Serious Macroblocking on HDTV

[ldavis]

I have been having an ongoing problem with HDTV playback. It has kind of taken a back seat during the summer but now that the new season is starting, it has become a problem for me again.

This macroblocking and studdering appears to happen for me only when I am watching "nearly" live HDTV. With Live TV I will occasionally get some of this but it is not too excessive. With nearly live tv I get severe macroblocking and studdering (HDTV only), and the problem stops once the show has completed recording (even though I am still watching the last parts of the show). Of interest is that this is not just a playback problem. When I back up to the problem areas of the recording the problems are still there-meaning the recording is damaged. If I let the recording complete prior to watching, I have few if any problems. It is almost as if the system is overloaded when trying to watch/record to a single HDTV file at the same time. Anyone have any suggestions?