I just added an Xbox 360 as an extender to my HP DEC windows media center pc.  When I watch movies on HBO or other channels, that I presume have DRM protected content, the video pauses about every 5 - 10 sec for just a fraction of a second...just enough to drive a person crazy.  All other video plays perfectly on the Xbox - for example regular TV shows.

The same movies that are choppy on the xbox play just fine on the media center pc.  I ran the network tuner and it says i have plenty of bandwidth.

Is there a solution to this problem?  Has anyone else run across this problem?  I have searched and searched on these discussions, but i can't find the same issue.  It seems as everyone else can either play or not play due to DRM.

I used to have the same xbox 360 connected to an older Media Center PC over the same network and I had no problems.  I thought everything would get better with this upgraded PC.

I'm using a wired network.  I tested the bandwidth using the network performance tuner and i got all
green bars.  I have run tests with nothing else on the network - all computers and printers turned off - only the Media Center PC and the Xbox 360.  It really seems to be something with the protection on the movies, because other media plays perfectly.  Is there something with my hardware or how it is processing the protected content licenses?

For reference - here is the setup of my PC:

HP DEC Z560 (as purchased, no mods)

Base processor
PentiumD 925 (P) 3.0 GHz:
800 MHz Front side bus
Socket 775
Chipset
Intel 945P
Motherboard
Manufacturer: Asus
Motherboard Name: P5LP-LR
HP motherboard name: Malachite2-UL8E
Memory Installed 1 GB

Speed supported PC2-5300 MB/sec
Type 240 pin, DDR2 SDRAM

Hard drive
300 GB SATA (3.0 Gb/sec)
7200 rpm

Wireless LAN 802.11 a/b/g
Video graphics
GeForce 7600GS
256MB DDR2 memory
Television
TV capture card
TV tuner card
Sound/audio
Integrated High Definition audio
Realtek ALC 888 chipset
Network (LAN)
Integrated 10/100 Base-T networking interface

Does the xbox have firmware you can update? I assume you're running MCE2005.

I'm on xbox live and I have gotten the latest updates through there.  Are there other firmware updates that I should check for?  I am running MCE2005.

has anyone else seen this error?  it is so consistent - it must be something simple to fix.

i have seen flashes of the 'Restricted Content...' error, so I definitely think there is something going on with DRM.  Could my xbox be confused because I replaced the PC?

I aslo found this fix - could it be related?  http://support.microsoft.com/kb/913800/en-us

 

Try clearing out the DRM folder, rebooting and see if that helps at all:
C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\DRM

Thanks for the help.  Here is an update on the current state -

I tried a number of suggestions, but none of them worked.  I was running a powerline network between the media center and the router and wireless g for the xbox 360.  As I stated this was working great for my old media center and after I replaced my media center with a newer more powerful one, I checked the network extender tuner and it said i had plenty of bandwidth.

So, after running out of options, I decided to try upgrading my network.  I upgraded to the new netgear powerline av for the media center and wireless a for the xbox 360.  Everything appears to be working now...i don't understand it but i'm not going to complain.  I will update again if anything changes after a few days of solid use.