For some reason during playback of my recorded TV I get stuttering.  It is exactly like pushing the pause button repeatedly.  It comes and goes, but eventually gets so bad I need to re-boot the machine.  Then I'm good for about an hour.  It has done this since it was new out of the box......any suggestions as to what this might be?

Got specs?  Make, model, CPU, RAM, video adapter (onboard?  card?).....

Most-likely causes:
1- very low amount of RAM installed.
2- high CPU load during playback.  Open Task Manager, and maximize it.  Launch Media Center.  Start playing a video.  Let it stutter.  Alt-tab back to the task man.  If you see any spikes to 100% load, there's your stutter.  Now, you just need to figure out what else is using your CPU cycles....
3- crappy drivers - could be for anything (mobo / devices, video.)  Update them.
4- Hard drive operating in PIO mode.  Open Device Manager, find the HDD controller> right-click > properties, take a look at what it says (is the disc (transfer mode) operating in DMA mode (good), or PIO (not good)?
5- excessive drive fragmentation.  When was the last time that you defragged?

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~Chris
'nearly every day of my life is some kind of computer hell'

Desktop: Shuttle SN41 (AthlonXP 2700+), AIW, T550, PVR-USB2, HDHR; server: Intel E6400 on I965P mobo, 2GB RAM, 2x 500GB WD, PVR500, NV DualTV, Saber2020, 2xHDHR; Xbox MCX, Xbox360

I noticed that once I upgraded by Vista box from P4, all of my stuttering stopped.  I did switch to an integrated graphics card, and 2 GB more/faster RAM.  The difference using a better CPU and RAM was quite significant and made my media center a much better experience. Performance wish, video is always perfect.

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Asus P5E-VM HDMI (onboard audio/video), Core 2 Duo E8200, 4 GB RAM, Hauppauge HVR-1800 (x2), LG-GGC H20L, DMA-2100 (x4), Yamaha RX-N600, InFocus IN76, D-LINK DIR 655, Vista Ultimate

HP Pavilion

Pentium 4 CPU 3.00 GHz

1.00 GB Ram

Defragged less than 30 days ago

Video card, tv tuners, decoders, encoders, version numbers? Is it even MCE2005?