However, I find that libavcodec is not fast enough to decode high-bitrate h.264 content in real-time on my machine (2.4 GHz Core 2 Duo) — say, for example, the h.264 content that you would find on a Blu-ray disc.  So, I set out looking for alternatives.

The most obvious choice is CoreAVC (although that will cost you $15!).  They boast having the fastest software h.264 decoder available — and they’re probably right.  I downloaded the trial version and found that it allowed my computer, for the first time, to play back a Blu-ray encoding without stuttering or hiccuping or dropping frames.  Unfortunately, my particular Blu-ray movie (Stargate: Continuum) apparently was encoded by some encoder that did not follow the AVC spec completely, and thus, CoreAVC has some decoding errors (although the video is decoded fine by libavcodec, if a bit too slowly).  I’ve been promised that a workaround for this issue will be present in CoreAVC 2.0, which may come along at around the same time as Windows 7′s general availability.

There’s also hardware-assisted decoding.  Maybe if you have a good GPU, this is an option.  On my machine, the GPU supports h.264 decoding, but it is even slower than libavcodec.

Another option is just to use Windows 7′s built-in h.264 support, that I had read about at some point, but completely slipped my mind until after I checked out CoreAVC.  So, here’s how to configure Media Player Classic to prefer Windows 7′s native support over that provided by FFDShow.

First, go to View -> Options.  Select “External Filters” on the left, and then click “Add Filter” in the top right.  Find “Microsoft DTV-DVD Video Decoder” and click “OK.”

Now, select this filter in the list of filters, and choose the “Prefer” option on the right.

This filter will take over the playback of some other types of media as well.  If you don’t want that, remove everything except the h.264 subtype and the subtypes in {braces} from the list at the bottom of this window.

Press “OK,” and then close and restart Media Player Classic.  And then, enjoy your h.264.

(By the way, this is the h.264 encoding found on the Blu-ray disc, and it has not been re-encoded or re-compressed or anything.  I had to rip it because that’s the only way I could get it to play at all… but that’s another story.)

If you ever decide you want to undo this, just go back to the “External Filters” config and remove the Microsoft DTV-DVD filter from the list, and then restart Media Player Classic again.

I’ve found Windows 7′s native support to be faster than libavcodec, but slower than CoreAVC.  It also doesn’t have any of the decoding errors that I saw in CoreAVC.  It is almost fast enough to play the movie on my system, but I still notice some slight stuttering.  I’ll live with it until CoreAVC 2.0 is available, and then we’ll see how that stacks up.