Stuttering in scheduled recordings unless client window is open (TSWriter Continuity error)

MediaPortal Version: 1.2.2

Description
When scheduling a recording, the resulting TS-files are full of stuttering problems.
Viewing the recordings either using MP or an external player such as VLC results in a lot of stuttering both in video and sound.
However, if I make a live recording I don't experience the described problem. I can watch those recordings without any stuttering what so ever. If I do a scheduled recording, everything will work out great if I don't close the MP client, that is I just leave it open without closing the application window. I can even toggle off TV in the client, put windows in sleep mode and it will wake up as scheduled and make a perfect recording as expected.

A scheduled recording with the MP client closed always fails and it makes no difference if the computer has been in sleep mode prior to the recording or not.

The TS writer log files are full of errors like

Code (text):

Recorder:Pid 44b Continuity error... 6 ( prev 8 ) - bad signal?

It's nothing wrong with the signal. Everythings works great if the client window is left opened when recording.

What do You guys think?

Steps to Reproduce:
1) Watch live tv.
2) Go to view the EPG
3) Schedule a recording using the EPG info.
4) Close the MP client window.

Thanks Ray for Your quick reply

Yes, that's correct, I'm using an external USB 3 drive for recordings.

I did the following:

• Changed Recordings folder to C:\Recorded TV
• Changed Power Scheme to Maximum Performance and I resetted all settings to default for that power scheme.
• Rebooted
• Scheduled a recording in the EPG to occur after 5 minutes
• Closed the client window
• Waited (no power savings occured)
• Opened the client and stopped the ongoing recording

Unfortunetely the problem persists, still very heavy stuttering when viewing the recorded TS-file.
It confuses me a lot. I'm reverting to my old settings since none of the changes seemed to make any difference. Do you have any more ideas?

I should be ashamed as I didn't RTFM. I recall I changed to a basic theme a while ago to preserve computing resources.
I will revert to AERO and do some testing and report back. This is embarrasing ...

Aero Theme enabled and rebooted computer. No change, the problem is still there.

First, I'm feeling so much gratitude to You guys trying to help me out here. You are my heros.

Trying how different changes affect the problems takes certain time since I have to schedule a recording, and do some waiting before I get the result. (Usually I reboot between changes to be on the safe side.)

So far I have done the following without any improvements:

• Disabled all the server plugins (again) and tested. No change.
• Replaced the TSWriter with the one from Area51. No change.
• Checked again that the TV-card drivers are the latest.
• Ran DPC Latency tool which didn't indicate any problems at all during a recording (w/o client running).
• Disabled the built in wifi device since I won't use it. Using wired Internet only.

More info:

• It's a newly installed Win 7 system. Everything updated of course.
• It's a dedicated single seat HTPC and I haven't really installed more than a few other programs.
• I have installed Norton Ghost though for backup purposes.

I will do the following and report back

• Disable Win 7 firewall (Do I really need it anyway in my NAT-LAN ?)
• Run chkdsk /f /r on C:
• Try running MP in 'windowed' mode
• Try enabling one of the animated windows screen savers
• Uninstall Norton Ghost completely using an uninstall tool.
• Uninstall ffdshow (I don't use it anyway)

• Disable Win 7 firewall. Done, no change
• Run chkdsk /f /r on C: Done, no change.
• Try running MP minimized to tray. No foreground windows opened. Done, no change, meaning: Perfect recordings because MediaPortal.exe is running.
• Try enabling one of the animated windows screen savers. Done, no change.
• Uninstall Norton Ghost completely using an uninstall tool. Done, no change.
• Uninstall ffdshow (I don't use it anyway) Done, no change