Playing TS and M2TS Blu-ray files

Files ending .ts, .m2ts or .mts come straight off discs and camcorders, and they are among the most reliably awkward things to open on a PC.

Where these files come from

TS stands for transport stream — the format broadcast television and Blu-ray discs use internally. When a disc is copied without re-encoding, this is what you get, which is why the picture quality is as good as it gets and the file is enormous.

Why they are awkward

A transport stream is a broadcast format rather than a file format, so it carries none of the tidy indexing a player expects. Combine that with HEVC video and a studio surround mix, and playback usually stalls on one part or another.

Opening them properly

AIX Player reads TS, M2TS and MTS directly, with chapter marks and the full multi-channel soundtrack intact. Seeking works normally, and hardware decoding keeps even high-bitrate disc rips smooth.

Why the file is so large

A disc rip in TS or M2TS is usually a straight copy with nothing re-encoded, so the picture is exactly as it was on the disc — and so is the size, often thirty to fifty gigabytes for a feature. That is the point of keeping them: no generation of quality has been lost. It also means they demand more of whatever drive they sit on, which is the usual cause of stuttering with these files rather than anything to do with decoding.

Chapters, angles and multiple soundtracks

Because nothing was stripped out, these files usually carry everything the disc had: chapter marks you can jump between, several language soundtracks, commentary tracks and a full set of subtitles. A player that only reads the first of each throws most of the disc away. All of them are listed and switchable while the film plays.

Playing them from an external drive

Most people keep disc rips on an external disk rather than filling their PC. That works, and there is nothing to copy across first — but a slow or old drive can struggle to feed a high-bitrate file fast enough, which shows as brief freezes rather than steady stutter. If that happens, copying that one film to your internal drive confirms the cause in a couple of minutes.

Worth knowing