How to convert M2TS to MKV to play on LCD/Plasma TVs through USB stick/drive.

vardu

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Many LCD/Plasmas give the option to play videos directly from a USB stick/drive. This is a faq/tutorial for those who need it. A lot of these TVs don't have option to play the M2TS files directly since it would involve a bit more money to include that codec as well as more time and effort as well ( they might do it in the near future).


Q: How do I play the M2TS file on a USB stick
A: By changing containers from M2TS to mkv or mp4

Q: How do I do it on Windows?
A : Steps

1. Download - eac3to, Gui for eac3to - clownbd, tsMuxeR, mkvtoolnix

eac3to is essentially a command line audio tool but is quite capable of demuxing the files from the container (with or without re-encoding)

clownbd is the gui for the eac3to tool

tsMuxeR - can also demux an m2ts, bluray and other files to its individual components.

mkvtoolnix - has all the tools to deal with an mkv file - from splitting, extracting to merging and forming one.

Steps
1.Open ClownBD and select the appropriate location for eac3to.
2.Select BD source as the Blu-ray top level directory i.e. the name of the movie (this should be the parent directory for the BDMV)
3. Click through the next few screens and at the end of which (say 30mins - 1.5 hours- depending on your computer) - the destination directory should have the separate video, audio, subtitle files.
4.Open mmg.exe (from mkvtoolnix directory) and select the files from the previous step.
5. The destination directory will have the newly merged and formed mkv file.

This file can be played by most TVs

Q: I can see the video but there is no sound
A: Is the volume muted? :lol:. Could be that you have an audio codec that is not recognized by your TV and it is not playing it.

Q: I can hear sound but there is no video
A: Could be bad video encoding or merely turn the TV off and turn it on again. If that doesn't work - try firmware updates.

Q: I get the following message " Audio codec not supported"
A: You should try the video with a different codec.


Q: If there is no sound or garbled sound what do I do.
A: Get a different codec.

Steps -
open cmd.exe - run the following command
eac3to <input_audio_file> <output_different_audio_file>

e.g. eac3to Benhur.dtshd Benhur.ac3

AC3 is a format recognized by most TVs - if your's doesn't then try different options.


tsMuxeR is a good alternate to demux single M2TS files.

Open tsMuxeR gui and select the M2TS file and then choose the demux option and a destination directory and after it is done - go through the mmg.exe to create the mkv file as usual.

If there are more questions, I shall try and update the FAQ.
 
If you have a bluray player, another option is to burn it as an AVCHD or BD format and burn to a dvd. It works fine in a bluray player.

even my htpc has issues with playing m2ts files in vlc etc. some work and some dont.
 
Vardu, that was a much needed tutorial. I will try it out soon. I too have a coupla movies in m2ts and need to convert to mkv to play on the tv.
 
I've LG ld650 tv and it also doesn't recognise the .m2ts file but when I just renamed it to .mkv file it started playing that:lol:


/Alok
 
i tried it with a bunch of files and it worked fine.
didnt work with a couple of files, couldnt recognize the ac3 stream, could only see h264 stream.
 
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