Can anyone recommend a decent free player that will decode 1080p hi-def .ts video files.

Media Player 11 and Power DVD will play them but max the cpu and stutter.

It's an Athlon 64 3400+ processor in this machine so it should be up to the job

VLC seems to play most things...

Ta.

I could de-multiplex them but that's an extra pain and I'd prefer to do it on the fly if possible

media player classic

Plays everything youve got a decoder for.. i use it alot, especially with HD content that seems to be "broken" in the final MP11

EDIT: also make sure youve got the latest codecs.. for everything

i personally reccomend the K-lite codec pack.. its updated freqently with newer codecs... comes with mediaplayer classic too

The k-lite codec pack trashed mp3 playback on my previous xp install due to a conflict with an already installed app. I now avoid codec packs like the plague and update and install as required.

To play the HD clip all I use is the nvidia purevideo decoder, the latest nvidia graphics drivers that support purevideo hd decoding and a nvidia 7600gs agp graphics card. HD clips cannot be decoded properly by ATI cards as they lack the necessary instructions in the GPU and the player will use software to decode it, I guess the same goes for onboard graphics solutions (eg. intel 945). Using WMP11 and the above codec, my cpu peaks at 30% usage (P4 3.0GHZ).

The only codecs installed on my HTPC are Divx 6.4, Nvidia purevideo with the audio function disabled (ac3 and dts passthrough dont work with mce) and AC3Filter 1.11. With just these my pc can play just about anything thrown at it.

How do you know if purevideo is actually doing its job? - theres no options/control panel for it??