[kandlg]

Run your test one more time without watching the show while you record it. Just go into the guide and record the show and go back and watch it AFTER it is finished recording. Post 7 makes it look like you watched it while it was recording and then played it back. Since watching requires a lot of CPU, you want to take that out of the equation. When you play it back, if it still has dropped frames skip back and see if the drops are always in the same place. If yes, recording issue. If not, it is a playback issue.

When you record an HDTV stream the computer is simply transferring the MPG stream directly to the hard drive. There is no encoding involved so your processor should have little or no load. If you are experiencing dropped frames at the same point everytime on a recorded show then it is probably the recording process and it is probably a signal issue. Playback issues are generally random. A longshot, but it might be that your hard drive has dropped into PIO mode - check your sata or ide controller and make sure it is in DMA mode.