Playing MPG files in Windows

[spocko]

What tools are generally recommended for playing MPG files (decoded .tivo TTG recordings) on Windows? On my machine, sometimes the original .tivo file will play fine in WMP, but the decoded MPG file will cause WMP to crash. The same MPG files seem to play fine in VLC. Is VLC generally considered to be a good playback tool, or is there something better?

Thanks

[spocko]

My target playback machine is a laptop with C2D, dedicated Nvidia 9200M graphics, and Windows Vista. I started thinking about hardware acceleration, since that may would reduce CPU usage and give better battery life. Nvidia's PureVideo technology supposedly requires specific apps that support "DirectX VA". See here:

http://www.nzone.com/object/nzone_purevideo_requirements.html

My laptop came with a bundled version of Cyberlink, which is one of the apps that is supposed to support PureVideo, so I'll probably give that a try.

[dlfl]

....... Is VLC generally considered to be a good playback tool,......?
.......
In a word, yes. Unfortunately it won't play .TiVo files. For getting .TiVo files to play in Windows Media Player be sure to see the sticky thread "Want to fix TiVo Desktop codec issues?" at the top of this forum.