried to use ROHD and I was up scaling Standard Definition to 1080p and audio to Dolby Digital. As I don't have a discrete GPU I was just loading the CPU and GPU heavily.

Because you are watching live you have no buffer of video/audio and are possibly affected by peaks in the CPU load. When you hit the back button (either rewinding a bit, or going out to a menu which pauses the playback until you return) you gain a bit of a buffer.

Take a look at your CPU loads, for each CPU core, and your GPU load. None should be over 80%. Not that a 25% total CPU load could be a 100% CPU core load, if you have a quad core processor.

Of course, it could just be your card. 

[CountryBumkin]

Good idea RoderickGI. I'll bring up the resource/performance monitor and see if shows anything.

I watched a couple of programs last night and I got the audio stuttering several times. It did not start at channel change. Sometimes it was several minutes into the program. Some programs had no stuttering.
First I thought it might be caused by changing from a SD channel to a HD channel, or going from program to commercial and back, but I could not confirm this. I also noted that the stuttering would stop by itself if I leave it alone.

The buffering suggestion/comment makes sense. Is there a way to increase the amount of program buffered?

Lastly, I am using RO+HQ but it doesn't matter if I use RO-std, same problem. My computer is running an Intel i3-3225 (4GB ram) with an nVidia GTS450.
I don't think I've seen this problem on my "family room" HTPC (but I don't use that set as much for TV viewing). I'll test. Maybe the issue is specific to my "bedroom" HTPC.

[Yaobing]

Buffering is the only known reason for such hiccups.  Channel changing causes the device to temporarily be in data-hungry state.  That is why I asked whether channel-changing is involved.  Is your STB cable or satellite?  With cable it is less likely to have a weak signal.  And I do not know what STBs do when the signal is weak.  Conceivably they would stop outputting video when the input has no data, sending the hiccups directly down to your Colossus.  

Buffering amount is around 2 seconds.  It is currently not configurable.

[adlelare]

i suffer from audio stuttering also with MCTV but not in WMC...so ?  but i do as other pause for a second or two and the play again and problem goes away but it will come back on occasion.. i have not found the problem related to channel changing but i am doing OTA so i always thought it related to incoming signal (but not as severe as sometimes when you get temporary video freeze, degradation or stuttering.  my hardware is more than strong enough

[mwillems]

To add my chip on the heap, I routinely get audio stuttering and/or desyncing after fifteen or thirty minutes with a cable card tuner (HDHomerun Prime), in one exact scenario:  when I'm watching HD channels on a PC with a wireless connection.  If I'm watching SD, it never happens, and if I'm watching HD on a wired connection it never happens.  When the issue happens it never corrects, the audio stays goofed up and or desynced until I stop and restart playback. 

I know that seems to suggest a bandwidth issue, but it's odd because up until that point playback seems to work fine (no stutter of video or audio), and I've monitored my wireless connection and there seems to be no changes in signal strength correlated with the hiccups. I also have fast wireless (connection is typically more than 100mbits down). 

And even on a gigabit wired connection I do tend get isolated small hiccups (video and audio) every 15 or 30 minutes or so,  but it usually clears quickly (within a few seconds), but it's a noticeable pause that recurs regularly.  I'm guessing that whatever causes that hiccup in the wired context is causing more significant issues in the wireless context.  A longer or configurable buffer might help.

It doesn't seem to matter whether the PC in question is using RO Standard or ROHQ.

[CountryBumkin]

Buffering is the only known reason for such hiccups.  Channel changing causes the device to temporarily be in data-hungry state.  That is why I asked whether channel-changing is involved.  Is your STB cable or satellite?  With cable it is less likely to have a weak signal.  And I do not know what STBs do when the signal is weak.  Conceivably they would stop outputting video when the input has no data, sending the hiccups directly down to your Colossus.  
Buffering amount is around 2 seconds.  It is currently not configurable.

Perhaps you can try increasing the buffering by one second. But I don't think my issue is related to channel changing because it happens a few minutes into the viewing.
It seems more like the stutter happens (or at least is noticeable) when there is a lot of audio "action", if that makes sense. During heavy action scenes with lots of noise and background music and sound effects, the stuttering seems to be more common. i need to pay more attention to this - maybe create some sort of "chart of conditions" to help me report this.

My TV comes from "internal" Hauppauge Colossus card (2250) with OTA (roof top antenna). The signal strength/quality is very good.
I have another TV tuner (a Hauppauge Q950 a USB stick) - so perhaps I can swap to that for a while to see if there is any change.

[CountryBumkin]

I just watched OTA TV with Windows Performance Monitor open, and my CPU stayed under 12% while the stutter occurred. I'll keep looking for clues.