.m2ts is a filename extension used for the Blu-ray disc Audio-Video (BDAV) MPEG-2 Transport Stream (M2TS)

container A container is any receptacle or enclosure for holding a product used in storage, packaging, and transportation, including shipping. Things kept inside of a container are protected on several sides by being inside of its structure. The term ...

file format A file format is a standard way that information is encoded for storage in a computer file. It specifies how bits are used to encode information in a digital storage medium. File formats may be either proprietary or free. Some file format ...

. It is used for

multiplexing In telecommunications and computer networking, multiplexing (sometimes contracted to muxing) is a method by which multiple analog or digital signals are combined into one signal over a shared medium. The aim is to share a scarce resource - ...

audio, video and other streams. It is based on the MPEG-2 transport stream container.Blu-ray Disc Association (March 2005
BD ROM – Audio Visual Application Format Specifications
(PDF) Page 15, Retrieved on 2009-07-26
Archived
2009-07-29.AfterDawn.co
Glossary – BD-MV (Blu-ray Disc Movie) and BDAV container
Retrieved on 2009-07-26
Archived
2009-07-29.AfterDawn.co
Glossary – BDAV container
Retrieved on 2009-07-26 This container format is commonly used for high definition video on

Blu-ray Disc The Blu-ray Disc (BD), often known simply as Blu-ray, is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released on June 20, 2006 worldwide. It is designed to supersede the DVD format, and capable of sto ...

and

AVCHD AVCHD (Advanced Video Coding High Definition) is a file-based format for the digital recording and playback of high-definition video. It is H.264 and Dolby AC-3 packaged into the MPEG transport stream, with a set of constraints designed around th ...

Overview

The BDAV container format is a modification of the MPEG-2 transport stream (ITU-T H.222.0 , ISO/

IEC The International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC; in French: ''Commission électrotechnique internationale'') is an international standards organization that prepares and publishes international standards for all electrical, electronic and r ...

13818-1) specification for random-access media, such as Blu-ray discs, DVDs, hard drives or solid-state memory cards. The format is informally called ''M2TS''. In order to optimize the storage size, the format uses variable rate Transport Streams instead of the constant rates found in MPEG-2 TS broadcast. To be able to reconstruct a T-STD compliant constant rate Transport Stream for playback, the arrival timestamp of each packet needs to be recorded.Doom9.org forum (2006
New HD Format - AVCHD (By Sony and Panasonic)
/ref> The standard MPEG-2 TS 188-byte packet is prefixed with a 4-byte extra header to a total size of 192 bytes. The header consists of a 2-bit copy permission indicator and the 30-bit arrival timestamp with a resolution of 27 MHz.Doom9.org forum (2011
Question about m2ts h264 files
/ref> The BDAV container format (.m2ts) is a standard used on Blu-ray discs.Blu-ray Disc Association (August 2004
Blu-ray Disc Format, White paper
(PDF) Pages 18 and 22, Retrieved on 2009-07-28Blu-ray Disc Association (March 2008
BD RE – Audiovisual Application Format Specification for BD-RE 2.1
(PDF), Retrieved on 2009-07-28
Archived
2009-07-29.Videohelp.co
What is Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD?
Retrieved on 2009-07-26
Archived
2009-07-29. Blu-ray disc titles authored with menu support are in the BDMV (Blu-ray disc Movie) format and contain audio, video, and other streams in a BDAV container (.m2ts), which is based on the MPEG transport stream format. The BDAV container is also used in the BDAV (Blu-ray disc Audio/Visual) disc format, the consumer-oriented alternative to the BDMV discs. The BDAV disc format is used on

BD-RE Blu-ray Disc Recordable (BD-R) refers to two direct to disc optical disc recording technologies that can be recorded on to a Blu-ray-based optical disc with an optical disc recorder. BD-R discs can be written to once, whereas Blu-ray Disc Recorda ...

