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If the recording was created using a hardware encoder (see this Knowledge Base article to determine the type of capture device being used), this can be due to the encoder overheating. Hardware encoders put off a great deal of heat when they are capturing due to the encoder chip. Increasing or optimizing the airflow in the computer case, ensuring that the chip side of the hardware encoder has cool air passing over it, or moving the cards away from each other and other heat-producing devices, should help to alleviate this problem when using PCI capture devices. Standing the capture device on its end and/or ensuring that it is set on a hard, cool surface, will help a USB device to cool more efficiently. If the recording was created using a non-hardware encoder, the strain on the CPU from encoding the recording real-time may be too much. Check the CPU usage while making a test recording, via the "Performance" tab of the Task Manager (START BUTTON --> RUN --> TASKMGR). If it is stuck at or near 100% usage, or spikes to 100% usage occasionally, high CPU usage is most likely the cause of the problem. Try using the MPEG-2 file format, and/or a lower quality (SETTINGS --> RECORDING SETTINGS), to alleviate strain on the CPU. Try defragmenting the hard drives on the Beyond TV system. Fragmented drives can cause the recordings to exhibit this phenomenon, as the system must search for open space before writing the data, or must read from or write to sections of the hard disk that are significantly physically distant from each other on the hard disk's platens. Try disabling any "real-time" virus scanning software, or spyware scanning / blocking programs. These programs are often the cause of this problem because they scan the recording as it is being created, resulting in excessive disk activity which prevents the recording from being written to the disk in a timely manner. You may be able to configure a real-time virus scanner to ignore files of the affected extension, .WMV or .MPG, or the directory the recordings are stored in, which should solve the problem.
Ensure that your graphics drivers are updated to the latest that the manufacturer provides. Older drivers are often not fully compatible with DirectX 9, or may have other issues responsible for the problem. Ensure that Beyond TV is being displayed on the PRIMARY display in the case of a multiple-display system (those with TV-OUTs or more than one monitor, for example) as mentioned in this Knowledge Base article. Try a third-party MPEG-2 decoder if this problem occurs with MPEG-2 files. Slower machines, or those with incompatible display hardware, may have difficulty using Beyond TV's native MPEG-2 decoder. Check the display settings on the PC; if set too high, they can cause this problem as well. First, check the refresh rate (CONTROL PANEL --> DISPLAY --> SETTINGS (tab) --> ADVANCED (button) --> MONITOR --> Screen refresh rate); suggested settings are less than or equal to 75 Hz. Also try lowering the resolution and / or color depth at which the graphics are displaying (SETTINGS tab); the graphics device and/or PC may simply not have the resources to play back the video at the current refresh rate, resolution, or color depth. If the file being played was not produced by Beyond TV, the resolution of the file itself may simply be too high for the CPU to handle. If possible, you may wish to use Beyond TV's ShowSqueeze feature to transcode the file to a more manageable resolution As a last resort, and in the case where the graphics card itself may be unable to properly display video even after a driver update, enabling software rendering may help the playback to occur smoothly.
If the recording was created using a non-hardware encoder, the strain on the CPU from encoding the recording real-time may be too much. Check the CPU usage while making a test recording on the "Performance" tab of the Task Manager (START BUTTON --> RUN --> TASKMGR). If it is stuck at or near 100% usage, or spikes to 100% usage occasionally, this is most likely the cause of the problem. Try using the MPEG-2 file format, and/or a lower quality (SETTINGS --> RECORDING SETTINGS), to alleviate strain on the CPU.
