And you are sure you're playing the DTS-HD track? Because the disc defaults to the DD5.1 track which works fine.
I've tried it on two different computers with the only common factors being:
(A) the same disc
(B) Realtek audio chip
(C) PowerDVD
And on both systems I get the crackling audio in the exact same timecodes as described above.
Ruling out the problems it cannot be (A) because there are no read errors on the disc, it plays exactly the same from disc as from hard drive, and there are no problems with the audio in TMT.
As for (B) it seems unlikely because they are two different chips (ALC889, which is supported according to CyberLink, and ALC269), I've tried updating the drivers, I've tried every single combination of output format and stereo/5.1/7.1 channel mode, and again there are no problems with the same audio coming from TMT.
This only leaves (C), that the decoded audio stream from PowerDVD simply isn't clean, and has those crackles "built-in". Again I've tried every kind of audio output and processing option in PowerDVD I could find and the crackles are always there, so it's either a problem with PowerDVD, or that PowerDVD has issues with the Realtek chips, which seems pretty bad considering it's probably the most common brand around.