and BD-R discs for audio/video recording. The BDAV container with filename extension .MTS or .m2ts is also used in

format, which is a high-definition digital video camera recorder format.Backing up AVCHD video onto DVDs and playing them on a Blu-ray Disc player
Retrieved on 2009-07-27
Archived
2009-07-29. AVCHD is a simpler form of the Blu-ray disc standard with just one video encoding algorithm and two audio encodings. Compared to Blu-ray disc format, AVCHD can use various storage media, such as DVD media,

memory card A memory card is an electronic data storage device used for storing digital information, typically using flash memory. These are commonly used in digital portable electronic devices. They allow adding memory to such devices using a card in a so ...

s or

hard disk drives A hard disk drive (HDD), hard disk, hard drive, or fixed disk is an electro-mechanical data storage device that stores and retrieves digital data using magnetic storage with one or more rigid rapidly rotating platters coated with magn ...

. The BDAV container contains videos recorded using AVCHD

camcorder A camcorder is a self-contained portable electronic device with video and recording as its primary function. It is typically equipped with an articulating screen mounted on the left side, a belt to facilitate holding on the right side, hot-sw ...

s, such as Sony's HDR-SR(xx) series models. Panasonic, Canon and other brands of AVCHD camcorders also store recorded video in the BDAV container format.

Formats

The BDAV container format used on Blu-ray discs can contain one of the three mandatory supported

video compression In information theory, data compression, source coding, or bit-rate reduction is the process of encoding information using fewer bits than the original representation. Any particular compression is either lossy or lossless. Lossless compressio ...

formats– H.262/MPEG-2 Part 2, H.264/MPEG-4 AVC or

SMPTE The Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) (, rarely ), founded in 1916 as the Society of Motion Picture Engineers or SMPE, is a global professional association of engineers, technologists, and executives working in the m ...

VC-1 SMPTE 421, informally known as VC-1, is a video coding format. Most of it was initially developed as Microsoft's proprietary video format Windows Media Video 9 in 2003. With some enhancements including the development of a new Advanced Profile ...

–and audio compression formats, such as

Dolby Digital Dolby Digital, originally synonymous with Dolby AC-3, is the name for what has now become a family of audio compression technologies developed by Dolby Laboratories. Formerly named Dolby Stereo Digital until 1995, the audio compression is loss ...

, DTS or uncompressed

Linear PCM Pulse-code modulation (PCM) is a method used to digitally represent sampled analog signals. It is the standard form of digital audio in computers, compact discs, digital telephony and other digital audio applications. In a PCM stream, the am ...

. Optionally supported audio formats are

Dolby Digital Plus Dolby Digital Plus, also known as Enhanced AC-3 (and commonly abbreviated as DDP, DD+, E-AC-3 or EC-3) is a digital audio compression scheme developed by Dolby Labs for transport and storage of multi-channel digital audio. It is a successor to D ...

, DTS-HD High Resolution Audio,

DTS-HD Master Audio DTS-HD Master Audio (DTS-HD MA; known as DTS++ before 2004) is a multi-channel, lossless audio codec developed by DTS as an extension of the lossy DTS Coherent Acoustics codec (DTS CA; usually itself referred to as just DTS). Rather than being ...

and

Dolby TrueHD Dolby TrueHD is a lossless, multi-channel audio codec developed by Dolby Laboratories for home video, used principally in Blu-ray Disc and compatible hardware. Dolby TrueHD, along with Dolby Digital Plus (E-AC-3) and Dolby AC-4, is one of the i ...

. The BDAV container format used on AVCHD equipment is more restricted and can contain only H.264/MPEG-4 AVC video compression and Dolby Digital (AC-3) audio compression or uncompressed LPCM audio.AVCHD Information Websit
AVCHD format specification overview
Retrieved on 2009-07-27

File and directory structure

The names of M2TS files are in the form , where ''zzzzz'' is a 5-digit number corresponding to the audiovisual clip. This number is also used in the filename of an associated clip information file "". (This number can be a date and time stamp of when the video clip was recorded.) Each stream has its own file. Files in the AVCHD format use the legacy

8.3 filename An 8.3 filename (also called a short filename or SFN) is a filename convention used by old versions of DOS and versions of Microsoft Windows prior to Windows 95 and Windows NT 3.5. It is also used in modern Microsoft operating systems as an altern ...

