I used to use the ">>" x2 fast forward speed feature often (for watching talking head news programs among others). I enable it by hitting pressing the fast forward button on my remote only once. Video Playback is 2x'ish the speed, and audio is kept at the same normal pitch on at twice the speed.
In Windows 7 it worked perfectly, the audio sounds fine and the video moves smoothly at about 1.5x speed, not 2x speed. After upgrading to Windows 8 the audio sounds fine and plays smoothly but the video is jerky/stutters e.g., it seems to move at regular speed for few hundred milliseconds then it moves at 8x speed for a 100 milliseconds to catch back up to the audio.
Here is a Video example:
Video Stutters in Windows 8 with 2x speed Fast Forward - YouTube
There is a post about this with other Media Center users confirming they have the same problem.
http://www.thegreenbutton.tv/forums/viewtopic.php?f=49&t=4337
I tried the new July beta drivers I discovered on this XBMC Corruption thread.
http://communities.intel.com/message/198381#198381
The new drivers fixed XBMC video corruption. My Media Center still is herky jerky when I use the speed watching feature.
Can you please have the engineers test this and tweak the drivers to work smoothly again?
Windows 7 playback is perfect, but Windows 8 is herky jerky.
I can provide some Video example clips for playback testing if you don't have access to tuner to add to Media Center.