.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 Computer standard, 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 format, pr ...

. 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, such as subtitles. 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 Blu-ray (Blu-ray Disc or BD) is a Digital media, digital optical disc data storage format designed to supersede the DVD format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released worldwide on June 20, 2006, capable of storing several hours of ...

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 cam ...

Overview

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

ISO The International Organization for Standardization (ISO ; ; ) is an independent, non-governmental, international standard development organization composed of representatives from the national standards organizations of member countries. Me ...

IEC The International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC; ) is an international standards organization that prepares and publishes international standards for all electrical, electronic and related technologies. IEC standards cover a vast range of ...

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 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., Retrieved on 2009-07-27. 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 The DVD (common abbreviation for digital video disc or digital versatile disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any ki ...

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, such as digital cameras as well as in many early games conso ...

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 magnet ...

. 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 compression ...

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 by Charles Francis Jenkins in 1916 as the Society of Motion Picture Engineers or SMPE, is a global professional association of engineers, technologists, and e ...

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 (see below), is the name for a family of audio compression technologies developed by Dolby Laboratories. Called Dolby Stereo Digital until 1995, it is lossy compression (except for Dolby Tr ...

, DTS or uncompressed

Linear PCM Pulse-code modulation (PCM) is a method used to digitally represent 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 amplitud ...

. 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 the transport and storage of multi-channel digital audio. It is a successo ...

, 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 be ...

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 th ...

. 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 five-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 one that obeys the filename convention used by CP/M and 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 opera ...

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 MS-DOS. Long filenames can be more descriptive, including longer filename extensions such as .jpeg, .tiff, an ...

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, is any measure to enforce copyright by preventing the reproduction of software, films, music, and other media. Copy protection is most commonly found on vid ...

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,

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 Desktop, Syllable, AmigaOS, MorphOS and AROS Research Operating System are also available. A ...

, VLC, PotPlayer and other

media player Media player may refer to: *Digital media player, home appliances that play digital media *Media player software, software that plays digital media *Portable media player, portable hardware that plays digital media *Windows Media Player Windo ...

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

codec A codec is a computer hardware or software component 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 o ...

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

HandBrake HandBrake is a free and open-source transcoder for digital video files. It was originally developed in 2003 by Eric Petit to make ripping DVDs to a data storage device easier. HandBrake's backend contains comparatively little original code; t ...

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 ...

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

Final Cut Pro Final Cut Pro (often abbreviated FCP or FCPX) is a professional non-linear video-editing application initially developed by Macromedia, and, since 1998, by Apple as part of its pro apps collection. Final Cut Pro allows users to import, edit, a ...

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 is a filename extension used for the Blu-ray disc Audio-Video (BDAV) MPEG-2 Transport Stream (M2TS) container file format. It is used for multiplexing audio, video and other streams, such as subtitles. It is based on the MPEG-2 transport st ...

M2TS .m2ts is a filename extension used for the Blu-ray disc Audio-Video (BDAV) MPEG-2 Transport Stream (M2TS) container file format. It is used for multiplexing audio, video and other streams, such as subtitles. It is based on the MPEG-2 transport st ...

Overview

Formats

File and directory structure

Software support

See also

Notes