[doveman2]

OMXPlayer disabled, as I can only use MMAL with the HiFiBerry DAC+ so would have no audio with it enabled.

It's still useful for understanding the problem. Enable omxplayer. Choose HDMI or analogue audio and report if you have the same problem. That will narrow it down.
Using the OSD to measure skips is a flawed operation. The presence of the OSD creates more work and so more skips. Is video smooth without overlays/osd?

OK, I tested with a programme on Ch5 SD with a ticker at the bottom, so any stutter was obvious. Checking with my TV's built-in tuner and there was no stutter.

I first tested with HDMI (audio and video) and OMX, then MMAL. With both the stutter was present.

Then I tested with composite video and analog audio, first with OMX, then MMAL. With both the stutter was present.

Then I tested with composite video and DAC+ audio, just with MMAL. The stutter was present. I timed it and it seemed to occur every 9-10s but occasionally it seemed to happen more frequently.

I shut down after each test, as I thought on rebooting it would gather the logs into a zip in the Logfiles folder but that doesn't seem to happen as the last one has a timestamp of 09:53 (really 10:53) and the one before that a timestamp of 08:28 and there was only a few minutes between my tests, so I don't have the logs for the first two sets of tests. I'm not sure how it's meant to work but with the ./kodi/temp/ folder not accessible via SMB it's a bit of a pain.

The last log I've uploaded here https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1fDI89...sp=sharing

I'm recording the programme now and I'll report back whether it's the same when playing back the file.

Separate issue but is there a reason why it takes so long to open a folder via SMB? Opening \\192.168.1.86\ is pretty much instant but then opening one of the folders can take ages. My brother reports the same and he's on a different (rather old) build and has a different PC running Windows 7 (I'm on 8.1) and as far as I recall it's always been like this, so maybe there's nothing that can be done. I don't have any such issues using WInSCP.