Optimal HDTV .ts Playback on PC

Hi all, I hope this post is not too offtopic, but I guess that most of the regulars here would have some advice for me. I recently downloaded a sample HDTV .ts clip to try and learn a little about the format (Broadcast HDTV is a long, long way away in my country...) It is a native ATSC transport stream, and I have so far tried to play it in Media Player Classic and Windows Media Player 10. 1.) Media Player Classic can open the .ts using the MPEG splitter, and decodes the MPEG-2 stream using the built-in filter. Playback is mostly good, except I occasionally get a bunch of dropped frames at once. This happens maybe every 60 - 120 seconds or so. So the average framerate is about 28 fps instead of 29.97. Seeking is also not so good. I had a feeling that part of the problem would be with the MPEG splitter, and found a little tool called HDTVPump (). It also says that "The filter uses the push mode to ensure smooth playback of HDTV/SDTV files." Unfortunately, after installing HDTVPump, MPC would refuse to play .ts files. ("Failed to render the stream"). So I was forced to try WMP10. 2) Playback works in WMP10, but I had a few problems. Firstly, the player crashed with an error in NeAudio.ax (Nero Audio Decoder). Obviously the Nero Decoder had some strange problem with the 2 Channel AC-3 stream... I renamed NeAudio.ax to something else and got the file to play. The performance was HORRIBLE. The picture was scratchy, and the framerate was very low. The audio decoder was listed as "-" (unknown? But I WAS able to get sound) and the video decoder was the Nero Video Decoder. Maybe the problem was also being caused by the absence of a "proper" AC3 filter. I don't know. So the question is, what is the recommended setup? WMP10 + HDTVPump + Commercial MPEG-2 decoder? If so, what is the best decoder? I have seen mention of Elecard, but I get the feeling that this is a commercial decoder. Finally, let me state that my PC specs should definitely be up to scratch. (P4 3.4 Ghz, 1 Gig DDR2 RAM, Geforce 6800 PCI-X.) I have been able to play WMV-HD 1080i clips almost perfectly. Even with DXVA acceleration disabled, CPU usage rarely exceeds 50%, and there is rarely more than 1 or 2 dropped frames over an entire clip of several minutes. Update: Even with the FFDShow Audio Decoder (AC3) and Video Decoder (libmpeg2) and HDTVPump, the performance is still very very bad. Media Player Classic on its own is still light years ahead, but not quite perfect!

Does it happen to all streams or just this downloaded one? Maybe it has errors. Please post a link to it so that we may try it.

I had the same problem using the new HDTVPump. If I recall, it DID work with a pre March 2005 version. MPC would refuse to 'render'. Finally, I just uninstalled it.

I personnaly am using this combination : MPC + MainConcept splitter Dscaler 5 mpeg 2 video filter (on of the fastest filter with ivTC and DXVA support) ffdshow for audio decoding (or pass through spdif) Playback is perfect on my sempron 2600+ with a 6600GT AGP I never got the HDTV pump thing working so I forgot about it :)

I, too, am looking for a PC player for ts files--I want to be able to check my edited files for sync, but can't find anything that plays well enough to do this confidently. Maybe my video card is inadequate to the task--a Geforce2 MX400. According to the purevideo specs, I don't have the chipset needed for that. I too dl'ed hdtvpump and couldn't get it to work (at least I couldn't determine that it was doing anything). Still looking for the elusive TS player here~!

WinDVD 7 works with transport streams. It's fairly "light" on resources.

If you are after a single media player to play .ts streams AND every other file format, I cannot help. But, keep in mind, you will not be downloading .ts streams (except very short test clips, as you have been trying) off the net. You will basically need a hdtv card to even have .ts files to begin with. Of course, every hdtv card has software with it that is capable of playing .ts files with no errors. I suspect your question is unnecessary :) I have a hdtv card and play all my ts/tp files through my hdtv card software. However, the fusionhdtv plus card has an absolutely first class software interface, whilst others may not. Side note: the fusionhdtv I believe is aust/asia/uk specific. Not 100% sure, but dont wait around looking for a card that may never be sold in your country.

I am not the original poster, but in my case while I do indeed have an MDP-130 card that I use to cap ts programs OTA, I edit them on a different PC than the one the 130 is in, primary reason being that the 130 machine is a low-powered Shuttle, only an 800MHz VIA C3 processor, vs. my edit machine which is 3.2GHz P4 w/1Gb RAM & loads of hard disks... So it's just not convenient to transfer the edited ts files back to the 130 machine just to check them. And in fact I don't use the 130 to play-back the files anymore anyway...I use a Pinnacle ShowCenter SC200 for that, and play the files across-the-network...

I don't have any capture card at all. I record off of firewire from my Motorola HD cable box. Hence, I need to have .ts playback on my machines. WinDVD7 works well. ZoomPlayer can be set up to do so, as well, but, it can be problematic depending on the codec you use.

I tried MPC with Dscaler, System Default as Directshow Video and AC3 Filter and I obtained 18 fps, and the audio goes out of sync. Then I tried Zoom player with the following settings: Overlay Mixer as Default video rendering filter (the others had worse performance), File Source as Special Purpose Source Filters, Mainconcept as audio\video splitters, AC3 Filter as Audio Decoder and Dscaler as Video Decoder. The performance was terrible (1 fps). With VLC the playback is as smooth as MPC, but the audio remains in sync. How can I resolve this?