TSReader doesn't play live video by itself. It decodes thumbnails for video programs but these are static (updated based on a second counter or when the F5 key is pressed). In order to decode live video, a helper application is needed. TSReader supports three different freeware playback applications.

Playback in TSReader is started by selecting a program and clicking on Playback and then choosing the appropriate application. Double-clicking a thumbnail icon does the same and launches the default playback application - VLC. To change this, click Playback/Settings.

VLC

VLC is fast, open-source and handles most video/audio streams we've seen. In addition to live playback, VLC can also transcode video into other formats along with many other functions. For this reason, TSReader supports up to 16 different command-line options for VLC - the first of these configurations is reserved for live playback.

  1. Download VLC from https://www.videolan.org
  2. Install VLC by running the setup program
  3. When you click Playback/VLC or double-click a thumbnail, VLC will automatically start decoding the video.
  4. If you've installed VLC in a folder other than the default, you will need to tell TSReader where the VLC program is located by choosing Playback/Settings


PotPlayer

PotPlayer supports both hardware and software video decoding and with the right hardware and DirectShow filters can do 4K HDR video decoding flawlessly.

  1. Download PotPlayer from https://potplayer.daum.net
  2. Install by running the setup program
  3. After installation, in TSReader choose Playback/PotPlayer and the decoder should start
  4. If you've installed PotPlayer in a folder other than the default, choose Playback/Settings and tell TSReader where you installed the player.

FFplay

FFplay is part of FFmpeg and is the decoder used by both VLC and for software decoding in PotPlayer. FFPlay is updated almost daily so it's the best choice for new video formats and just does one thing - play video in a single window.

FFplay is a little more complicated because it doesn't come with a setup program.

  1. Download the latest static version from https://ffmpeg.zeranoe.com/builds/. Should look something like this:
ffmpeg-download
  1. This will download a ZIP file. Unzip that file including sub-folders. To make things easy, we suggest putting it somewhere like C:\ffmpeg
  2. Now in TSReader choose Playback/Settings and set the FFplay executable to C:\ffmpeg\bin\ffplay.exe