convention, whereas Blu-ray discs use

long filename Long filename (LFN) support is Microsoft's backward-compatible extension of the 8.3 filename (short filename) naming scheme used in DOS. Long filenames can be more descriptive, including longer filename extensions such as .jpeg, .tiff, .html, ...

s. This is why the filename extension of video files is ".MTS" instead of Blu-ray disc's ".m2ts". Also, other files use different extensions: .CPI – .clpi, .MPL – .mpls, .BDM – .bdmv.Doom9.org forum (2008
Changing Blu-ray Disc structure to AVCHD
Retrieved on 2009-07-29 The M2TS files on a Blu-ray disc are placed in the subdirectory "" of the "" (or "") directory, which is at the root level. (e.g. or ) On some AVCHD equipment, the "" directory is located in the "" directory, which is placed at the root level (e.g. ).

Software support

Almost all commercially produced Blu-ray disc titles use a

copy protection Copy protection, also known as content protection, copy prevention and copy restriction, describes measures to enforce copyright by preventing the reproduction of software, films, music, and other media. Copy protection is most commonly found o ...

method called the

Advanced Access Content System The Advanced Access Content System (AACS) is a standard for content distribution and digital rights management, intended to restrict access to and copying of the post- DVD generation of optical discs. The specification was publicly released in ...

, which encrypts the content of the disc, including M2TS files. Software that supports M2TS files usually works only with decrypted or unencrypted files. Blu-ray disc software players can usually play back encrypted content from the original disc. Video content created using AVCHD equipment is commonly unencrypted. Most M2TS files can be played with

ALLPlayer ALLPlayer is a cross-platform media player (software), media player and streaming media Server (computing), server written by ALLPlaye Group Ltd. ALLPlayer is available for desktop Windows and mobile platforms, such as Android (operating system) ...

MPlayer MPlayer is a free and open-source media player software application. It is available for Linux, OS X and Microsoft Windows. Versions for OS/2, Syllable, AmigaOS, MorphOS and AROS Research Operating System are also available. A port for DOS using ...

, VLC,

PotPlayer PotPlayer is a multimedia software player developed for the Microsoft Windows operating system by South Korean Internet company Kakao (formerly Daum Communications). It competes with other popular Windows media players such as VLC media player, ...

and other media players, depending on the compression formats used in the M2TS file. Some players will need an appropriate

codec A codec is a device or computer program that encodes or decodes a data stream or signal. ''Codec'' is a portmanteau of coder/decoder. In electronic communications, an endec is a device that acts as both an encoder and a decoder on a signal or ...

, component or plugin installed. Current versions of Nero Vision, FormatFactory,

MediaCoder __NOTOC__ MediaCoder is a proprietary transcoding program for Microsoft Windows, developed by Stanley Huang since 2005. Features MediaCoder uses various open-source (and several proprietary) audio and video codecs to transcode media files to dif ...

, HandBrake and Picture Motion Browser are capable of converting M2TS files into

MPEG-4 MPEG-4 is a group of international standards for the compression of digital audio and visual data, multimedia systems, and file storage formats. It was originally introduced in late 1998 as a group of audio and video coding formats and related t ...

files, which can also be viewed using the aforementioned media players. M2TS files can also be played on Sony PlayStation 3s, Sony Bravia TVs, Western Digital WDTVs,

Xtreamer Xtreamer was a brand of home digital media player and HTPC (Home Theater PC) products. The product line's goais to replace traditional video players in homes (such as DVD players) with more versatile, but still affordable, players. These players ar ...

media player, Amkette FlashTV HD Media Player and Panasonic Viera TVs supporting playback of AVCHD. Apple's

Final Cut Pro Final Cut Pro is a series of non-linear video editing software programs first developed by Macromedia Inc. and later Apple Inc. The most recent version, Final Cut Pro 10.6.4, runs on Mac computers powered by macOS Big Sur 11.5.1 or later. The ...

can read .MTS files (as stored in Sony HDR camcorders) by using the AVCHD plugin in the Log and Transfer window.

Notes

{{Compression formats m2ts M2TS M2TS

Overview

Formats

File and directory structure

Software support

See also

Notes