media center tv freezing

well when watching tv for some reason it freezes the playback randomly it still records while its frozen and its not paused (by normal means) and if you skip back and hit play it works just fine. recorded tv works well and what not. its just when playing live tv when the play head is at the live position. i don't think its hard ware over heating because there are no abnormalities in the recording. its not a normal software function because it doesn't say that its paused and you don't have to press pause (or any other button for that matter) for this to happen
does anyone know what is going on?