After recently purchasing a new Sony Hybrid Plus (HDR-UX10/UX20) video camera I found myself spending alot of time trying to figure out how to pull the video files off the camera and play them back on my Mac or Linux computers.

M2TS files are used primarily with Sony hardware. Camcorders make use of M2TS in the form of AVCHD, a recording format made specifically for camcorders. Some camcorder models from Canon also use M2TS files. These files are also present on Blu-ray disc compilations, therefore they are capable of storing quite a large amount of information and data tracks. Software called the “Picture Motion Browser” is distributed with Sony camcorders and can play these kind of files, but in the event you don’t have this software what other options are there?

So far, the best option I’ve found has been the VLC software that is available for mac,linux and windows.  Although I was able to yum install vlc on my linux fedora 8 install without a hitch, I found the hardware requirements were more then my meager p4 could bear and I ended up with sound, but a frozen video frame.   Turning to my much more powerful mac book pro I once again installed a mac version of VLC and was able to playback the video.  Although somewhat ‘clippy’ it still played.  At present the software available for playback of these files is quite limited so if I find a better option I’ll be sure to post it.

My next task is to figure out how to convert these files to something that can be viewed through a standard web video player so that I can post them on my blog or share them on the internet.  If you have any insight into how to do this, I’d love to hear from you….

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